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SELFISHNESS

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 26, 1877

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 50, No. 5.

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SELFISHNESS

By Wm. Covert

I am led to think that selfishness besets every transgressor. Falsehoods are told through a selfish desire to mislead. Covetousness takes hold of the heart, and we try to get the advantage of our neighbor. Murder is committed for the sole purpose of gratifying the murderer, or perchance, to hide some crime. Theft is a sin that is committed in order to benefit the thief. Adultery is committed entirely through selfishness. Disrespect and disobedience to parents grow out of a disposition to have one's own way, which is a species of selfishness. Sabbath-breaking comes of selfishness; the transgressor wants to use the time which belongs to God for his own selfish ends. Profanity is a sign of an empty head more than of anything else, unless it be a depraved heart; but when we listen to the swearer for a while, we hear him asking God to curse some one, that he may be advantaged at the other's expense; or if he curses himself it is for the purpose of selfishly carrying some point that he is making. Peter says of those who are not afraid to speak evil of dignities that they are self-willed.
In image-worship and idolatry homage is paid to a false god that is generally supposed to grant indulgences for very gross sins, which are pleasing to the supremely selfish. Indeed, we cannot think of a sin that does not have its origin, either directly or indirectly, in this selfish disposition which seems to be so natural to the depraved heart. All the persecution that has ever been inflicted on the saints of God, all the evil treatment that has ever been endured by innocent ones, has only been the outcropping of the selfishness of their tormentors.
As with the great sins, so with the petty ones,—selfishness is at the bottom. When we hear a peevish person fretting, we know that the trouble is that he wants his own way, and he is fretting because his whims are not gratified. When we see a sour temper manifested, we know that the person has not had his own way.
Oh! how important it is that we do not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think! How earnestly we should strive, through divine aid, to overcome our selfishness. Until we do overcome this disposition, we can never obey the Golden Rule. Wm. COVERT.