God our Father by M. W. Howard

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 22, 1864

God our Father.

By M. W. Howard

How sweet, how thrillingly sweet, is the name of father, to an absent loving child; and God permits us to call him Father—yes, Abba, Father! How unspeakable the privilege! Yet how many love not this Father—treat him as they would never treat an earthly father—distrusting him, fearful of entrusting themselves and their interests to him.

And then how many who profess to be his children are living carelessly, as those who never knew his love? And of those who seek to serve him, how many, when questioned concerning things which should be of infinite interest to the Christian, can only answer in that indefinite, unthinking, non-committal manner, which may mean one thing or another, or may mean nothing at all just as well. Why not intelligent ones, intelligent in other matters, be sufficiently familiar with the teachings of the Bible, ever to be ready to give a reason, confidently and intelligently, yet paradoxical as it may seem, with meekness and fear, concerning their belief, and hopes for eternity?

Oh, what unpardonable stupidity, that after the lapse of eighteen centuries, with the full blaze of the meridian light of the gospel shining upon our pathway, so many are still groveling in the first rudiments of Christianity; yea, what ingratitude to him who has said in the words of inspiration, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not."

M. W. HOWARD.

Malone, N. Y.