A Visit and Resurrection Hope
By A. S. Hutchins
BRO. SMITH :—On our way home from Princeton, Mass., we called on your mother and brother, at your birth-place, the spot of your early pleasures. We found them endeavoring to live out the principles of the religion of Jesus Christ, amidst this “crooked and perverse nation.” We expected to stop but a few hours, but discovering that a longer stay might interest, and, we hoped, profit these lonely pilgrims, we consented to rest there for the night; which to us was no small satisfaction. As we talked of the ravages of death, and of your dear friends that quietly and silently sleep in the grave, the hope, the blessed hope of the resurrection, threw a halo of light around their resting-place, and pointed us forward a few days to that happy morn, when in immortal bloom the saints shall return from the “land of the enemy,” with a triumphant victory over death and the grave. At our last season of prayer, your mother was greatly blessed of the Lord, and praised aloud his holy name. She, with your brother, had made all arrangements for a tent-meeting there, immediately after the meeting at Princeton, but by some means we did not learn the arrangements in time to go there. She felt unwilling to leave that place, till she had done what she could to hold up the light of the Message of the Third Angel. May sustaining grace be given them still, and also yourself, to help you on to the land of bliss and glory, where there will be no tearful eyes, nor quivering lips, nor farewell voices. “Trials make the promise sweet,
Trials give new life to prayer;
Bring me to the Saviour’s feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there.”
A. S. HUTCHINS.
Barton Landing, Vt., Oct. 1st, 1856.