Page:Bible testimony, on abstinence from the flesh of animals as food.pdf/36

 In conclusion, my Christian Friends if we would seek to invigorate and expand the principles of our own faith, or be instrumental in effecting the conversion of others, let us not confide in our own strength, but rather look unto who is the author and finisher of our salvation, and who alone knoweth the unruly wills and darkened understandings of sinful men, for his blessing on our feeble labors. Let us remember that the most convincing argument is the spectacle of a pure and consistent example;—that while controversy, uninfluenced by prayer, has a natural tendency to irritate and inflame, to increase the obstinacy of prejudice, and rivet the stubbornness of self-will, devotion will frequently soften, kindness will conciliate, and affection will reclaim.

And now may blessing for the future so guide our course, and prosper our efforts, that we may find cause to rejoice in the extension of pure and undefiled religion, and not only experience its increasing influence within our own souls, but to behold its present growth among our fellow mortals, until every domestic hearth shall have its altar,—until the  and Spirit of the  shall govern our country and the world; until carnal-mindedness inhumanity, vice and profanity, intemperance, wretchedness and immorality shall vanish; the whole earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and the period come, when, according to by his Prophet, "They shall neither  in all my Holy Mountain."