Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

teacher with power to teach his or her class to love Jesus. It would enable the superintendent to be
a mighty man of God in the Sabbath school, and it would make the deacon or the leader of the
Endeavor Society or the Epworth League a wonder of efficiency in service. The pastor baptized with
this Spirit would preach with a new and unknown power. The Church universal, baptized with the
Spirit, would be resistless in its influence, and terrible in the march of its conquests 'as an army with
banners.'"
This baptism also brings light and peace and power into social and business circles, making life's
burdens lighter, its friction smaller, its joys sweeter, and its hopes brighter. It goes with the wife and
mother into cares, responsibilities, and perplexities of domestic life, making home more attractive
and its duties less irksome It accompanies the student to his schoolroom making his tasks easier. It
goes with the husband and father into the field, the workshop, the counting-room, the business office,
and the marts of trade, keeping him tranquil and serene amid these scenes of toil and conflict and
burden-bearing. In a word, it gives a new a brighter phase to life, bringing perennial peace, perpetual
sunshine, and increased faithfulness. May all our readers seek it!
4. A word to our old parishioners. During the past forty years God has permitted us to preach and
otherwise minister to many thousands of his people. We are painfully conscious of the comparative
inefficiency and fruitlessness of that service. It was with great timidity and shrinking that we entered
upon this work. During the first few weeks of our ministry, we felt that we would greatly prefer to
go where we would never see the face of man again than to continue in this responsible and difficult
work. But, trusting in God, we pressed on with some measure of success and encouragement, feeling
more than once that we would cheerfully give our life in order to secure the prosperity of the Church
and the salvation of the congregation we were serving. We were conscientious, and strove to be
faithful and useful, and had more or less of joy in God's service and of success in our ministry. But,
because of a defective faith and a mixed experience, we feel that the fruits of that ministry have
fallen far short of the measure they ought to have reached. For this lack of service and the many
mistakes which have marked our ministry, though greatly deplored, we feel we have the divine
forgiveness, and now crave your pardon. You were kind to us beyond our merits, and deserved a
better service at our hands.
Before we entered the ministry, we became greatly interested in this matter of sanctification. We
read much on the subject and earnestly sought the blessing. But some of our later reading unsettled
our views, which had been strictly Wesleyan. In the course of our ministry we have at different times
preached to some of you on both sides of this question. We were honest but mistaken in this. Later
on we preached the Wesleyan doctrine again -- we might say somewhat tentatively, hypothetically,
and hesitatingly. Further reading and our profound sense of need -- need of a more thorough work
in our own soul brought us to fully accept again the theory of our early ministry. Some very gracious
experiences while stationed in Newbern, in 1878, and while on the Greensboro District, in 1893,
tended to bring us back to that theory.
In June, 1896, having reached a point where we felt that we must have something better feeling,
indeed, at times, that we would prefer death to living at the old "poor dying rate," carrying with us
an "aching void within," a keen sense of weakness and want -- we deliberately and most earnestly
sought this baptism until God came and took possession of our poor hungry heart. It was in the town