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EARLY IMPRESSIONS

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 15, 1877

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 49, No. 7.

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EARLY IMPRESSIONS.

A few years since, a gentleman from England brought a letter of introduction to a gentleman in America. The stranger was of accomplished mind and manners, but in sentiment an infidel. The gentleman to whom he brought the letter of introduction, and his lady, were active Christian philanthropists. They invited the stranger to make their house his home, and treated him with every possible attention. Upon the evening of his arrival, just before the usual hour for retiring, the gentleman, knowing the peculiarity of his guest’s sentiments, observed to him that the hour had arrived in which they usually attended family prayers; that he should be happy to have him remain and unite with them; or, if he preferred, he could retire. The gentleman intimated that it would give him pleasure to remain. A chapter of the Bible was read, and the family all knelt in prayer, the stranger with the rest.
In a few days the stranger left this hospitable dwelling, and embarked on board a ship for a foreign land. In the course of three or four years, however, the providence of God again led that stranger to the same dwelling. But oh, how changed! He came the happy Christian, the humble man of piety and prayer. In course of the evening’s conversation he remarked that when he, on the first evening of his previous visit, knelt with them in family prayer, it was the first time for many years that he had bowed to his Maker. This act brought to his mind such a crowd of recollections, it so vividly reminded him of a parent’s prayers, which he had heard at home, that it completely absorbed his attention. His emotion was so great, that he did not hear one syllable of the prayer which was uttered from its commencement to its close. But God made this the instrument of leading him from the dreary wilds of infidelity to the peace and joy of piety. His parents had long before gone to their rest; but the prayers they had offered for and with their son had left an influence which could not die.—Sel.