LEWIS BEAN by Lewis Bean

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 29, 1856

LEWIS BEAN

By Lewis Bean

From Bro. Bean.

BRO. SMITH:—I feel very thankful that my mind was ever called to the subject of the Third Angel's Message. I have been trying for three years to keep the Sabbath of the Lord, and live out the Third Message as I understand it; for experience has taught me that the Sabbath alone will not stand the test in these days of peril. Many have embraced the Sabbath and seemed to run well for a season; but when trials came they could not stand—they could not deny self. But the Lord will have a tried people, and they will have to be clean through the word and purged from every dross.

Not all that came out of Egypt by Moses entered the promised land; and I fear that not all who profess the Third Message will enter the antitypical land.

Since I embraced the Third Angel's Message I have taken great comfort and pleasure in reading the history of the travels of the children of ancient Israel. It has seemed to me that God's dealings with them were examples for us. Bro. Cottrell has given us a good piece on examples. My mind had been dwelling on that subject a number of weeks before Bro. C. wrote. God often cited the children of Israel back to the wonders wrought in Egypt, and especially the night in which he led them out, as way-marks by which they might know that he had led them, and been their God, and they a peculiar treasure unto him above all the earth. It seems that on the night the children of Israel went out of Egypt, they had the midnight cry, and when they had got entirely freed from the Egyptians, then God gave them his law, which, if they kept it, would bring them to the promised inheritance. So God in these last days has brought a people out of the churches or antitypical Egypt, and they came out under the midnight cry, and when they got free from the churches then God gave them the Third Angel's Message containing the ten commandments, which, if we keep them, will bring us to the everlasting inheritance.

But my heart has been made sad and my spirits almost sunk within me while some here and there have been dropping off; but I now see the hand of the Lord in all this. After the paper was established at Battle Creek I took new courage. My heart has been cheered of late to know that the cause was on the rise. My prayer is that God would speed the message, and make the messengers like flaming heralds, and give wisdom to those that conduct the paper, that the mouths of gain-sayers may be stopped, and God's name glorified.

LEWIS BEAN

South Hardwick, Vt.