THEY ALL DO IT | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 6, 1877

“THEY ALL DO IT.”

There are few books that comprise as much vicious teaching within a space of four or five hundred pages as is contained in this little phrase, “They all do it,” which has been placarded on the bill-boards, and called into the ears of the public, for some time past. This is the one sentence which takes the courage completely out of youth, searing their consciences as with a red-hot iron, and permitting despair to carry them off bodily into the depths of crime.

“Oh, they all do it: why should not you?” That is the suggestion. “That man there lies and cheats, and will commit any crime which the law does not make dangerous. So it is with all of them. There is no use in your trying to be different from other people.” This is the way the temptation comes to the young man thrown on the world with little knowledge of its ways, and perhaps shielded only by the loose training of an over-fond mother. “People are grossly immoral,” it is said. “Even temperance advocates get drunk in private; and church deacons swindle savings banks. All you see of morality is but a surface show; beneath there is concealed wickedness. You will find you must follow the multitude.” And the youth, with the pleasure of the world thus held up before his glowing imagination, and full of bodily health, plunges forthwith into what he believes to be “the world.”

If the devil had concentrated all his cunning during the centuries which have elapsed since his ejection from paradise, he could not have produced a more powerful argument with which to conquer the soul of man than this, “They all do it.”

But, young man, listen. That sentence is a lie, as base and foul a lie as ever was conceived in the mind of man or devil. They don’t “all do it.” There are thousands upon thousands of good, pure men and women in this world, bad as it may seem, who are leading upright lives. They believe in God, and in the commands of virtue, and are going along with the happiest results to themselves and their neighbors. There are men who think they are put into this world, not to gratify their own base appetites, but to be true and noble and high-minded men. There are men who would disdain to tell a lie. There are men who would disdain to be accessory to a woman’s fall. There are men who would disdain to take an advantage in trade, or to do any other selfish or mean action. There are men who try to be just always, and kindly, both in words and feelings, to all. There are men who lead humble, unpretentious lives, and who, without making it known to the world, are daily doing a vast amount of good among their fellow-men.

And—is it strange to say?—these men lead very happy lives, and as a rule are very successful. While the unprincipled man may enjoy temporary success, sooner or later he will suffer for his lack of honesty. There are a thousand ways in which virtue avenges herself upon him. But in one way or another he gets his deserts. There are plenty of criminals around you, it is true. But they are to be pitied, not imitated. Never believe that what some do, all do: make in your own person a standing example of the falsity of “They all do it.”—The True Citizen.