A Word to the Young by E. M. Prentiss

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 7, 1863

A Word to the Young.

By E. M. Prentiss

AND we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their works' sake. 1 Thess. v, 12, 13.

Here we are exhorted to act kindly toward those who instruct us in the Lord, and that those who teach the whole truth are entitled to more than respect. Yet how often we act differently, by refusing to even receive their kind admonitions, or by expressed contradictions.

And when they come, with fear and trembling, and seek to discharge with fidelity their whole duty to us, how often we wound their feelings by our careless indifference, and all manner of disobedience, instead of showing our love for the truth by earnestly striving to heed their counsel, and reflect honor upon the cause by our example of loving obedience. This is indeed trying to the faithful minister, and to those who stand at the head of this work, who have long felt the responsibility of holding erect the standard of truth for these last days. Too much of their time is required in urging us on to duty, while the world around us are famishing for the want of truth.

We know but little what it has cost to dig up these hidden treasures; hence we do not appreciate them as we should, if we knew more of suffering. We have no realizing sense of the shortness of time, therefore are we slumbering. O my dear young brother, my sister, how long shall it be said of us that we are a hindrance to the cause of God? Shall we not rather labor to 'prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God' concerning us, and to seek for that change of heart which will enable us to look kindly, trustingly, lovingly on our instructors?

We are told that Jesus is now giving us an opportunity to confess, and will you not with me arise and repent in deep humility, and purify your lives by obeying and living out the truth? O that the Lord would give us who are young in the truth, a humble, teachable spirit. O let us seek for it. Let us come up to the help of the Lord. It may be but little that we can do, but let it not be our part of the work to perplex and hinder. Let us walk in God's order, strive to heed all the testimony, and keep pace with God's children. O that we, each one of us, may awake to feel that we have not a moment of time to lose: that soon Jesus is coming, and then will sound the dreadful sentence, 'He that is filthy, let him be filthy still.'

E. M. Prentiss.

North Parma, N. Y.