Our Influence Illustrated by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 6, 1870

Our Influence Illustrated.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

The other day I met an old gentleman who said to me in substance as follows: “I never liked the Methodists. I never could bear their doctrine. When I was a boy, I went to a teacher who was a Methodist, the first one I knew. He was very cross and ugly. I thought if he was a sample of the Methodists, I did not want anything to do with them.” From that time till this, this man has been strongly opposed to the Methodists wherever he found them. All this prejudice he received from the ill conduct of that one who bore the name of Methodist so long ago. How very different might have been this man’s feelings toward the Methodists had that teacher been a faithful, tender, kind-hearted man. Instead of setting him against the doctrine, he would have inclined him to be favorable towards it.

So it is with every professor, no matter what people they stand connected with. Wherever they go, they become representatives of that faith, whether they be Methodists, Adventists, or anything else. How important it is, then, that our brethren who profess the truth should carefully live it out, and have a kind and gentle spirit. Our scattered brethren and sisters may think that because they are not preaching, they are not doing anything. This is not the case. Their influence and example is preaching all the time. Eternity will show that souls have been won or lost by their influence. D. M. CANRIGHT.