Why We Should Love the Truth
By W. Hastings
DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS IN THE LORD: I feel a desire to say something to you through the Review concerning the love of the truth. And here let me ask: Why do we love the truth? Is it because it is the only means that can save us? This is all right so far as it goes: but I would here suggest that there are much deeper and stronger reasons why we should love God's truth. When we look at the government of God; we see it based upon principles which in themselves constitute the very height of holiness and moral perfection. First purity is an indispensable law of heaven. When we turn our thoughts to the myriads of holy angels who dwell there, and think that not one wrong desire or thought ever existed in all that countless throng, but all is forever spotless and pure; how transporting the thought! how charming the spectacle! Is not a scene like this worth loving. Again, justice is inseparably connected with the throne of heaven. The strictest truth and equity ever reign there. There it is that we behold the very height of moral perfection. It is there that we get a view of that order of things which alone is calculated to secure the highest possible good to the universe of God. O, who would dare breathe forth one unhallowed desire to enter in through the gates into that city with one contaminating stain upon his soul! Such a thought would be sacrilege! such a wish rebellion against God. We are to love the truth for its own sake. For its own inestimable value. The true Christian loves God, first, because he is a God of truth, and because he is the embodiment of all that is lovely in the universe; and, second, because of the blessings which he has secured, and expects to receive at his hands. The man who loves God merely because he expects to be saved in return, knows nothing of true love to God. O, brethren, do we love the truth above all other things? Are all our earthly interests swallowed up in our love to God and his cause? If so it will be a pleasure to do what little we can for the truth. If so it will at least cease to be painful to us to do what little we can for a cause we love so deeply—so fervently. But the regret will be on the other hand that so much must be done for other purposes and so little for the cause of God. Men will sustain what they love best at all hazards; and every thing that goes in any other direction is apt to be a source of regret with them. Our love of truth must be paramount to all other considerations, and then our duties will give us pleasure, and we shall be able to say from experience, that his yoke is easy and his burden light.
W. HASTINGS.
Wright, Mich.