BRO. SMITH: In view of the coming of Christ, its approaching event, of the perils in coming to it, of all the evidences forcing these truths upon our attention, of our accountability and obligations in view of the relation we sustain to present truth, to our neighbors, our brethren, and our families, I tremble with in myself and am led seriously to inquire, Who shall be able to stand? As every thing, in regard to my salvation, abstractly considered, depends upon my duty, and the right performance of it I am led to examine my motives with a jealous eye. The heart is naturally deceitful, and must be daily mortified and kept under a strict watch. We must aim at simplicity in our religious duties.
We are told of a Brahman in India whose faith makes it an article of religious duty to abstain from eating the flesh of animals, who one day met an Englishman exhibiting a microscope. The Englishman, to convince the Brahman of the absurdity of his superstition, would show him that he could not help eating the flesh of animals, even though he lived upon vegetables alone. He therefore persuaded him to look through his microscope at a piece of fruit or vegetable production, which formed part of the Brahman's daily food, when to the horror of the man, he beheld whole herds of living creatures detected by the power of the instrument and demonstrating the falsehood of his Pagan theology. He was so indignant at the sight, that he seized the microscope and trampled it under foot, breaking it in pieces, thinking perhaps that he had thus destroyed the evidence in nature, against him. So the sinful heart may be tempted to think, that by keeping away from the light, or shutting the light out, it may keep quiet in the persuasion of its own goodness and security. And so a man in the indulgence of any thing that is wrong avoids the light, and would destroy the evidence. But a man whose desire is that Christ should rule supremely in his heart and life, a man whose eye is single to Christ, will be willing and desirous to have Christ's eye single upon him, and every thing open to Christ's inspection and the trial of the truth. When this is the case, the whole body will be full of light, there will be very few causes or occasions of darkness. I do desire to enjoy the fullness of light promised to him whose eye is single, to walk in the path of the just which shineth more and more until the perfect day.
Yours striving to overcome.
H. S. GURNEY.
Jackson, Mich., May 18th, 1857.