It Would Destroy my Influence.
By Robert F. Cottrell
WHAT is it that will destroy your influence? Will it destroy your influence to do right? to do as God would have you? It will injure one's popularity to be a true reformer—to stand up for the right in anything wherein the multitude are in the wrong. To be out of fashion will be found to be unpopular. But what is one's influence worth, who is merely the echo of others' habits? led and controlled entirely by the influence of others? Such people are in slavery to the influence of others, and have none of their own worth speaking of, or the loss of which would be a cause of regret. One cannot be a reformer without having and exerting a positive influence in favor of that which is not the prevailing custom of the times. And shall we have a good influence to plead for the right, and practice the wrong? To illustrate: A certain minister admitted that the Sabbath was unchanged—that the seventh-day Sabbath was still binding, that it was the day which God required us to keep. But he thought he would have more influence and could do more good, if he continued to keep the day which it was the custom of the people to keep. This is no fiction, but a real fact. Now what real influence had the man? None worth retaining—none the loss of which would be a real loss to mankind. How long would it take such men to convert the world to the truth of God's commandments? Those who would be real reformers, such as would make the world the better by living in it, must practice the right. If God calls upon his people to be a peculiar people, in what he requires, they are to set the fashion, instead of following the fashions of a corrupt and corrupting world. Ruin your influence by doing what God would have you to do, because it is for your good and the good of others? Let your influence be spoiled, if doing right will spoil it. Let it go; it is not worth retaining. The cost of retaining it is too much. You cannot afford it. God is calling for reformers. A few have heeded the call, and taken a stand to follow the truth wherever it leads. If you stand shoulder to shoulder with those who have nobly taken a stand to do right and follow truth, you will have an influence that will be worth having, and which will tell for the good of men and for the salvation of souls. But if you follow the careless multitude for fear of losing your influence, you will be like thistle down in the wind, blown about by the gusts of fashion, the creature of influence, but exerting none—except on the wrong side. Will you walk in the light, and stand by those God has called to lead out in the last work of reform? or will you desert them and the cause of truth, for fear of losing your influence. Perhaps you say, If I were in the circumstances of some, I would follow the right; but in my circumstances it will not do. The people of my neighborhood or village are the elite, the “upper ten,” and to have any influence over them, I must conform to their customs. Then you yield the right for the sake of an influence over them that are wrong. And all your influence now is to keep them wrong. Rather than to be tauntingly called a judge in Sodom, you choose to say by your practice that they are all in the right way. If the place where you live is really so bad that you cannot obey God and live out the truth, leave it before it sink and you perish with it. You can, if you will, obey God and live out the truth. Then you will have an influence that is worth something. R. F. COTTRELL.