Men and Things by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 20, 1871

Men and Things.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

COURAGE FOR THE ERRING.

Alas! how sad and humiliating it is to learn by personal experience, that “to err, is human.” When a well-disposed soul has been betrayed into wrong, and has grievously sinned, what a terrible feeling of discouragement and despair comes over him! This is specially true of those who have time after time resolved to overcome and do right, and yet sometimes find that their strong tempers and passions have, in an unguarded moment, led them into wrong. Now the enemy tells them it is no use to try longer. They have always failed and they always will. They look with envy upon those who have such good tempers that they move along smoothly without falling into these great mistakes and trials.

Such persons are really worthy of pity and of encouragement, and for the benefit of such, I copy the following from the Rev. A. M. Wylie. It did me good, and hence I think it may help others in the same condition:—

“It is not the having of temper which does mischief, but the permitting of it to get the mastery. It is the super-heated steam outside the boiler which causes desolation and death; inside, its immense energy spends itself in the direction of good.

“We take it that every man whose life is marked by a well-sustained purpose and energy, is a man of temper. Temper suppressed and worked off by rule, gives grit to a regulated life. And it is almost as important that a man should have grit, as that he should have grace.

“No parent and no teacher will rule and instruct well, and enjoy success in his labor, unless he be a person possessed of more or less intensity of passion. Yet he may be known as one who is amiable and meek. Meekness is not a stagnant pond, but the calm produced by two opposing currents. Here is an intense power running in one direction, and here is an intense power running the opposite way; and the space where these meet is a region of placidity and calm. But, however amiable and meek that person may seem to lookers-on, he or she is a person whose affections, passions, and appetites, have force.

“Just here we find the explanation of the admitted fact that very bad men, in truth, those who have been ringleaders in wickedness—who have been marked by boldness and bravery in sin—have become, after their conversion, eminent leaders in the aggressive work of God. It took a Saul to make a Paul.

“Now, if you are a person of what is called temper—if you often lament this disposition, you have reason to be really encouraged. Rely upon it, the persons who overcome this wicked world, and tread it down beneath their feet, are not the loose-jointed, easy-going class, whose bones are all soft gristle.”

It is a very sad and censurable thing to do wrong; but having done wrong, then the most noble thing that can be done is to frankly and fully confess the sin. Few hearts are so hard as to hold enmity against a person who will do this. But it must be done freely and without compulsion. A confession which is wrung out of a person is worthless. David sinned grievously; but see how humbly and fully he confessed it. Ps. 51:1–17; 32:5. Because of this, God pardoned him. See the ardent, impetuous Peter, one moment willing to die for his Master, the next moment denying him, cursing and swearing, and then bitterly repenting with weeping and tears! We pity and yet we love him; and so did his Lord. Peter was a very weak man in some respects, and yet a strong and noble soul in others. Probably these things kept him humble all through life, so that he felt his dependence on the Lord. Then his ardor and energy, being controlled by grace, became very useful in the Lord’s cause. If the Lord could forgive and love Peter, then he can also help us now who are troubled in the same manner.

A DARK PICTURE.

Our Home Monthly has the following:—

“The clergymen cost the United States $12,000,000 annually; criminals, $40,000,000 annually; lawyers, $80,000,000; intoxicating drinks, $700,000,000.”

Yet this claims to be a Christian nation, and ministers think there is evidence of the millennium near at hand! Are they blind, or mad? While the people of the United States pay one dollar for the proclamation of the gospel, they pay sixty-eight for criminals, lawsuits, and liquor! It reminds one of the days of Noah and Lot.

DRESS AND THE CHURCH.

Of late, the church has become simply a place for display of dress and finery. The Christian Union thus laments over it:—

“There was a time when good taste demanded the use of the plainest clothes in the sanctuary, when the wealthiest were distinguished for their conspicuous absence of personal adornment, and sartorial display was a mark of vulgarity, at such times and places. But now-a-days, in the congregation, on the Sabbath, rich and poor alike seem on a desperate strain, the one to make some faint approximation to the other, in point of extravagant display, and the other to demonstrate to the one the utter hopelessness of the attempt. It would almost appear as if, whatever might be thought of the propriety of a modest garb in other places, the proper costume for the house of God, where, theoretically, we all go to be reminded of our common origin and destiny, were an agglomeration of all the jewelry, and all the chignons, and all the panniers, and all the feathers and furbelows in one’s wardrobe. The wearer is to carry all this piled agony to the sanctuary as to a fair—as if her errand were not so much to praise as to be appraised—and there employ the sacred time in envious comparison of her own mountain of millinery with the Himalayan triumphs of her neighbor.”

It pleads for a reform; but the case is hopeless. D. M. CANRIGHT.