Talking to Mourners

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 19, 1865

Talking to Mourners

From the following paragraphs which we clip from the Gospel Herald, we should judge that singular efforts were sometimes made in the "Christian" denomination in the way of proselytism. Under the heading of "Talking to Mourners," it says:—

"Here is where common sense is frequently outraged. Pounding men between the shoulders, pulling and shaking them, &c., is an unpardonable folly. If religion is to be mauled or squeezed into men, better at once thrust them under a forge-hammer, or put them through a rolling-mill.

"Telling mourners that they have religion if they only knew it, and believed it, is telling a hard story. If that be true, perhaps, they always had it, and did not know it,—perhaps thousands have it, and don't know it—perhaps the highwayman has it, and does not know it. Nay; when a man's sins are pardoned, he will know it, and others will know it. When a burden of sin is taken away; when disease of the soul is healed, the effect is a sensible and happy one.

"We should talk to a mourner at the altar just as we would talk to him any where else. With solemnity, earnestness, directness, forbearance, tenderness, kindness, simplicity, we should point him to Christ, to Calvary, giving him such instruction, encouragement and comfort as his case may seem to require."