UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE by Theophilus Stork

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 7, 1880

UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE.

By Theophilus Stork

It is said that among the high Alps at certain seasons the traveler is told to proceed very quietly; for on the steep slopes overhead the snow hangs so evenly balanced that the sound of a voice or the report of a gun may destroy the equilibrium and bring down an immense avalanche that will overwhelm everything in ruin in its downward path. And so about our way there may be a soul in the very crisis of its moral history, trembling between life and death, and a mere touch or shadow may determine its destiny. A young lady who was deeply impressed with the truth, and was ready, under a conviction of sin, to ask, "What must I do to be saved?" had all her solemn impressions dissipated by the unseemly jesting of a member of the church by her side as she passed out of the sanctuary. Her irreverent and worldly spirit cast a repellent shadow on that young lady not far from the kingdom of God. How important that we should always and everywhere walk worthy of our high calling as Christians!

"So let our lips and lives express The holy gospel we profess."

Let us remember that we are always casting the shadow of our real life upon some one; that somebody is following us, as John followed Peter into the sepulcher. Happy, if, when all the influences of life flow back and meet us at the Judgment, we can lift up clean hands and spotless robes and say: "I am free from the blood of all men!" Happy then to hear even one soul saying to us out of the great multitude, that following the shadow of our Christian life and devotion, he found Jesus and Heaven.

—Rev. T. Stork, D. D.