Count Them | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1857

Count Them.

Count what? Why count the mercies which have been quietly falling in your path through every period of your history. Down they come every morning and every evening, as angel messengers from the Father of lights, to tell of your best friend in heaven. Have you lived these years, wasting mercies, treading them beneath your feet, and consuming them every day, and never yet realized from whence they came? If you have, heaven pity you.

You have murmured under affliction; but who has heard you rejoice over blessings? Do you ask what are the mercies? Ask the sun-beam, the raindrop, the star or queen of night. What is life but mercy? What is health, strength, friendship, social life, the Gospel of Christ, divine worship? Had they the power of speech, each would say, "I am a mercy." Perhaps you never regarded them as such. If not you have been a dull student of nature or revelation.

What is the propriety of stopping to play with a thorn bush when you may just as well pluck sweet flowers, and eat pleasant fruits?

But we have seen enough of men to know that they have a morbid appetite for thorns. If they have lost a friend they will murmur at the loss, if God has given them a score of new ones. And somehow, every thing assumes a value when it is gone, which man would not acknowledge when he had it in his possession, unless, indeed, some one wished to purchase it.

Happy is he who looks at the bright side of life, of providence, and of revelation. Who avoids thorns and thickets, and sloughs, until his Christian growth is such that if he cannot improve them, he may pass among them without injury. Count mercies before you complain of afflictions.—Religious Telescope.