THE USES OF AN ENEMY by Rev. Dr. Deems

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 11, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 11

THE USES OF AN ENEMY.

By Rev. Dr. Deems

ALWAYS keep an enemy in hand, a brisk, hearty active enemy.

Remark the uses of an enemy.

1. The having one is proof that you are somebody. Wishy-washy, empty, worthless people never have enemies. Men who never move, never run against anything; and when a man is thoroughly dead and utterly buried, nothing ever runs against him. To be run against is proof of existence and position; to run against something is proof of motion.

2. An enemy is, to say the least, not partial to you. He will not flatter. He will not exaggerate your virtues. It is very probable that he will slightly magnify your faults. The benefit of that is twofold—it permits you to know that you have faults, and are, therefore, not a monster, and it makes them of such size as to be visible and manageable. Of course, if you have a fault, you desire to know it; when you become aware that you have a fault, you desire to correct it. Your enemy does for you this valuable work which your friend cannot perform.

3. In addition, your enemy keeps you wide awake. He does not let you sleep at your post. There are two that always keep watch, namely, the lover and the hater. Your lover watches that you may sleep. He keeps off noises, excludes light, adjusts surroundings, that nothing may disturb you. Your hater watches that you may not sleep. He stirs you up when you are napping. He keeps your faculties on the alert. Even when he does nothing, he will have put you in such a state of mind that you cannot tell what he will do next, and this mental qui vive must be worth something.

4. He is a detective among your friends. You need to know who are your friends, and who are not, and who are your enemies. The last of these three will discriminate the other two. When your enemy goes to one who is neither friend nor enemy, and assails you, the indifferent one will have nothing to say or chime in, not because he is your enemy, but because it is so much easier to assent than to oppose, and especially to refute. But your friend will take up cudgels for you on the instant. He will deny everything, and insist on proof, and proving is very hard work. There is scarcely a truthful man in the world who could afford to undertake to prove one-tenth of all his truthful assertions. Your friend will call your enemy to the proof, and if the indifferent person, through carelessness, repeats the assertions of your enemy, he is soon made to feel the inconvenience thereof by the zeal which your friend manifests. Follow your enemy around and you will find your friends, for he will have developed them so that they cannot be mistaken.

The next best thing to having a hundred real friends is to have one open enemy. But let us pray to be delivered from secret foes.—Rev. Dr. Deems.