It’s No Use | AdventAI

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1875

It’s No Use.

It is said that a country woman went into a store on Hanover St., Boston, one day, and putting four dollars on the counter, remarked to a clerk: "There; fourteen years ago—'twill be fifteen this fall—I bought something next door, and gave them a dollar bill; but they couldn't give me the change, so they sent a boy into the next shop, and he brought me back the change for five dollars instead of one. I took it, but 'taint no use; I ain't going to keep it any longer; so there it is, all back again." And before the astonished clerk had time to make any inquiries, she was gone.

Poor woman. She had endured fourteen years of trouble for a single sin, and at last had to confess and make restitution. It was well that she had courage and grace to do it finally.

We heard of an old gray-headed man who took a returned missionary aside one day, and confessed to him how fifty years before, when they were boys together he picked up and kept a quarter of a dollar which the missionary lost, and tried in vain to find. "I have carried the load on my conscience," said he, "for fifty years, and I would not carry it fifty years longer for the whole world." And so he paid him back a silver dollar, and begged that he would forgive the sin committed so long ago.

It is of "no use" to sin. If you have done wrong, make it right, and the quicker you do it, the better; life is uncertain; time is short, sin is a heavy load here, but it will be heavier still to bear it before the Judgment-seat of Christ. Make haste, then, to get rid of every sin; fly to Christ for pardon and for peace, and make ready to stand accepted and blameless in the Judgment day that is "near and hasteth greatly."—Sel.