Dear Editor of the Review:—
Will you give me space for a few words to the REVIEW AND
HERALD family? I would like to inform them of a step which I have taken, which brings
me into church obligations with them, as well as church fellowship. The reason is
that I have received many letters from Adventists, interested people, and
inquirers, who are reading the REVIEW, through which I have come to know of
some difficulties which I would like at least to try to remove. Personal
correspondents might be reached by personal letter; but there may be others who
are in the same perplexity as those who have addressed me, and whom my own
experience helps me to understand: for them I write.
When I saw that I was being inevitably led by my
convictions into the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a great many questions
arose. The truth was leading me out, and I must follow. If I could have quietly
passed in the letter which I received from my old church, with nothing else required,
I could have seen my way clear at once, but I had been baptized in infancy, and
could not but still believe it to have been a valid baptism; but I must be
immersed if I came in with you.
My father had taught me, from my earliest recollection,
of my baptism and its significance, which was that, by it, I had been solemnly
consecrated to God, so that the world had no right to me, nor I to it. When I
became old enough to understand more fully, he told me that sometime I must
decide for myself whether or not he had done right, and whether I should ratify or renounce
this act of his. At an early age I solemnly ratified this baptismal covenant;
and later, when I came into serious conflict with unbelief, it was this, with
the teachings and influences which grew out of it, and the ties with which it
bound me to the church, that held me during a short but perilous period. God made
use of it; and could I ever renounce this, which God had seen fit to use, as
for a time I supposed I would be expected to do? I might leave it far behind,
but I could not repudiate it. The thought that I might even seem to do so
troubled me until, from the teachings of my brethren here, I learned that the
purpose pf the Seventh-day Adventist Church is not to tear down, but to restore
and build up; not to repudiate, but to accept; not to judge, but to win, as,
from my childhood, I had been taught was the only Christlike procedure. "Renounce nothing which God has ever used," was the word which
came to me with great comfort; ''simply go forward in the way of his
commandments." This I could surely do; for it had been the rule of my life
thus far.
As yet the ordinance of baptism meant nothing to me,
excepting as it was a door of entrance into the church. I reasoned after this
wise: I had been baptized, but I would be again
even if to me it seemed unnecessary; for I must follow the truth which I had
learned to revere, and could not but obey. '' Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,"
but even if my faith is weak concerning this point, since God bids me go
forward, he will make it grace to me in some way. I should have been obliged to follow
the truth, even if it had led me into uncongenial surroundings,— among a people
which, otherwise, I could not have heartily fellowshiped,— and I could not but
thank God for his wonderful goodness in that I had found this standard of
Jehovah planted, for this latter-day rally, in the midst of a people toward
whom my whole heart went out in love. As I had studied them and their methods in
church councils, as well as in their daily service, I felt that I would go through
any ceremonial which they used if I might but come in with them.
Of course I could not, under the circumstances, stand
long in this relation of indifference toward the ordinance of baptism. My interest
in it grew, and questionings increased. The question had come in correspondence
and conversation, as well as from my own mind, What must
necessarily be my attitude toward the old church if I am immersed and come in with
this people? One of my lifelong friends had written, "You will end by
hating the church, since you begin by keeping the seventh day." How little
he knew what he was saying! The love of the truth does not beget hatred. It was
never possible for me to love my mother church, as, in looking back at her from
this mount of vision, I love her now. I could not repudiate her ; I must thank
God for her, as well as for the discipline and teaching which he has given me
through her, without which I should never have been able to see the truth. It
was through her ministration that my father became the man he was; therefore it
was she who inspired the teaching which led me to believe God's word just as it reads, and so made it possible for me to find the Sabbath, and the broad, rich
pasturage to which it opens. It is safe to say that had there been no Methodist
Church, there would have been fewer Adventists. Her bishops and ministers are
men of God; the Spirit of God is in her; he does give endorsement to her work;
he makes her a power for dispensing the everlasting gospel. God bless her more
and more, and bring her to recognize all that is error, that she may put it away;
and all that is truth, that she may be enriched by it: for when she has once
seen it, she will surely espouse and teach it! What a power for preparing the
world for the soon coming of Christ she will be when clothed upon with this vesture
of righteousness, which is in God's eternal law! I know that every Seventh-day
Adventist who reads this will say "Amen" to my prayer that this may
be soon.
The
evening before my baptism was to take place, as a preparation, I went over the
subject again in my Bible, and found in the ordinance more than I had ever been
able to see heretofore. I read and studied the sixth chapter of Romans, and for
the first time saw the reason for which it was instituted. It is wonderful how
tenderly God
has opened my mind all through this experience to the things which he had for
me to learn. Truth so momentous, so revolutionary that I could scarcely have
understood it otherwise, has come like a slowly opening blossom, and its savor
of life has filled me with strength and delight. Because of that
Sabbath-evening study, I was, partly at least, prepared for the service of the
morning; still I had much to learn. All through
the sermon, the thought haunted me that some might consider this act a
repudiation of former helps and experiences, which it must never be. Paul had
said (Heb. 10:35), “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great
recompense of reward.” So I must not do that by any act. It would be a denial
of Christ, who had been so long my life. In him I had been dead to the world
for years. I was not coming out of Babylon, although some of my correspondents have
seemed to think so; for I had never lived in Babylon. I had been a member of the
body of Christ, that invisible church of which he is the Head, and whose
members are found in every denomination, as well as outside of any. I could not
renounce the devil and all his works, because I had done that long ago. One
might as well expect the Armenians to renounce the Turks. I had been fighting
the devil
and
his works in my own heart and in the world for many years: we had nothing in
common. Then what could this baptism mean more than simply an open door into
the place where the standard of present truth had been erected? With this query
urging itself upon my mind, I stood at last upon the verge of the pool, waiting to
take the final step, and then it was revealed to my understanding — it was a grave. The idea was not new, but the appreciation of it was. That
was the most solemn moment of my life. I went down into that sepulcher
conscious of what it meant to be buried with Christ. I had been dead to the
world — it was time that I was buried! And in that burial I received a
manifestation of God for which I praise him with my whole being. I arose from
that burial with a resurrection light filling my soul, of which the only
adequate expression would be, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory? . . . Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ."
This
experience is the natural sequence of all by which God has been leading me in a
way which I knew not. I could not reel the road in like a line, and carry it
with me; but surely I must not despise it. One may leave a long path behind,
but he cannot renounce it, I have so left it; and in coming into these church
relations, I come with freedom and gladness.
To
those whom I have met in my evangelistic work, and those who have mentioned the
books which were written along through the years, I must take up the words of
Paul, and say, "I will not dare to speak of any of those things which
Christ hath not wrought by me." Rom. 15:18. Some things I would be glad to
revise, because I see the truth, which I then tried to express, in so much
clearer light. For the utterances which
do not represent the truth as I know it now, I have felt keenest regret, which
I have not always been able to throw off quickly. But God, through some of my
brethren, as well as by his own word and Spirit, has shown me that he is able
to cover with himself all such errors and mistakes, as well as those which mar
our daily
living, if there is but a loyal heart back of them; and since I do know that my
heart is true in its love to God, I can rest assured that his love will cover me and all that I have failed to be, as well as teach
and lead me to the end.
"Truth that yesterday was mine
Is vaster truth to-day;
Its face hath aspect more divine,
Its kingship fuller sway;
For truth must grow as ages roll,
And God looms larger in the soul."
MRS. S.
M. I. HENRY.
Advent Review and Sabbath
Herald April
6, 1897 VOL. 74, No. 14.
(Written from the Sanitarium)
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