Duty Imperative by S. S. Times

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 19, 1885

Duty Imperative.

By S. S. Times

It is frequently a matter of choice whether one shall assume a certain responsibility or not; it is never a matter of choice whether or not one shall be faithful to a responsibility once assumed. A man puts himself in a responsible position, and God holds him there. Small excuse would it be for an unfaithful locomotive engineer to say that, as he climbed on his engine at the station by his own choice, so, when he saw danger ahead, by his own choice he had a perfect right to jump from his engine. Having deliberately placed his life between the lives behind and the possible death ahead, he is bound to keep it there to the last extremity. A man who decides to become a soldier signs his enlistment papers for himself; a man gets his death-warrant signed for him, if, after having voluntarily decided to become a soldier, he shirks a soldier's responsibility. He decides to be a soldier, and the Government decides that he shall be held to duty as a faithful soldier. Similarly each individual voluntarily chooses whether to accept Christ or not. Similarly the choice to be known as a Christian, brings obligations about which there is no choice at all. Church-going, Bible-reading, personal praying, religious conversing, Christian working,—each one of these duties is so imperative that it absolutely forbids choice. It were well for each Christian to remember that by his own former choosing he has assumed responsibilities as to whose obligations he has now no farther possibility of choice.—S. S. Times.