Work! Work! Work! by C. H. Bliss

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1873

Work! Work! Work!

By C. H. Bliss

There are two kinds of work: Selfish and unselfish. Selfish work is that which springs from selfish motives; and the person who engages in it, labors expecting to receive a reward. Unselfish work is founded on the principle of love, and the laborer does not work for the sake of gaining a reward. Now it is this unselfish work that is pleasing to God, and there is plenty of it to do.

How many farmers who have been laboring hard during the last nine months will spend the next three winter months around the fireside, reading and gossiping with their neighbors over the financial and political troubles of the nation; and thus the long, cold, blue winter will drag heavily along till spring work comes in.

But I am about to suggest a plan by which this old winter may become a beautiful spring to us, and “December as pleasant as May.” It is this: As we have labored the last nine months for self, let us labor the next three months for the Lord—unselfish labor. Let every Seventh-day Adventist in the land take our periodicals, the Review, Instructor, and Reformer, and visit every family for miles around, and talk to them about Jesus, the Bible, and Bible truths, especially those truths which have been made void through tradition, and obtain subscribers for our periodicals, and scatter tracts wherever there is an interest to read. Oh! the good we might do if we were only awake to these things. Every one of us might be the means of leading some poor soul into the light of the truth; but we ought not to go about it carelessly, we should live near the Lord. It is a high and holy calling. If we spend the winter thus, our peace may be as a river; and during the heat and toil of the coming summer, we may look back upon it as a bright spot in our history. C. H. Bliss.