ILL-TIMED MODESTY

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 24, 1881

ILL-TIMED MODESTY.

I HAVE known brethren who have trembled at the slightest degree of publicity. They are tender souls, and do not like to be seen. I would not harshly condemn all, for certain minds are quiet and timid, and must be allowed to be good by stealth. But I cannot thus excuse all, for some are blamably deficient in courage. There is a beautiful modesty about them; but I would have them recollect that modesty is not all the virtues, nor can it be a substitute for them. The soldier who was so very modest that he retired before the battle, I have heard say, was shot. And as for Christian people who are so very modest that they get out of the way of everything that is to be done for Christ, I do not know how they will answer for it to their superior Officer at the last.

“Oh but I am naturally timid, says one. It is to you then, that the Lord's word is addressed: “Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not.” I have heard, and I think I have observed, that the bravest men in the hour of danger are timid in the prospect of it. They say that a fire-eater who dashes to the battle is often the man who fails; but he who stands trembling at the first shot, in his inmost soul dreading death, is, nevertheless, the very man to act the hero's part if he is so overpowered by a stern sense of duty that he masters fear and steadily keeps his position with cool, immovable resolve. —Spurgeon.