p. 3 | THE HEBREW PROPHETS

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1862

THE HEBREW PROPHETS.

SOME writer has well said, their faces were toward the East, and the gleams of the morning twilight of the "Sun of Righteousness" fell on their brows. We love to think of them as tall men in their generations and favored of God to take their stand-point on the high mountain tops of olden time, and there to gaze on the beauties of the forth-breaking light of the great gospel day. So standing and gazing, one of them lifted his voice to his brethren of Zion, saying, "Arise; shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." What an inspiration comes in the ring of his words! After ages of darkness, he has caught some first beams of Messiah's sunlight. The Saviour was surely coming! Then let the church awake and lift up her eyes to behold his glory.

It is not easy for us who have been so long accustomed to the light of our gospel day, to throw ourselves back into the age of Isaiah and realize how much the eastern twilight of this day was then worth. It is hard for us to enter into the sympathies of those pious Hebrews of old, whose hearts beat warmer, and whose hopes rose higher and higher, as they read over and over again, the burning words of Isaiah. It is a comfort to us to know that they might have found Jesus there, the "Man of Sorrows" and the "Prince of Peace."

But how much better is our case, who have the full record of his life—who can read the very words he spake, and almost see the tears he shed! And oh, how much more still if we but know our privilege to have the "Comforter" in our souls as the "Spirit of truth" to "bring the words of Jesus to our remembrance," and to show us their true significance and power! When will the Christian church fully know the worth of her prerogatives? When shall the mission of the Spirit be understood in its richness, and felt in all its quickening power?