The Present Hour by G. W. A.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 26, 1864

The Present Hour.

By G. W. A.

"We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand and awful time."

How true to life are these sublime words of the poet! How ominous, and how significant is the hour in which we live! The message is rising and steadily gaining strength; the sure prophetic lines are meeting a daily accomplishment; the cry of war has become the watchword of every nation; knowledge is increasing with a stately tread; science and art bless the world with their sublime developments; signs of awful portent signify that He who treadeth the wine-press is about to assert his right; error with its multiform phases is thrusting its hydra-head into the face of all that is lovely and good; truth is fallen in the streets, and crime is more frequent and less thought of; signs in the sun, moon, and stars, warn the world of approaching judgment scenes; mockers and scoffers by their thoughtless and blasphemous railing give force to the startling message of the man of God; for months the battle of the warrior has been with confused noise and garments rolled in blood; spirits of devils go peeping and muttering through the earth; damnable heresies are brought in by religious teachers who have forsaken the covenant of their God, and denied the Lord that bought them; the blasphemer grows more bold, and the drunkard has an increased relish for his cup; infidelity with its gaunt form compasses sea and land; the truth in the hearts of formal professors has lost its converting power, and is being changed into a lie; he that departeth from iniquity maketh himself a prey; the accumulated guilt of sixty centuries is about to fall with vindictive fury upon a world lying in wickedness; the great white throne will soon be seen; the clarion notes of the archangel's trump will soon call the dead to life, and sound from pole to pole; and—oh! thoughtless soul, think well of this—who shall be able to stand?

Reader, ponder, pray, prepare; and seek that stability which is derived from a well-directed faith in the Rock that is higher than we. G. W. A.