Happy New Year by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1879

Happy New Year.

By James White

The old year, 1878, with all its blessings and adversities, its good and ill, is entered upon the records of the past, and the new year, 1879, with its happy greetings, has come. Here, let us pause a moment, and reflect upon the blessings which our gracious God has bestowed during the past year.

1. The bounties of his providential hand have been liberally bestowed upon the people of our land. God has sent the rain upon the just and unjust, and the earth has brought forth plentifully. For these blessings let the children of God give thanks to their kind Benefactor. Those only who love and obey him can truly prize earthly good.

2. Spiritual blessings have been enjoyed during the old year just past. The Bible and religious freedom are among the choicest blessings of 1878. And Christ, God's dear Son, in infinite forbearance, long-suffering, and mercy, was pleading for sinners, during that long year, and was pardoning all those who would come to God repenting of their transgressions of his law, and believing in Christ whose blood alone can wash away their sins.

3. Success has crowned the labors of our people. During the last year prosperity has attended our institutions. The facilities for doing business at our publishing houses have been greatly enlarged and improved. And a more systematic order of accomplishing the great work has been introduced. In order to do this these times, it has been necessary to make some debts; but it is confidently expected that with the improvements made, and with the faithfulness of old friends, and the increase of patrons these can be removed during the new year which we hopefully and joyfully greet. Our College at Battle Creek, Mich., is, as usual, well patronized. And we are happy to know that each year its influence is extending. Before the old year had past, among its records are found five students from Oregon, three from Texas, five from Virginia, and several from other States which have not before been represented by pupils. And not less than fifty young men have been in the lecturing field during 1878, whose names are among those of the happy students of the few past years. The future success of the cause depends, so far as consecrated human agency is concerned, upon these noble youth who have left all for Christ and humanity, have taken the sword of the Spirit, which is the sword of God, to fight the battles of the Lord.

4. Our borders and members have increased the past year. Four Conferences have been added to the sisterhood of conferences: Oregon, Nebraska, Texas, and Pennsylvania, making eighteen in all. And our missions to Colorado, Dakota, Nevada, Alabama, Virginia, and other States and Territories of our own good country have been greatly blest. A good work has been done in both the Canadas the past year, while our foreign Missions have been extending their salutary influence from Switzerland to France, Germany, Italy, and even to Egypt; and from Denmark to Norway, Sweden and other countries in Northern Europe.

Very much of the success and extension of the cause the past year is attributable to the influence of our beloved paper, the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, which has made its weekly visits to California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and the Territories of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Dakota, Arizona, and Utah. To the Canadas, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, also to England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It has indeed been a power in the land. It has been blest of God as the only direct means of the conversion of hundreds of precious souls. And besides this, it has prepared the minds of thousands to come to Christ and to embrace the great truths pertaining to redemption, on hearing the present truth from the lips of the preacher.

For the sake of his truth and cause, God has let his blessings fall upon our people, our institutions, and our efforts, notwithstanding our want of consecration, as a people, to him and the great work he has called upon us to do. While he has increased our borders and members and has enlarged our facilities, we have not advanced in the graces of the Spirit, and have not manifested that spirit of sacrifice of time and means which his cause demands, as is indicated by his providence in the advancement of the work. And as we bid the old year, with its record of blessings on the part of our gracious God, and on our part, unfaithfulness, and want of consecration, a final adieu, let us right here make those vows, consistent with the word of God and our individual circumstances, which by the grace of God we can and will perform, and let their faithful fulfillment pass to the record of 1879.

Dear readers, would you have the year 1879 a happy one? Then go in pursuit of duty. The ones who selfishly search for happiness, never find it. They chase the shadow which ever advances before them. These never know in what true happiness consists. But those who search for duty, and pursue it, will find happiness as the result. And in the day of final reward, it will be said to them who shall have improved upon their talents of means and influence, \"Well done,\" \"Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.\"

This future joy of Christ will be realized when he shall see the purchase of his blood, the countless millions of the saved, seated by his side in the throne of the immortal kingdom. Then, in the language of the prophet of God, he will \"see the travail of his soul and be satisfied.\" This will be his joy. Divine satisfaction will sit upon his brow. Joy will fill the great heart of Christ in seeing the happy faces of the redeemed, the result of his sacrifices for the good of lost sinners. And all who suffer with him here, and sacrifice for the good of their fellows, as they see in the immortal saints the fruits of their labors and sacrifices, will enter into, or share in that joy of heaven, which here consists to a degree in laboring for the good of others.

Is there a miserably unhappy man in community? It is he who lives for his own happiness without regard for that of others.

Thousands shout, as they meet their friends, at the opening of 1879, \"Happy New Year,\" who are not able to take in the true meaning of the expression. Some speak these cheering words while in their hearts is the bitterness of death. Many will recklessly shout, \"a happy new year,\" while their steps take hold on hell as they enter the dram shop; and there reaches along before them three hundred and sixty-five days of drunkenness, resulting in wretchedness and woe. O, God, what a year! Happiness in it? Rather, a brief hell on the way to a drunkard's grave, the righteous judgment of God, and the just retribution upon the head of him who invited the devil to enslave him to brutish appetite, for all the wretchedness he has brought upon himself and family.

The majority of the masses who greet their friends with \"a happy new year,\" were strangers to real happiness during 1878. And not knowing the only Source of all true joys, nor the path that leads them to Him, who offers his joy for their wretchedness, they will probably pursue the phantom of earthly happiness in the indulgence of appetite, passion, and worldly mirth. In this course they will make for themselves a darker record in heaven for 1879 than exists for 1878.

But the Christian who fears God and keeps his commandments, and the faith of Jesus Christ, will measure the hight, depth, and breadth of the time-worn expression, \"a happy new year.\" In his very soul he knows that heaven begins here, that the rewards of well-doing are not all on the immortal side. He sees in his own experience and in that of his brethren, and feels the witness of the heavenly millennium in his heart in advance, while bright hope lights up his pathway to the reward and glory unspeakable. In the pursuit of duty, under a willing, cheerful sense of his obligation to God and to his fellows, it is not in the power of men and devils to make such a man otherwise than happy.

\"I am persuaded,\" says Paul, \"that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor hight, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.\" Rom. 8:38, 39. All those who stand in faith with the apostle, will be happy. The progressive experience of the true Christian, to which we commend the obedient and believing for 1879, is in these words of Paul: \"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of God's dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.\" Col. 1:9-14. To all such the first number of the SIGNS for the new year shouts, as it flies to your truly happy firesides,

\"A HAPPY NEW YEAR!\"

It comes to you richly laden with the precious truth of God's word, set forth by sanctified pens, inviting you to increase its circulation. During this happy year the entire grounds of our faith and hope will be canvassed by our ablest and best writers. In order to prevent confusion, and repetition of the same ideas by different writers on the same subjects, each has his own field of thought, and will present his subject, fully discussing it from beginning to end. To our fellow-editors, writers, numerous correspondents, printers, mailers, and readers, we sincerely wish a happy new year.

In activity in a good cause there is true happiness. And as the good work of God abounds on every hand, corresponding happiness awaits the happy workers. Have you neighbors or friends in your community who should read this paper? then turn canvasser, search them out and see that they have the weekly visits of the SIGNS. And have you friends in other States? correspond with them, and see that they become subscribers. If they are poor, and you are able, make them a present of one volume of our pioneer paper. It is the easiest thing in the world to double the circulation of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES by each of our present patrons obtaining just one more subscriber. But there are hundreds of our readers who can obtain from two to twenty-five subscribers each. And yet our main dependence for the circulation of the SIGNS is on the tract and missionary workers. These alone should be good for ten thousand. If all enjoy the satisfaction of working in a good cause and doing their work faithfully and well, the year 1879 will truly be a happy year.

J. W.