p. 59 | WHY MEN HATE THE LIGHT by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 16, 1869

WHY MEN HATE THE LIGHT.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

The other day, as I sat in my room, the rays of a very bright sun came in through the window, making a very bright track of light. Immediately I noticed where these rays of the sun shone that the air of the room was full of fine particles of dust. I looked around the room but could not see a particle of dust any where else; yet I knew that there must be just as much where it was not so light as there was where the rays of light could manifest it. The light did not make the dust, it only showed that it was there before. As I looked at it, I thought that I could not breathe such polluted air as that; yet I felt no concern about it till I saw the light. Who has not often noticed this?

While looking at this I thought that it was a good illustration of the effect of truth. The truth does not make men bad, but it makes manifest their bad deeds which before were hid in the darkness around them. When the light comes it exposes these evil deeds so that they may be seen. It shows men that they are corrupt, when before they, and perhaps others, thought they were quite good. This is the reason why men hate the light. Says Jesus, “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved [margin, discovered]. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” Jno. iii, 20, 21.

If men would only hate their evil deeds instead of the light that discovers them, they would act much more wisely. But men seem to think that if they can only keep away from the light or cover it up, then they are all right and good. Suppose that when I saw the dust in my room by the rays of the sun, I had closed the blinds and shut out the light, would that have removed the dust? Not at all. The dust would have been there the same but I could not have seen it, though there was much light in the room, even enough to read by easily.

So it often is with men. In the light, or rather darkness of this wicked world, they appear very well and pass for moral men, may be for Christians; but when they are examined by the exceeding bright light of Heaven, when they stand before the burning throne of God, how different they will appear! Says David, “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.” Ps. xc, 8. Our sins are to be examined, not by man's light, but in the light of God before his throne. The least speck of sin will then appear plainly. Hence it is that the men who live the nearest to God are the ones who abhor sin the most. God help us to hate sin and not the light that shows it.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

South Lancaster.