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They Do no Harm

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 23, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 37, No. 23.

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They Do no Harm.

By H. A. St. John

WITH the design to praise some, it is said, “They are innocent, they do no harm;” and some professed Christians seem to suppose that following Christ consists in doing no harm. Now it is evident that a log or a stone may receive the same praise, they do no harm. It was a boast of the Pharisees that they did no evil; our Saviour added that we must do good. It is not enough that we eschew evil, but we must learn to do well, if we would be approved of God. It is not written of our divine Lord that he went about doing no harm; but that he went about doing good. In this he set us an example. Occasionally we meet with careful, timid souls, whose chief study appears to be to do no harm; and they are satisfied in proportion as their lives are free from actual wrong doing. No doubt but most of us are affected and influenced more or less by this false idea. It is right, most certainly, to avoid doing harm; but the only proper, successful, and scriptural way to avoid doing evil, is to do good; to so fill up our working moments with well-doing that evil shall have no place.
When will the commandment-keeping people of God awake to a sense of their high calling? Let all who want eternal life set their faces as a flint heavenward. Do not be content with doing no evil, but faithfully gather with Christ. Let each night’s rest be sweetened by the consciousness of work done for Jesus through the day. This is your only salvation.
God’s people are a “peculiar people.” Their peculiarity consists in being “zealous of good works;” and as their zeal for good works increases, their peculiarity will increase. Have we a name with God’s peculiar people? Then let us grow up to the perfect stature of men and women in Christ Jesus. Hear Paul: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 15 : 58. For myself, it is my earnest wish, and prayer, to be “in labors more abundant.”
H. A. ST. JOHN.
Townsend, Ohio.