Counterfeits | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 17, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 16.

Counterfeits.

1. We are acquainted with nothing valuable which has not its counterfeits. We might offer a reward to any one who would point us to an exception. We know that all the virtues, and all the correct sentiments or doctrines, together with every excellent trait of character or lovely grace, may be counterfeited; therefore piety, or true religion, cannot be made a solitary exception, for it is made up of correct principles, lovely doctrines, and lovely graces or traits of character. If any religion should actually point us to a life which would not close, and to pleasures without a defect, I should call it more valuable than much wealth.

2. The counterfeit often appears, to the incompetent, brighter and more captivating than the genuine original.

3. We are called upon to struggle for qualifications to decide, and to aim after superior judgment, in proportion as our interest is threatened, and in accordance with the value of the thing presented. No one can become skilled in any branch of useful knowledge, without thought, industry, and research. The acquisition of that which is most valuable, generally calls for most toil. The same benevolence which gave iron for our use, planned that we should dig it from the hills. The same kindness which formed the grains for our table, determined that we should rake the fields in the sun, before our bodies were thus nourished. To judge ably of things exceedingly valuable is worth uncommon industry.

4. Men never complain of anything being liable to counterfeit pretensions, religion excepted; and they never complain of the necessity of their exertions to qualify themselves for judging between truth and falsehood in any case but in that of religious truth.

5. Men never say that because it is difficult to tell false gold or silver from the genuine coin, therefore they will cast all away; though thousands and millions are poor judges in such cases, from want of attention.

6. Men do not say that there is no such thing as honor, or probity, or modesty, or benevolence, or sensibility, because such things may be skillfully counterfeited, so as to call for judgment and experience to detect the falsehood.

7. We might make out a very pathetic case, of thousands of the youthful and inexperienced who had little opportunity to become judicious, and were liable to imposition every hour, and in connection with every coin and every character which could be named. We might say that we did not believe that our Creator would leave these unskillful creatures of his to be liable to the loss of every earthly blessing every hour, and even to the loss of that life which his own kind hand had bestowed. We might declaim with marvelous wisdom, and apparent sensibility, yet it would not alter the case in any respect; he has made the millions around us as we see them exposed, and calls to them for action.—Nelson on Infidelity.