Uriah Smith
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Uriah Smith was born in 1832, and came into this message, as a youth, at the end of 1852. His mother had been one of the 1844 Adventists, and had come into this definite message. She was anxious for her daughter, Annie, and for this son. Neither seemed inclined to investigate this truth, and both were going into teaching work.
To please the mother, the daughter agreed to go once to the meeting place on Sabbath, the next day, to hear Joseph Bates, who was to be the visiting preacher. That Friday night, in a dream, she saw the meeting room and the preacher. And the same night Joseph Bates saw in a dream a young woman coming into his meeting. When Annie Smith came to the meeting place next morning, the whole scene was before her, the congregation and the preacher, the very man of her dream. She recognized it all. And Joseph Bates recognized her also, and made sure of meeting her. She studied the message, and soon arranged to join the workers in our first printing office, which was just then being equipped at Rochester. All this drew Uriah Smith's attention to the truth. He studied earnestly, and in 1853 he had joined the publishing house staff. For "nearly a half century" the record runs, Uriah Smith was, with some years of interlude, either editor of the Review or on the staff as associate. Annie became one of our well-known hymn writers.
At the General Conference of 1889 Elder Smith was telling of his memories of the early publishing days. Of the primitive equipment at our first printing office, he told the conference:
"I often think of the time when Elder Loughborough, myself, and a few others, in Rochester, New York, under the direction of Brother White, were preparing the first tracts sent out to the people. The instruments we had to use were a brad-awl, a straightedge, and a pen-knife. Brother Loughborough, with the awl, would perforate the backs for stitching; the sisters would stitch them; and then I, with the straight-edge and pen-knife, would trim the rough edges on the top, front, and bottom. We blistered our hands in the operation, and often the tracts in form were not half so true and square as the doctrines they taught." -- General Conference Bulletin, Oct. 29, 1889.
In his book Pioneer Days of the Advent Movement W. A. Spicer gives us his impressions of Uriah Smith:
"As a boy I always passed Elder Smith's editorial room in the old Battle Creek Review and Herald office with somewhat of awe; for there was a notice on the door in dark purple-colored ink and in large letters:
'Editors' Room.
Busy? Yes, always.
If you have any business,
Attend to your business,
And let us attend to our business.'
"And those days of beginning things, so far as I can recall, seemed for the brethren just as full of rush and hurry as are the days of our workers today. Ever since this advent movement began, this old world has been like a runner, as Habakkuk's vision described it, that 'panteth toward the end.' Hab. 2:3, R.V., margin.
"Uriah Smith was the most graceful of our writers, I always thought. He was a poet. One of the first books I ever possessed was his poem on the Sabbath, opening,
'Since first in Eden sin an entrance found,
When sad success the tempter's
efforts crowned;
Since first the sunlight saw its hideous birth,
Dark floods of error have swept o'er
the earth.
Stem and unceasing has the conflict been
'Tween light and darkness, 'mong the
sons of men;
Many the ways the prince of death has tried
God's truth to weaken and His name
deride.'
"Then of the institution of the Sabbath, it
says,
'Oh! wondrous day, when the creative
power
Ceased, as dawned that calm,
auspicious hour.
The Lord in holy, contemplative mood
Surveyed
His finished work, and called it good.
'Twas meet the day on which the King did rest
Should thus be hallowed, sanctified,
and blest.
'Twas meet that man, from God's example given,
Should yield each seventh day to Him
and heaven.
So was the hallowed season set apart
To be observed by every loyal heart.'
"Through all his days Elder Smith seemed always calm and serene, never anxious or excited. His pen, busy with editing and with books, was working to the last. When he fell stricken in front of the old Tabernacle in Battle Creek, early in 1903, he was walking to the office with articles freshly written for the paper in his pocket. Still we count as one of the best in the church hymnal his hymn which closes --
"'O brother, be faithful! eternity's years
Shall tell for thy faithfulness now,
When bright smiles of gladness shall scatter thy tears,
And a coronet gleam on thy brow.
O brother, be faithful! the promise is sure,
That waits for the faithful and
tried;
To reign with the ransomed, immortal and pure,
And ever with Jesus abide.'"