It has been awhile since I have written on my blog…  So to you all who sincerely try to keep up with us via this means, please accept my apologies for my absence.   BUT I’M BACK!!!   And I hope with a renewed devotion to keep up. 

           As a first installment of that commitment let me share with you a portion of the testimony of my great-great-great- grandfather which was presented to our first Donell family reunion in more than 20 years.   We were all so impacted by the testimony of Samuel Donell.  Samuel Donell was a godly father and grandfather, staunchly opposed to slavery, a Scottish Presbyterian in the line of John Knox, and a ruling elder in his local presbyterian church.   I hope it will encourage you to pray for your children and to remember those who have contributed to your faith.  No person stands alone!  We all are held up by another who came before us.  I hope you will take the time to read this brief testimony of a dying saint whose longing was for the souls of his children…. “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments!  His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.”  Psalm 112:1,2 

“To my children, and those connected with them, I need hardly say, I feel and have felt a great desire for your happiness, here and hereafter.  God has been pleased to bestow o on you neither poverty nor riches, but has fed you y with food convenient.  You are drawing near old age.  The evil days will come, and the years draw nigh, when you will say: “I have no pleasure in them.”  Realize that if you hop for heaven, you must work out your salvation with fear and trembling.  The precious promise of the Savior to his people is: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”  Never forget the responsibility that rests o on you to bring up your children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”  Use all your influence and means to promote the glory of God, in the extension of Christ’s kingdom to the whole world.

To my grandchildren both old and young: Dear children.  I greatly desire that you may be happy, here and hereafter; but that this may be your happy lot, you must love and serve God.  I want you to consider what God has said of your state by nature.  “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,.”  And again, “The wages of sin is death.”  If this is true, then you need a Savior.  The Bible tells us “That Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” and the “He bore our sins in his own body on the Cross.”  But this will not avail you unless you give your hearts to Christ, to love, serve and obey him.  God will only pardon those that sincerely repent of their sins, and forsake them, and seek forgiveness for Christ’s sake alone.  I have no fear that any of you will be openly vicious or profligate; but have great fear that you may neglect religion and lose your souls.  I expect you will be moral, decent, and respectable, that you will regularly attend the means of grace, give decent attention at the house of God, but nothing short of true sorrow for sin, faith in Christ an obedience to His will, will ever save a sinner.  I ask you read seriously Matt. 25:31 (the last judgment).  May God in mercy touch all your hearts, and bring you to Christ.

I have written these lines in a state of great suffering, being greatly desirous to impress your minds with the value of your souls.  However little you may think of me or my advice, I entreat you for the last time to give these lines that I have written expressly for you a serious, solemn consideration.  They were written by one who loves your souls.  May the blessing of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob rest upon each of you in life, in death, and through eternity, is my humble prayer to God.  If it is thought work while, a plain stone may be placed at my grave with this inscription:

HERE LIES

ALL THAT WAS MORTAL OF

SAMUEL DONELL, SR.

BORN NOV. 23, 1769

DIED? (SEPT. 29, 1850)

IN HOPE OF A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION

 

in gospelbonds,

                        Don