Supporting the Advent Cause
By Alvarez Pierce
BRO. SMITH: In the last Review, (No. 22,) I saw an article headed, "The Poor," and in reading it my heart was moved with some compassion. Being a poor man myself, perhaps I was a little more sensitive, as I have but very little of the things of this world. My heart is often pained also in reading some of the articles, where it becomes the duty of the Publishing Committee to insert what is called a "dun," which never ought to be in any religious paper, much less in ours, as we profess to be publishing the last notes of warning to a fallen and corrupt church, and a guilty world. And then to see some of our brethren holding on to the things of this world with almost an unyielding grasp, and still professing to believe the Third Angel's Message; such principles look too antagonistic to be consistent with truth. We profess to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and looking for a city which hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God. I have stated once before in another communication that I believed the Advent cause was God's cause, and that there was means enough in the church to carry on all that God7requires of it. I will now state that the cause is not only God's, but the means are his also, and he will have it; and if those who have it are unwilling to lend their support, he will leave them and raise up those who will. God's cause must, and will, move forward. Yes, my dear brethren, I want to see an apostolic church, and it must come to that before Jesus will own it before his Father and the holy angels, though you and I may be spued out of his mouth, and left to our idols here. I have stated that I was poor, and it is often hard for me to raise money for the paper, but as I believe it publishes the truth, I am unwilling to receive it without pay. It is also all the preaching I have, and in reading over the communications from brethren and sisters, I often feel as though I were seated in some warm-hearted prayer-meeting, where Jesus sits at the head of the feast, and his banner over us is love. O brethren, I feel that in some way there ought to be an equality, and that all the burden should not rest on a few. When I have read the self-sacrificing principles of those who were first in the present truth, who were not only willing to forego ease and comfort, but worked with their own hands to procure means to spread the message, I often feel pained to think that I can do so little in the cause. Yours patiently waiting for the end.
ALVAREZ PIERCE.
Eldora, Iowa, Apr. 26th, 1858.