p. 135 | LEONARD EGGLESTON by Leonard Eggleston

Publishing Committee · Rochester, N. Y. · Dec 12, 1854

LEONARD EGGLESTON

By Leonard Eggleston

From Bro. Eggleston.

DEAR BRO. WHITE:—You have been sending me the Review some four or five months without any pay. Neither have you heard anything from me, before this, as to whether I was being benefited by the reading of it or not. Here let me say to you, that the Review is received by me each week with a glad heart. I have been greatly benefited and instructed by it; and for ten times its yearly cost, I would not be deprived of its instructions. Some of its leading doctrines were entirely new to me; but now I am full in the faith of all of them. Last March or April was the first that I learned any thing definite with regard to the Sabbath-keeping Adventists.

About that time I was furnished with a few numbers of the Review, and some tracts: the "Signs of the Times," the "Sanctuary" and some Sabbath tracts, all of which I read with much interest. And compared their teachings with the word of God, and was fully convinced that they contained truths brought out to prepare a people to be in readiness for the coming of their Lord. And from the commencement of my investigation, light has been coming in on every side; the Bible is to me a new book. I have perused its sacred pages with ten fold more interest than ever before in my life. I can now behold in its teachings a beauty and harmony that I never before discovered; and my mind is now prepared to understand many things that I did not understand before. I had no idea that the day of the Lord's coming was so near. I understood nothing with regard to the heavenly Sanctuary, and nothing definite with regard to the fulfillment of the prophecies. But thanks be to God, that I live in these last days, and had my eyes opened to see the bible in its true light.

Eight months ago I believed that I had an immortal soul, destined to live through a boundless eternity, in bliss or woe. I did not understand that the penalty for Adamic transgression was the reducing of the whole man to the dust, and that the penalty for personal sins was a death that meant cessation of existence. But now all is plain. And I rejoice that whereas I was blind, I can now see. I am striving day by day to overcome all besetments, and to lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset me, and to run with patience the christian race. Myself and companion have been endeavoring to keep the Sabbath of the Lord since the middle of June, and now as the week rolls round and Sabbath returns, we feel that it is a day of sacred rest, and we find sweet consolation in keeping it beneath our own roof. Although we labor under many disadvantages, surrounded as we are by a Sabbath-breaking community, and deprived also of the privilege of meeting on the Sabbath with the brethren of like precious faith, yet we feel that it is good for us to obey God, by keeping all of his commandments, and having the faith of Jesus.

The reason that I have not sent the pay for the Review before this, is because that I have been so poor that I could not well get the $1 to spare to send, but I now send you $1.50 to pay for some of Bro. Stephenson's work on the Atonement. The other $1.50 I procured from a friend of mine to pay for the Review, and $0.50 worth of the Signs of Times which he wishes to distribute among his friends. He has been investigating four or five weeks, and is convinced that the second Adventists have the truth. He is sixty years old, has been a methodist many years; but has but just begun to understand the Bible in its true light.

As often as I can I shall send you my mite to help carry forward the cause of Christ.

Yours in hope of immortality at the appearing of the Saviour.

LEONARD EGGLESTON

Dec. 3d, 1854.