Untitled article by Mary J. Cotterall

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 26, 1867

I CAN IF OTHERS DO.

By Mary J. Cotterall

How easy it is for us to measure ourselves by others. We do it unconsciously. “I can if others do.” I caught myself saying those very words. And I presume that they find a place in our thoughts, and an expression in our actions, many and many a time when they are not expressed in words. Yes, it is a sad truth. Instead of measuring ourselves by the Bible standard, to ascertain if we are right, we measure ourselves by some poor, erring mortal. It is some one who stands in a prominent place. Yes, who is looked up to; who is considered an example, and it may be is an example, safe to follow; still he or she is only a mortal, liable to do wrong, and it is not safe for us to take such an one for our pattern exclusive of the Bible rule.

Is not this one great reason of the sad state of cold-heartedness, of inattention to real heart searching, which exists among the young, and which has called forth a testimony from that God whom we profess to love and serve?

Let us heed the warning. Do not read it once or twice and say, “It is a solemn testimony,” and then forget all about it, and join the first, gay, giddy person you meet in a tirade of foolish, senseless words. There is a work to do, if we ever get our carnal hearts subdued, and stand among the purified, ready to look up to the fearful, rolling clouds, and with joyful hearts say, “This is our God.”

Dear reader, shall you and I in that great, decisive day call for rocks and mountains to hide us from the presence of him we now profess to love and serve? My young friend, have you read Testimony No. 12? If not, get it, read it, study it, and heed its faithful, solemn warning. If you do this you will study your Bible more, pray in secret more, love God, his cause and people more, love the world and its dying pleasures less, and soon find that there is no sympathy, no congeniality, between yourself and those who make this world the center of all their hopes, thoughts and feelings. Oh! let us strive with all our energies to be more faithful in the performance of

duty, and no longer measure our conduct by that of erring mortals.

MARY J. COTTERALL.

Rochester, N. Y.