p. 16 | For His Good

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 12.

For His Good

For His Good.—A rhymster in the Chicago Record notes in various verses the taking of the Philippines and other islands, the wars in China and South Africa, all for the good of those warred against, and closes thus:—

“There’s a moral to my song, But it won’t detain you long; For I couldn’t make it plainer if I would; If you dare commit a wrong On the weak because you’re strong, You may do it—if you do it for his good.”

Many of the “benevolent” schemes of this world will look far different in the judgment of God.

Sin has affected not only this earth, but the universe; for “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Rom. 8:22. All God’s creation is in normal sympathy and accord. When discord entered thru sin it marred the music of the whole. A little broken cog on a distant shaft affects the fly-wheel of the great engine. The prick of a pin on the little toe affects heart and brain of a great man. So the sin and its curse upon this little world have affected the harmony of the universe of God. Could astronomers and scientists but take this fact into account they would reason more correctly than they now frequently do. The knowledge would better help them to adjust their reckonings and explain many things now unexplained.

Objects of Worship.—One of our correspondents recalls the homage paid a noted actress throughout the United States, the worship of a native saint in the Philippines, in which the United States soldiers took part, the carnivals and orgies of certain orders and secret societies, and asks, “Whom do the people of the United States worship?” Well, friend, they mostly worship, as men have in all ages, self. “Men shall be lovers of self.” Sometimes this idolatry is manifest in outward images of the form of selfishness most dominant, sometimes not. The only cure there is for this idolatry is the religion of Jesus Christ.

Train your boys to do something. “An idle brain is the devil’s workshop.” “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” These are divine truths. Jesus learned the carpenter’s trade. Paul was a tent-maker. Moses was a shepherd. God gave man work as a blessing. One penitentiary warden declared that less than one per cent. of his prisoners had a trade. In his penitentiary he never had a shoemaker, a carpenter, a tailor, or a printer. There was only one man in the prison who claimed to have a trade; he said he was a painter, and this was doubtful.

“Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us; Rest from all petty vexations that meet us; Rest from sin’s promptings that ever entreat us; Rest from world sirens that lure us to ill.”