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STRAINING AT A GNAT, AND SWALLOWING A CAMEL

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 13, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 20

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STRAINING AT A GNAT, AND SWALLOWING A CAMEL.

By William Covert

BY ELD. WM COVERT.
We frequently meet with persons who are having a very unpleasant time over an imaginary wrong in some one else. They are continually picking at the dust in somebody’s eye, while their own eyes are full of beams. The following is a truthful illustration of this point: A brother in one of our churches came to me a few days ago, and asked if I was in Battle Creek last Christmas. When I informed him that I was, he remarked that I must have seen the “Christmas tree.” He then began straining at the supposed gnat. He was quite certain that the Adventists were backsliding, or they never would have resorted to such a mode of raising money. He spoke as though he was sighing over the departed innocence of our people.
When I had explained to him the nature of the meetings and “trees” referred to, I began to inquire how he had learned of the Christmas tree, when he told me that he read of it in the REVIEW. I learned, however, that he borrowed the paper that contained the report. He had stopped taking the paper, because the subscription price is too high. He is not too poor to take it, but the publishers are speculating out of the brethren, and he is too conscientious to uphold them in it. I did not hear of his grumbling about the price of tobacco, though he uses it freely. Upon further inquiry, I learned that he had not paid a cent on the Tabernacle expenses; that he had ceased to pay S. B.; and that he was not doing anything in the tract and missionary work. He was not spending a penny to in any way help forward the cause of the Lord, yet he was making suggestions about the way the work should be done. I think this man has swallowed the “camel,” and is now afraid of choking on the “gnat.”
I wish to ask if this is a fair sample of our grumbling friends. If so, may Heaven pity them.