A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF DR. RIBTON by Herbert Panmure Ribton

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 18, 1877

A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF DR. RIBTON.

By Herbert Panmure Ribton

My father was the youngest son of Sir George Ribton, a wealthy Irish Baronet, once Lord Mayor of the city of Dublin. On the death of my grandfather, his title and money passed to his eldest son, Sir John Ribton, lately deceased; and my father had to battle his way in the world as a medical man. Misfortunes beset his path: in two years he lost all his children except myself; then he lost his wife when I was only two years old, and remained ever afterward a melancholy and broken-hearted man. The medical school was anything but a religious one in my father’s young days, when duelling, hard drinking, and abductions were the order of the day in Ireland; but these misfortunes brought him to seek peace and to find it in the word of God.

Not being able to take care of me himself, he placed me in the family of a kind friend of his, where I remained until I was eleven years of age. I shall ever remember gratefully the kind and motherly care which the daughters of Henry Farange, Esq., of Dublin, took of me. I was instructed carefully in the doctrines of the Church of England, the Catechism and the Creed forming a part of my daily lessons, a reverential bow being required at the name of Jesus. I remember how, from the beginning, the name of Jesus, and the thought of all that was peaceful and pure and holy was dear to me. From the moment I was able to read, I used to put his word under my pillow at nights; yet I was unhappy, for my childish mind wanted peace and could not find it. I dreaded the hell of which I was told so much: I told my nurse many times, weeping, that I was going there. She was much horrified, and asked me why, and I replied because I felt I was a sinner. She strove to reassure me. Alas! neither Catechism nor Creed, nor my struggles to be a “good child,” gave me peace. One word was wanting, and I heard it not.

I shall never forget the load which was taken from my mind in one instant, when at eleven years of age I came to live with my father, and told him of my anxiety. He said, “My son, you are giving yourself much hopeless trouble. Do you not see that Jesus has done all for you that you find you cannot do; that by the cross he has delivered you from hell?” I saw it in that moment: a flood of light burst upon me; and, like Christian before the cross, I felt the burden fall from my shoulders. From that moment, the Bible became the dearest of books to me. I was filled with enthusiasm for Christ.

It was the desire of my youth to become a missionary for Christ. Would to God I had obeyed the call of the Spirit. But perhaps it was God’s will first to bring me through fire, and to instruct me in truths very different from the doctrines with which I would then have gone forth. I was told that a missionary’s life was a hard one, a poor one; that I could work for God just as much in a secular business. My father wished me to distinguish myself in college; and I was driven to books, mathematics, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, etc., until my health broke, and I had to go to Italy to try to recover it. When I returned, a young man, I married without means, and to support myself turned my former studies to account by becoming a University professor. Then, in my struggle to “rise in the world,” I took out my profession as a civil engineer, took pupils, and laid out a considerable portion of a railway.

It seemed to me as if all this time the hand of the Lord was against me. I was disappointed in everything. I was humbugged: my honest plans were taken hold of by others, who reaped the benefit of them and laughed at me. Sickness constantly prevailed in my house: all day long I worked hard; all night I was kept awake with my sick children. At last they both died of acute diseases, two dear little girls, within two years. My wife remained broken in health. My father said that God had taken first his children, then his grandchildren; took to his bed, and died a year afterward.

With the idea of dedicating my life to doing good more strongly impressed upon me by misfortune, I left engineering to return to college and study medicine. I was told that in the practice of that profession there would be an excellent opportunity of “getting on” and working for Christ at the same time, and I believed it. I had not then learned that most of those who seek to “get on” choose a way which must lead them far from the paths of Christ. Full of zeal, I joined the “Lying in Hospital of the Rotunda,” making a special study of Obstetrics; and when the hospital had to be closed on account of puerperal fever, I was one of the volunteers to attend the poor patients in their wretched homes.

The consequence was a total break-down of health; the doctors told me I would not live through another winter. Then my thoughts went back to Italy, a land ever dear to me. I sold my father’s furniture, and came back to this country, not knowing what I was going to do. And here, during eleven years of buffeting, the same adverse fortune has always followed me. My wife has always been sick. Two or three times I thought I had attained to a leading position, and each time an invisible hand seemed to push me down. Enemies actually seemed to arise from the ground to overthrow me. At last, a speculation which I had undertaken with the greatest success—the exportation of a medical discovery—which was bringing in quite an income, suddenly failed in the most unaccountable manner; and I found myself one day, just two years ago, after a life of twenty years of the hardest labor, left with nothing but my wife and child.

It would be instructive were I to recount the hardships which God has since brought me through, the strength which he has given me and my wife, and the miracles he has wrought for me from the day I learned to throw myself entirely upon him. I had unfortunately been brought up in Antinomian doctrines, and had been led to believe that in worldly matters a man must help himself, according to the pernicious French proverb, “Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera.”

Then it was that in looking back upon my unhappy and tempestuous life, ever struggling, never having, the story of Balaam

suddenly came up before me. He sought to drive his ass in the way in which God did not choose him to go, and the angel of the Lord sought to kill him. Then the desire I had entertained twenty years previously, of giving myself to God’s work, arose before me, and a voice seemed to say, Thou hast refused the call of the Spirit; thou hast striven hard to walk in paths in which the Lord did not choose thee to go, wherefore he has sought to destroy thee.

From that day I vowed to the Lord to relinquish all thoughts of anything except laboring for his kingdom, and with his help hope to keep my vow. Many have been the trials through which he has brought me, to train me for his work; but I have seen that he was no longer against me, but with me. Alas for the twenty years of my life, and the sums of money, wasted in struggling among worldly people! My eyes have been opened to the vanity and deceit of everything where God is not. I have learned that diseases, of which I fondly hoped to become a healer, are to be cured not with medicines but by putting away vices; and that the medicines in which I trusted do but aggravate diseases. I have found the knowledge acquired by years of labor to be worth nothing. I have found error, both in medicine and in religion, solemnly taught by learned bodies who ought to be depositaries of truth. But God has given me a peace of mind I never knew before, since I learned to throw myself on him. He has given my wife health, and has bestowed upon us many spiritual blessings.

My first labors in the vineyard of the Lord were in connection with the Methodist Church. I had long loved the Methodists for their practical Christianity, and I offered myself to them. I worked with them for six months as an evangelist and preacher; and had I gone on I should have entered their ministry. But difficulties arose. I could not accept the doctrine of infant sprinkling. God did not intend me to become a Methodist. I then entered into relations with the Baptist Church, and it was nearly decided that I should have the direction of a Baptist mission at Naples. But all at once the project was given up. God did not intend me to become a first-day Baptist.

One day I received by post from a medical friend, Dr. Zimpel, some copies of the Sabbath Memorial, a paper devoted to the cause of the Lord’s Sabbath, published by Bro. Jones, of London. It lay on the table for several days unopened, until in an idle moment I took it up. That day was the beginning of a new epoch in my life. That paper was the beginning of a new flood of light which it pleased God to give me. From the Sabbath Memorial I learned two things which had several times presented themselves to my mind as doubtful points. One was that the seventh day was still the Sabbath of our Lord. The other was the fact that though grace has always been the saving power, yet the moral law of God was not given to the Jews, but to all.

I immediately entered into correspondence with Bro. Jones, who sent me a copy of Eld. Andrew’s book upon the Sabbath. Soon after, I received from the same friend some copies of LES SIGNES DES TEMPS and the ADVENT HERALD, and then I had the pleasure of entering into correspondence with Bro. Andrews also, who sent me and caused to be sent many books.

The Lord has promised a blessing to those who read and keep the things written in the last book of his prophecies. I studied it and found the blessing. The veil was lifted off the wonderful things that God has prepared for those that love him. Hundreds of passages that were formerly without apparent meaning, or were inexplicable, became clear in their signification. Like others who have participated in the same blessing, I found the Bible a new book, which had to be studied over again.

But the new light vouchsafed to me placed me in a difficult position. I found myself cut off from all those with whom I had formerly walked in Christ’s work. There was no more hope of joining them in his ministry. I found it my duty to become a missionary, not only to the ignorant and unbelieving, but still more so to those whom I had formerly called brethren. There remained but one path open to me: that of those who keep God’s commandments and rest on his day according to the commandment of Him who displayed his divine power by making the heavens and the earth.

I saw statements in the papers of the brethren who walk in the same path, saying they were much in want of truly faithful ministers. I wrote to them, and said: Here I am, take me.

And now I remain, a knight devoted heart and soul to the cause of my banished King, Luke 19:14, united in the league of those faithful ones who desire his speedy restoration, and ready to use with a will my sword and lance (my voice and pen), in any regiment in which I can obtain a commission.

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in.” Selah!

HERBERT PANMURE RIBTON.