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Ought To

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California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · OAKLAND, CAL. · Dec 31, 1874

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 1, No. 12.

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"Ought To."

OUGHT to! what a word that is! How often does it rise in the present as in the future judgment to condemn the misused hours, the wasted opportunities! For "ought to" signifies that the duty, whatever it is, might have been, or can be done. There is no "ought to" among the impossibilities. We wish, we regret, we propose, we would gladly have done, or would like to do this or that; but "ought to," applied to this or that, carries a tone of moral authority from which there is no innocent escape.
"I ought to have learned my lesson!" mutters the disgraced school-boy as the offered prize slips into a comrade's hand. "I ought to have taken my mother's advice!" sighs a repentant daughter, as her fair name falls blighted into the mire. "I ought to have been careful of my health!" moans the confirmed invalid, when the pains of regret grow sharper than the pains of disease. "I ought to have said No! to the first temptation," groans the drunkard when in a sober hour he reviews the once happy and honorable past. "I ought to have set that child a truer example!" weeps a broken-hearted parent over a lost son or daughter. "I ought to have watched, and prayed, and striven, and conquered!" gasps a dying one, as the hour comes when it is too late for aught. "I ought to have believed!" shriek a multitude of lost spirits when the day of grace has closed forever.
It is with the "ought to" of to-day that we have most to do,—the little oughts that come on hour by hour, moment by moment; it is in them we live or die; they make or ruin all we are, and all it is possible to become. A very small thing it may be to write a letter in its time; but the doing or the leaving undone may have consequences to ourselves of vastly more importance than anything the letter may signify. It is by very little things we are lost; some little habit of wrong that strengthens and fastens itself upon the character, until the good that is or might be is undermined and destroyed, or some quiet persistent way of doing right that elevates and ennobles the whole being like a leaven of saving grace. There is little fear if we make and cling to the habits of prompt and true behaviour in the small matters, but that the larger ones will be regulated by the same rule, and will reach the right result.
It is in truth, the "ought to" of the little things of life whereby we stand or fall.—Sel.