Untitled article by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 18, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 45.

FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT.

By Editor

THE following is from a letter written some months ago to one of our ministers in Colorado. It shows how the truth will reach the honest in heart. The writer of this letter was bitterly opposed to the truth because he did not know the truth. May his experience help others to forsake the old Satanic falsehood and find the sweetness of life in Christ by faith:—

DEAR BROTHER ZEIGLER: In fulfillment of my promise given you and Brother Leland just before you closed your meeting at the schoolhouse in this vicinity, I make this modest effort. Perhaps you are well enough acquainted with the terms of the aforesaid promise, not to necessitate its reiteration here; if not, you will be before you have finished the perusal of this note. My heart is too full of thankfulness and light which shineth through Christ to dwell at length upon preliminaries, or even upon the text itself exhaustively. I shall not in these lines attempt a justification of my previous argument upon the soul's immortality. I will say here, and with the strongest conviction of my heart, that then I was treading on dangerous ground, but I knew it not. True, you told me I was, but it remained for me to be convinced.

I have just finished reading "Man's Nature and Destiny," so kindly sent to me. The pall of superstition has been lifted from over me, and the blight of sin eradicated from my soul. The life within, Christ in me, is so incomparably sweet to anything I had heretofore experienced, that I am in reality a new creature. How kind and loving, how compassionate and merciful, God has been to me! I early gave my heart to him, and thought I experienced the delightful pleasure of his presence in my soul, but now all former experiences are obliterated in this last joy, the joy of knowing Christ as the Redeemer of a mortal soul, and the assurance of his ability to keep that which I have intrusted unto him.

I deeply regret that I have wasted so much effort to intrench myself in the redoubts of sin, while believing and declaring myself under the banner of Christ. I believe the souls of men are often affected with this species of color blindness. It surely is humiliating to the last degree, but I thank God that he sent you to me to convince me of my error and to lead me to the citadel of my avowed Captain. My experience doubtless will prove profitable in delivering others from the deception under which they are laboring, nor shall I lose an opportunity to destroy this hell-born miasma that is blighting, even destroying, the souls of our kindred, friends, and acquaintances. I have not many talents with which to prosecute the warfare, but such as I have I shall use, resting assured that under the guidance of Christ they shall not fail.

It will surely be a bitter draught to the flesh to renounce the tenets of my once beloved church, and encounter the scorn and contumely which must necessarily follow, but I have considered it all, and know that I shall have to partake thereof while this life shall last. What a blessed assurance that its bitterness at last will be lost in the presence of Him who drank the first cup, bore the first cross, and gained the first victory!

Are my hopes too sanguine? If so, perhaps it is attributable to the exuberance of my joy. Am I too joyous? If so, perhaps it is attributable to my heart's conception of Christ. I shall go on in my researches, I shall diligently and prayerfully seek the truth. Pray God, I beseech you, that I shall remain steadfast, that I shall be blessed in all things whereof I now stand sadly in need.

You probably remember that I told you if my belief in the immortality of the soul was destroyed it would leave me either an infidel or an agnostic. I am glad to be able to refute such an idea, and must say that my experience makes me believe that the devil knew he was "losing his grip," if you will pardon the expression, and put the idea in my head, that he might the more securely bind me.