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Some Wholesome Words

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Mar 1, 1906

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 9.

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Some Wholesome Words.

The recent public exposure of the sins of some men in high places has had at least one good effect: it has led to a recognition of the lack of moral soundness in many who have hitherto been regarded as leaders among men, and to some plain speaking concerning their abuse of the confidence in which they were held. This may act as a healthy stimulus to some who are under temptation to abandon the path of old-fashioned honor and honesty, but who have not yet actually committed themselves to a double life.
In the face of the tendency to gloss over the offenses of respectable transgressors of moral and civil laws the Outlook (New York) asserts with much emphasis that “the destroyers of hope and the wasters of moral wealth are the men who stoop to baseness from high positions, and make influence and power, which are in their keeping as trustees for others, the servants of their greed or ambition.” With this verdict all candid thinkers will agree. Great confidence reposed in a man, and great opportunity afforded for influencing others in the right way, only increase the greatness of his infamy when he betrays that confidence and abuses that opportunity.
We quote a portion of the editorial in the Outlook, upon this subject:—
It is almost impossible to overestimate the shock to confidence, the disaster to hope, which have come in this country as the result of recent betrayals of trust by men of prominence in public and business life, and it is a mischievous perversion of true compassion which makes respectability and position palliatives of moral offense. There is no offender so naked of excuse as the man who sins from the height of a great place, no betrayer of honor so base as he whose honor is so great that it becomes itself a capital for his use. The common offender is held back by no public opinion, kept in place by no pressure from others, sustained in temptation by no consciousness that others are leaning on him, and that if he defaults morally, misery and bankruptcy follow in the train of his collapse; on the contrary, he feels that he is detached from the moral life of the community, that what he does is of little account, that no man trusts him. The great criminal is not he who commits a crime of a magnitude which impresses the imagination, but he who turns traitor in the face of general confidence and universal respect, the man who does not break, at the risk of his life, into other people’s houses and take their property, but seizes and wastes property put into his hands by men and communities because he is believed to be honorable. The magnitude of an offense is determined not by the daring with which it is committed nor by its rating on the statute-books, but by the measure in which it involves violation of trust, betrayal of confidence, use of the honor and authority bestowed by others, for selfish or base purposes. The individual soldier who goes over to the enemy is a traitor, but his treason is venial compared with that of an Arnold loved and trusted by his chief, holding a post of immense importance because of that confidence, looked upon as a leader by reason of a record of heroism. When such a man falls, he falls like Lucifer, and there is no measure to the infamy which blackens his name on the lips of later generations.
The only solid and permanent foundation for a life of uprightness is a conscientious observance of the precepts of that law which is “holy and just and good.” When for the sake of personal advantage one begins to play fast and loose with the eternal principles of truth revealed in the Word of God, and to accept technical interpretations of the laws of the land as his standard of righteousness, he has prepared the way for moral bankruptcy.
Much which has been done in secret, with little thought of exposure, is now being proclaimed upon the housetops, and nearly all who have been condemned by public opinion as guilty have worn the cloak of religion. This is a sign of the times. Those who in the perilous times which characterize “the last days” are indicted by inspiration under eighteendifferent counts, are described as “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” From such we are told to turn away.