Experience and Observation.
By J. C.
I HAD tried to keep the Sabbath for a year or more, before I could get a Sabbath Publication of any kind, except the Bible. I had heard of the Seventh-day Baptists, but had no personal knowledge of them, or of any one who kept the Sabbath, although bred a strict Sunday-keeper; neither did I know where to obtain information, as to the address of any publisher of Sabbath documents. At the age of nine or ten years I was convinced that my catechism was unscriptural in its answer to the Question, "What day of the week has God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath?" (See Westminster Assembly's Catechism) and it was while reciting this answer to my father, that I first was enlightened as to the error of Sunday-keeping (about the year 1827). I found that my inquiries and scruples gave pain to my parents, and I mostly ceased to urge upon them my feelings; my convictions however often returned, and in 1854 I commenced keeping the true Sabbath. In 1855 it was with much joy we perused for the first time, a copy of the Review. Soon after, I subscribed for the Sabbath Recorder, the organ of the Seventh-day Baptists, for one year. The views of the S. D. A. people as set forth in the Review, were in many respects new to me, but their zeal for God's holy law, caused me to love and esteem them very highly. The Sab. Recorder seemed rather lukewarm in its support of the Sabbath, its articles on this were dry and common-place, and the column of notices recognized Sunday-keeping churches, and ministers as brethren, and as if on common footing with Sabbath-keepers. I reasoned thus: As an individual, I have renounced the first-day Sabbath, and in doing this my old acquaintances and friends are alienated in a great measure, most of them, and I am isolated, socially, religiously and politically. It has been to me a sacrifice of friends and many interests. Now why is it necessary for me to do this, if I remain on the same footing with those I have left? Certainly if Sabbath-keeping does no more than this for me, it is all a farce. We cannot both be right. God has not set apart two days as the Sabbath and cannot be equally in favor of both. One or the other is in fatal error, God cannot be pleased with such confusion as is produced by the clashing of Sabbaths, rivaling each other. If he is, I am throwing my life away, in thus presenting myself as a mark to be shot at by preachers and churches, by relatives and those who formerly were intimate friends. Shall I make myself ineligible to office, and a subject of common animadversion, by keeping the seventh-day, if those who keep the first-day are all right and going right? Can I give them the right hand of fellowship who not only trample upon the Sabbath, but hate and despise the humble Sabbath-keeper? Shall I commit suicide upon my own faith? No, I will not. I did not renew my subscription for the Recorder. The Review gained steadily in my esteem. Here was zeal without rancor. Here was a high standard without self-righteousness; and I was led anew to search the Scriptures for my faith in natural immortality, and for my evidence in favor of crude age-to-come ideas, &c. I found that the Sunday error was but one of many errors fastened upon me by the popular teaching of the day. Gradually, by a systematic study of the Bible, with the helps which were furnished, I laid by many errors, and joyfully embraced the present truth on all points, none more sincerely than the gifts which God has granted us. Soon after we began to read the Review, a paper was sent us, by whom I knew not, called (I think) the Messenger of Truth, which abounded in accusations against the leaders of the S. D. Advent people. As yet I knew little of either leaders or people except by the papers they issued. Here was the Review, chaste and elevated in its style, holy in its teachings, and I was satisfied with its purely religious character and influence. Here was the Messenger of Truth (?) so full of abuse of the Review people, it was painful to think of. I expected from the Review, a long series of refutations. None came, or few at least; and the subject was seldom alluded to—hardly noticing the most scurrilous attacks, but calmly saying, that if any wished a refutation, they could be supplied by writing to the Office; but the columns of the Review could not be soiled by such discussions. I was inwardly convinced that the men who controlled the Review were incapable of knowingly doing wrong. I could see that the Lord was with them. And with the opposing party, I saw as plainly, a wrong and unclean spirit. It was clear as the ring of base metal, contrasted with the ring of pure gold. I never asked for a refutation of those base slanders. I never shall. Yesterday, a paper of near kin to the Messenger of Truth, was placed in my box at the post-office. The Messenger party could not long sustain their vile sheet, and it went down in silence. I am not a prophet, nor a prophet's son, yet I prophesy a like fate for the Voice of the East. We all have a kind of forecast by which we instinctively see a little into the future. I am sorry for the East, if this is the best they can do to oppose the truth. In point of egotism and bombastic garrulity, it leaves the old defunct Messenger party entirely in the shade; and its editor in his low thrusts at certain ones, who are laid low by faithful, unceasing labor in the vineyard of the Lord, remind one of Shimei, who imagining that David was going down (in his trial with ungrateful, loathsome Absalom), began to cast dirt and stones, and to berate the noble prince, who had by his real merits won his way to the throne. But it was Shimei that went down, not David.