Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar EssaysHolland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Philosophy
Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar Essays
Holland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Conduct of life
I declare that I do not know of a position that more strongly
appeals to a man's personal honor than that of membership in a
Christian church. Even if a man in such a position should say
within himself: "This costs more than it comes to. I love my vices
more than I love the Master whose name I profess. Either openly or
secretly, I will give rein to my appetites and passions"--he
should be arrested by the consideration that he proposes to do
that which will wound the feelings, and degrade the position, and
injure the influence, of thousands of the best men and women in
the world; that he proposes to inflict an irreparable injury upon
a cause which has never injured him, and whose office it is to
save him, and all mankind. Perhaps he is so weak, and temptation
is so strong, that he feels, in the stress of his trial, that he
can afford to perjure his own soul; but if he does, he has no
right to wound others. Better fight the devil until the animal
within us bleeds at every vein--until it dies, if that must be--
than "offend one of these little ones." A man who will join a
church, and then lead an unchristian life, not only demonstrates
before the world his hypocrisy, but he voluntarily undertakes to
prove that he has no personal honor. An honorable man will
sacrifice himself always before he will voluntarily inflict injury
upon a cause he has pledged himself to sustain, and upon men and
women whose good name is in his hands. When a member of a church
has become so hardened in a course of bad living, that no pang
comes to him when he thinks of the injury he is inflicting upon
the Christian church, he is bad enough for a prison. I would not
trust him the length of my arm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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