The Work Prosperous in This Vicinity
By Asa Kimball
BRO. SMITH:—I write to let you know that the work of the Lord is prospering in this vicinity. Since I last wrote you, others have come into the faith of the Third Angel's Message. We now hold meetings regularly on the Sabbath, and God blesses his dear people in a most wonderful manner. Our company consists of about thirty, together with our children who keep the seventh day according to the commandment. Some of our Advent brethren who have been feeding on husks since 1844, have examined the truth of our position and they feel willing to give up their temporal millennium, or age to come doctrine, and in fact all other doctrines that put far off the coming of our Lord, and come nigh to the present truth, and live under the cross, believing that the promise is to them that do the Commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life. Bro. Augustus Chamberlain, after receiving the truth, went immediately out into the high-ways and hedges and began to preach the word with power. I am glad to hear that our brethren west, anticipate holding a General Conference the 23d of May next at Battle Creek. I think the Church will be strengthened by a good attendance from different parts of the field. I hope some action will be taken in Conference with regard to the gathering of the Church into Apostolic order before the final gathering of the saints. The welfare of our children demands such a movement; for our brethren are aware of the influence the world has upon them. Some of us are obliged to have our children under the care of those not in the faith, and they are liable to be drawn into infidelity and spiritualism, which reigns over the world at this time. I believe the time has fully come when our children ought to be under the care of the Church and its influence. Their teachers, especially, ought to be in the faith, if we expect them to be saved in the time of temptation that is just before us. Dear brethren, let us work for the Lord in earnest, while the four winds are being held. A few days more and our work will cease; for he that is righteous, will remain the same, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still. The filthy Jew, as well as the filthy Gentile, will then be shut out for ever. Immediately after this state of things, Christ says, "Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." I can see no favor offered to the unconverted Jew, more than to the filthy infidel; for there is no salvation in any other than the Stone which the builders rejected. He came to his own, and his own received him not. Now upon whom this Stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder. How can the Jew rise, only to condemnation? The truth, dear brethren, is what we need, and what we must have to make us free. Yours in the faith.
Windham Co., Ct., Apr. 1856. ASA KIMBALL.