How They Became Convincd
By Editor
[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles, which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.] I WAS brought up in a Christian family who thought that the first day of the week was the Sabbath. When eighteen years of age, I professed religion and was willing to be led by the church, Free Baptist, which I joined. After I had a home of my own I began to read the Bible. My teacher had told me that the seventh day was given to the Jews; while reading God's Word it seemed to me that I was somewhat related to that people, and His strict command for the Sabbath I applied to Sunday, as my friends had taught me. At length I heard of a people called Adventists, who said that Sunday was not the Sabbath. I thought our Christian churches knew best, and so refused to hear such teaching, because I was determined not to be deceived. A sister of mine accepted the Sabbath truth, and I mourned for her as one in delusion. At one time I told a neighbor that if ever I found that God required His people to observe the seventh day I would make the change, let it cost what it might. Twenty years or more rolled away and found me still keeping Sunday. Finally I attended meetings held by a Free Baptist woman minister. Her sermons made me feel as if God required something of me that I was not willing to do. She would say, "Do what the Lord wants you to do," and she seemed to be talking to me; so I began to try to find out what the Lord wanted me to do. For some time my mind had been troubled, when one morning I dreamed of talking to a woman and telling her how many years it had been since I knew that Sunday was not the Sabbath. She replied, "You are out then." Her words caused me to fear that God would leave me out of the kingdom. I answered quickly, "I am not out; I have gone too far." It was the morning of the seventh day. I awoke and told my husband of my determination. My work was unsettled and remained so. I dared not desecrate God's holy day any more. Now, on reading the Bible, I wonder that I could not see it before. The minister, who had unconsciously and unintentionally been one of the means in God's hands of causing me to change, called and prayed with me, hoping to dissuade me from my purpose to observe the seventh day; but the light had shone in on the Word. How true that "the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
MRS. J. W. COLLINS. BROUGHT up in the fold of the Presbyterian Church, taught and cared for by a devoted mother, I early renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil; but I soon found that it required a greater power than I possessed by nature, or fleshly resolution, to make and keep me free from evil. Converted from my sinful course by the power of God, at the age of twenty-three, I began to take the Bible as my guide in life; yet, for many years, I failed to perceive the truth in regard to the Sabbath, or the nature and destiny of man. Once while a missionary Baptist minister, I undertook to combat sabbath (Sunday) desecration, only to learn that Sunday had no recognized claims as a holy rest day in the Word of God. From this I drifted into Antinomianism, contending that the law (Ten Commandments) had been abolished, and that grace (?) had taken its place. In this belief I continued for about two or three years. I had often heard of the Adventists, but had been led to believe that they were a kind of infidels, who taught that a man "had no more soul than a hog." I thought that doctrine so horrible that I did not care to read literature published and circulated by such people. By some means the Seventh-day Baptists, a new people to me, began to send me literature concerning the Sabbath. Altho I was skeptical at first concerning the validity of the seventh day as the day of rest for us now, yet, as it came from the Baptists (a name which with me, at that time, covered a multitude of errors), I was led to investigate; and, praise the Lord! I have been learning more and more about it ever since. "A good understanding have all they that do His commandments." Attending a camp-meeting at Berea, W. Va., in the summer of 1892, I became convinced on other main truths as held by our people, and immediately united with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the exponent of the doctrine of God in these latter days. I am looking to God for wisdom and grace, and praising Him for His wonderful forbearance, through which I have been kept until now, that I might learn the truth, which is unto freedom, unto salvation.
WILLIAM H. BROWN.