THE HEAVEN-SIDE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1881

THE HEAVEN-SIDE.

DESPONDENCY is one of those “hindrances” which every Christian must expect to “meet” on his way heavenward. The great question is, How shall the homeward-bound pilgrim bear himself toward those distressing states of mind?

Good old John Bunyan, in his plain and simple way, gives us the sagest of suggestions on this point. One thing we learn from him is to look upon the phenomenon as a fact, an inevitable obstacle on the journey. Pilgrim learned from the benevolent Evangelist that ever since the creation of man efforts had been strenuously made to fill up the Slough of Despond, but all in vain. Several thousand car-loads of wholesome and pious instruction had been emptied into it, but still it remained a feature of the reign of sin, and a test to journeying disciples.

We may all of us, then, no matter how righteous our course and how ostensibly prosperous our condition, expect to meet with the trial. The matter of serious concern is how, when once we find ourselves wrapped in the cloud, shall we extricate ourselves and emerge into a better atmosphere and on to safer ground. Observe Pilgrim’s conduct here. By dint of hard wrestling and by the aid of an outstretched Hand, he struggled out on that side which was nearest the Celestial City, and found fairer ground than ever. Let us make despondency the gateway to brighter fields of Christian progress.—The Standard.