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A PUZZLE SOLVED

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 1, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 1.

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A PUZZLE SOLVED

By J. S. Olive

J. S. OLIVE
(Battle Creek, Mich.)
Do we not often meet persons who are so disagreeable that one would rather cross the street than encounter their forbidding frowns and harsh words? They seem to have great power to sting every one they meet. Some are so proud of their humility that you can not live in the same house with them. They snub, and contradict, and mortify one at every turn. And yet they profess to be Christians — to love the Saviour, and to be getting ready for His coming. We dare not conclude that they are not sincere. Why is it, then, that they are so intensely disagreeable? When sad and lonely, and longing for help and sympathy, I am always disappointed if I look to them.
“Things that are equal to the same thing, are equal to each other.” So it follows that if we were each like Christ, we should enjoy each other’s company. Then comes the solemn question, “Lord, is it I?” And I fear it is all my fault. No doubt part of it is; and yet I know that the more like Christ many seem to be, the better I love them.
Passing under an apple tree in the autumn, I picked up a large, sound, red apple, but as soon as I tasted it, I threw it away. What was the matter? I like apples. This was surely an apple — a good, large, sound one, which had been blown from the tree by a hard wind; and yet it was so hard, so sour, so acrid, so utterly unfit to eat, that one slight taste was enough. What was the matter? It was from a good tree, and was sound to the core. It was simply unripe. The thought came to me, Perhaps that is what ails us disagreeable Christians. We are simply unripe. We may be Christians, as Peter and John were, when we wish to call down fire from heaven on all who do not think, and say, and do just as we do; but surely we are unripe Christians. We may not quite desire to call down fire on others, and yet if we needlessly wound, and hurt, and neglect them, we are still unripe Christians, if Christians at all.
May the sunshine and dew of heavenly grace ripen us, till we wholly please the Lord; then we shall surely each please the other “to his good for edification.” Then we can say, If our fellowship in Jesus be so sweet now, what heights of rapture shall we know when we meet round His throne!