Personalities Versus Principles

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 16, 1912

Personalities Versus Principles

WE should always seek to distinguish between principles and men. When we forget the principles for which we are contending and take up real or fancied grievances, our controversy becomes one of personalities rather than a contention for principles. In a controversy where great principles are involved, it is painful indeed to see the participants forgetting thus to distinguish. When men occupying high positions in the state so far forget the dignity of the position which they hold, or have once held, as to become personal antagonists, it is painful in the extreme. Better is it for a Christian to suffer himself to be misrepresented and maligned than to sacrifice the dignity of Christian manhood. Even though we may radically differ from those around us, it pays to keep sweet. It pays to manifest toward the opposition the spirit of Christian courtesy. Failing in this, we not only lose the respect of those opposing us, but of many who, had we manifested the right spirit, might have been won to our way of thinking. Let us distinguish between principles and men.