p. 79 | The Golden Rule by H. M. Wilkinson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 19, 1873

The Golden Rule.

By H. M. Wilkinson

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”

WELL may this be called the golden rule. If it were strictly followed, by all the professed followers of Christ, what a different state of things would exist. And if all who profess to believe and live out the present truth were carefully to follow this rule, how many hard feelings among brethren and sisters would be saved; how many church trials would be avoided. Let us examine the rule closely, and also examine our own hearts, to see whether we are more earnest to apply it to ourselves, than to some brother or sister who may seem to us not quite right; and even if we really see wrongs in others, instead of talking them over with this or that one, how much better to ask ourselves if that is the way we would like to have a brother or sister do by us, and then follow the rule and do as we would be done by.

We have not yet attained unto perfection, but are all liable to err; and when we do, would it help us to find out in some way that a brother or sister had been talking over our faults in a way to lead others to think less of us, while they had never mentioned to us that they thought we were wrong? How much better to ask our kind Heavenly Father to show the erring their wrongs, and leave the case with him, unless we can really help them by going to them with our own hearts full of love and tender pity, realizing and acknowledging ourselves equally liable to go astray.

If our hearts are filled with the love of God, we shall love each other, and if we really love one another, as Jesus commanded, it will be easy to do to others as we would that they should do to us. If we do not feel the love we ought, toward every one of our brethren and sisters, (even though they may sometimes err, and perhaps have injured us) let us read the life of our Saviour, and meditate upon his amazing love for us poor sinners, which led him to leave the glory of his Father and come into this world of sin and be “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” And, finally forsaken by his friends, when taken by a furious mob and cruelly mocked and scourged, and nailed to the cross: in his last agonies, while having the sins of the whole world upon him, and his Father's face hidden from him as he cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” even in that dark hour he prayed, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” As we meditate upon his life and sufferings, we feel to exclaim, What wondrous love! Shall anything separate us from the love of Christ? We are living in a time of great peril. Satan is active and is trying in every way to scatter and divide the people of God. Shall we be ignorant of his devices?

H. M. WILKINSON.

New Ipswich, N. H.