Untitled article by L. L. Howard.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, March 3, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 12

PRINCIPLE V. FEELING.

By L. L. Howard.

What is the use of all this talk about feeling? Why not say I ought to do, instead of saying I felt that I ought to do? How often I find people saying that I feel that I ought to do this or that. Why not be governed by sound reason and the word of God, instead of blind impulse? When led by this impulse, we are liable to go astray, and to run into almost any fanatical notion; but if reason and the word of God govern us, we shall go in the right way. When I was governed by impulse I came near being ruined by skepticism, but when I found that the word of God was able to make me wise unto salvation, I found also that its truths and sound reason agreed. Then my skepticism vanished away and I was led by faith instead of feeling.

When will our brethren learn the difference between feeling and faith? The one pleases ourselves, the other pleases God. Should we not follow Christ? We read that he pleased not himself. Do you think Christ felt as though he wanted to be crucified? Oh, no! but he knew it was the will of his Father; so we should do the Father's will, whether we feel to do it or not. L. L. HOWARD. New Portland, Me.