TALK AND LIVE YOUR FAITH.
By J. H. W.
GOD has heard your profession; he also hears all your words, and sees all your actions in reference to it. The conversation and business calculations of many Sabbath-keepers have a destructive influence over their children and the world. A professed reverence for all the ten commandments is not unpopular—it is the profession of the church and the world; but the keeping of them will meet with opposition from every carnal mind. The profession alone is worthless. Noah might have preached the coming flood till the waters rose over his own dwelling; but he would not have condemned the world, nor saved himself, if he had not built the ark. The Lord directed the children of Israel, concerning his commandments Deut. xi, 19: And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. If this course was pursued among us; if the morning conversation with our children was on the nature and obligation of the law of God; and if as we returned from our labors, this was the prominent theme, and the subject of evening instruction and explanation, we would see a different state of things in the families of Sabbath-keepers from that now205seen. And this is what God requires; and we may pray in vain for God to bless our children, unless we discharge our duty to him and them. There is a responsibility in this respect that we cannot throw off. Would that we all realized it. But there is no point wherein most of us come so short of living and conversing our faith as in the soon coming of the Lord. When the servants of God have conversed with the children of those who profess the faith of the Third Angel's Message, on the coming of Christ, the evidences of its being near, and the necessity of immediate preparation for that event, often are their hearts made sad by hearing the parents proceed to unfold their business calculations concerning the improvement of their lands, building of houses, &c.; laying out the work of a life time, without any reference to the shortness of time. Can the children of such parents believe the present truth? We sometimes hear a brother tell his neighbor that such a village is destined to become the most important one in that part of the country; or that such a location will be valuable in course of time when the country gets improved, or perhaps a railroad built near it; or that it will take many years for the country to outgrow the effects of the money panic, and so on. In such cases we next expect to hear him lament that his neighbors will not receive the evidences of the signs of the times, and the near coming of the Saviour. But how can they? His light is darkness, and he is living down the truth before their eyes. We would particularly call the attention of those parents to this subject who are giving their children a collegiate education. Knowledge is truly desirable, but we would recommend the book of Proverbs to the parents on that subject. If it is a characteristic of the wicked that "God is not in all his thoughts," some of us would do well to look to our standing.