PAST

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 3, 1878

SUCH is the word we now must write against 1877. Twelve short months ago, it was all before us, now all behind, buried with the things of the past. Its record is complete; what does it say for us? How much better is the world for our having lived through 1877? How much better are we? What new experience have we gained? What devices of the enemy discovered? What avenue hedged up against his approach to us? What weak place in our characters discovered and fortified? How much better prepared are we for the work upon our hands?

The year 1878 opens upon us with the same opportunities for work all around us, and more necessity apparent for the accomplishment of it. We have a hymn which deals with the solemn inquiry, “What shall the harvest be?” But in reference to the incoming year we may raise the antecedent inquiry, “What shall the sowing be?” for as we sow, we shall also reap.

Eighteen seventy-seven is dead, but it will have a resurrection. Our lives are there in its imperishable record. The Judgment is the world’s history repeated in epitome. All its deeds come up again. All its actors appear. All its sins will be judged and punished. All the years of our life will be resurrected for us; and all destinies will be decided by these records for eternity. Whatever in our course during 1877 lies like a painful burden upon the conscience, let us repent of it and secure pardon for it, while probation lingers; and let us see that the record for 1878, as much as we may be permitted to make, shall be such as will not make work for repentance.