STAND FOR THE TRUTH

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 32.

STAND FOR THE TRUTH.

LET me advise you to wear no armor for your backs when you have determined to follow the track of truth. Receive upon your breastplate of righteousness the sword cuts of your adversaries; their stern metal shall turn the edge of your foeman's weapon. Let the right be your lord paramount, and for the rest be free and your own masters still. Follow truth for her own sake; follow her in evil report; let not many waters quench your love to her. Bow to no customs if they be evil. Yield to no established rules if they involve a lie. Do not evil even though good should come of it.

"Consequence!" this is the devil's argument. Leave consequences to God, but do the right. If friends fail thee, do the right. If foemen surround thee, do the right. Be genuine, real, sincere, true, upright, and god-like. The world's maxim is, trim your sails and yield to circumstances. But if you would do any good in your generation, you must be made of sterner stuff, and help make your times rather than be made by them.

You must not yield to customs, but, like the anvil, endure all the blows until the hammers break themselves. When misrepresented, use no crooked means to clear yourself. Clouds do not last long. If in the course of duty you are tried by the distrust of friends, gird up your loins and say in your heart, I was not driven to virtue by the encouragement of friends, nor will I be repelled from it by their coldness. Finally, be just, and fear not; "corruption wins not more than honesty;" truth lives and reigns when falsehood dies and rots.—Mr. Spurgeon's New Lecture on "Counterfeits."