CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 8, 1881

CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL

By Editor

It must be surprising to mere worldlings to see what martyrs people in this eminently Christian land will make of themselves for their religion. The following item appears in the Baptist Flag:—

“Eld. J. V. Chenoweth sends another new subscriber, saying: ‘I would as soon do without my coffee three times a day as to do without the Flag.’”

As it is fair to presume that the Elder never tried the ordeal, we may safely consider that he made the statement in all honesty, but was very liable to be mistaken in the fact. We should fear the result of a trial; yet his love of religious reading might triumph over his appetite.

We believe there are a goodly number of individuals in New York City, and in other cities, who sacrifice the theater for the prayer-meeting. But then it must be remembered that the prayer-meeting comes only once a week, while the theaters may be visited almost any night. It is difficult to tell just how great is the amount of self-denial in these cases.

We have known quite a number of professors of religion to give up tobacco when they became conscientiously convinced that it was inconsistent with the principles of Christianity. But the number who stifle their convictions and hold on to their tobacco at the expense of their religion, is far larger. So large that we are sometimes led to doubt whether any considerable share of the religion of the present day has conscience and conviction for its basis.

We have also known individuals to choose the church meeting in preference to the lodge meeting when the claims of the two came in conflict. But such instances are rare. Alas, how rare!

Few there are, very few, who make the will and service of God their “chief good,” who are determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul counted all worldly gain but loss for the excellency of the cross of Christ; now, as a general thing, people count that lost which is sacrificed to the cause of the Redeemer.