I Did as The Rest Did

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 7, 1858

“I Did as The Rest Did.”

This tame, yielding spirit—this doing “as the rest did”—has ruined thousands.

A young man is invited by vicious companions to visit the theatre, or the gambling room or other haunts of licentiousness. He becomes dissipated, spends his time, loses his credit, squanders his property, and at last sinks into an untimely grave. What ruined him? Simply “doing what the rest did.”

A father has a family of sons. He is wealthy. Other children in the same situation of life do so and so, are indulged in this thing and that. He indulges his own in the same way. They grow up idlers, triflers, and fops. The father wonders why his children do not succeed better. He has spent so much money on their education, has given them great advantages; but, alas! they are only a source of vexation and trouble. Poor man, he is just paying the penalty of “doing as the rest did.”

The poor mother strives hard to bring up her daughters genteelly. They learn what others do, to paint, to sing, to play, to dance, and several useful matters. In time they marry; their husbands are not able to support their extravagance, and they are soon reduced to poverty and wretchedness. The good woman is astonished. “Truly,” says she, “I did as the rest did.”

The sinner, following the example of others, puts off repentance, and neglects to prepare for death. He passes along through life, till, unawares, death strikes the blow. He has no time left to prepare. And he goes down to destruction, because he was so foolish as to “do as the rest did.”—Golden Rule.