p. 107 | SELF-RELIANCE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 3, 1879

SELF-RELIANCE

Men must be taught self-reliance. They must also be taught to look to God for help, and to rely on his helping them. Both should go together. We think we have discovered a tendency in the prevailing teaching at reform-club meetings to altogether ignore the gospel of self-reliance, manhood, and courageous self-preservation, while properly exalting the gospel of hope in Christ and reliance on God. No person is in the way of overcoming any evil habit or sinful practice, so long as he is made to feel that he is wholly given over to the care of another party. In his thought, the other party at once becomes responsible for his conduct. If he fails, it is his misfortune, but the other party's blame. Teaching men that they are weak, only confirms them in weakness. Teach them that they may be strong through the grace of God and the exercise of the faculties that he has given them, and they have already passed the Red Sea walls and are advancing toward the promised land of redemption. —Morning Star.