p. 1 | An Illustration by Joseph Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 5, 1864

An Illustration.

By Joseph Clarke

Bro. —— was preaching upon the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and comparing the signs of summer at hand, as shown by the budding fig tree. Enlarging upon this principle, and applying it, he said: Some years ago I was in ——. It was late in the Spring, and the vegetation was coming forward rapidly, when unfortunately a frost came and blasted the high expectations of the husbandman. What then did you do? Did you sit down in despair and say, Summer is not coming? Was any one so foolish as to give up his hope of a crop? Far otherwise. Each one might be seen replanting his field, as confident of approaching summer as if no frost had nipped the buds of spring.

So do those who look for the soon coming of Christ still continue to look for this glorious event, although the chilling frost of bitter disappointment fell heavily upon them in 1844, crushing, for a time, their hopes, and filling them with sorrow and dismay. Confident as ever they look for summer, as signified by the unmistakable signs of the times, and the accumulating evidences now presented before us. Would the farmer for one frost give up his hope of summer? Would he not be deemed insane who would thus deceive himself? And shall we not act as wisely who look for Jesus' coming, as those who look for summer when spring unfolds her beauties?

Joseph Clarke.