"Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another."
From Bro. Adams.
BRO. SMITH: Standing almost alone (as I do, as a Sabbath-keeper of the seventh day of the week) in this vast city of brotherly-love, so-called, Philadelphia, there are times when the sense of lonesomeness as of a weary traveler in a vast wasted forest, where foes and robbers are sheltered—calls into action every power of the mind to be watchful and more on the alert, against a surprise, so I have been thinking to-day, that, though a sudden simoon may sweep over and prostrate the denizens of this vast hive, yet doth the pilgrim stranger feel that, amidst the wreck and overwhelming flood of evil and perplexity, fears and alarms, he has no interest at stake in their local issues. For the storm that destroys and removes them, will open up the way for a new state of things under the administration of a King and kingdom which they have not denied. In the hour of this world's sorrow, ye, saith our heavenly Leader, and elder brother, "shall have peace;" "and your joy no man taketh from you." To know that for the sake of pleasing God, we do keep all his commandments, calling his holy day "the holy of the Lord, and honorable," sealeth into that soul's heart an acceptable joy and peace, imparted by his holy Spirit, that nothing in this world can give nor take away.
And, too, the encouraging signs in the East—beyond the great river—the Euphrates—that the time of the Sun of righteousness' reign is fast approaching, yet stealing on the world "as a thief," is keeping awake the sons of light, that His glory is soon to arise upon them. The civilized powers of earth had said, when they made peace with Russia last year in Paris, (that modern Sodom,) that "all is well for twenty years to come," when, sudden as the morning light, the conflagration of evil breaks out, and imparts terror, not alone to the British lion's heart, but to all the other emblematic beasts, powers, that there (in India) the war and conflict of ages, of hate and demoniac rage, of lust and rapine, between the once subjected Indians and the iron rulers of Western Europe, (and only in a war of mutual extermination)7will probably spread from the Orient to the furthest Occident in our own land of slaves and slave-holders. Righteous retribution will the Lord our God mete out to men, even on this stage, both national and individual, for all their deeds done in their bodies. May the God of Israel preserve and deliver us, when "the time of Jacob's trouble" shall have fully come.
Your brother in the love of Christ.
B. M. ADAMS.
Philadelphia Pa., Oct, 25th, 1857.