People are just as prone now as in the days when Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians to insist on their “right” to do whatever they think there is “no harm” in. “An idol does not affect meat one way or the other,” said Paul. “Very well,” replies the Corinthian Christian. “Mr. A. invites me to dine with him to-night, and I am going. He will have on his table parts of an animal which he has just been sacrificing in the temple of Venus, but what of that? He might have sold it to the butcher, and then if I had bought it, no harm would have come of eating it.” “Not so fast,” says the apostle. “If that supper is part of the worship even of an idol, you may dishonor Christ, of whose body you have partaken, by even seeming to worship other spirits. And even if you could afford it, others would stumble.” “But shall my liberty be circumscribed by the narrow-mindedness of another?” “Certainly,” says the apostle. “That is what we live for—to help others, not to eat and drink.”
(973)
It counts for much when men in high station have the moral courage to condemn unworthy things.
President Taft walked out of a local theater in the first year he was President because he disapproved of the character of the play that was being produced. Friends of the President said that he was disgusted with the performance. The first act was too much for Mr. Taft and his sister-in-law. They saw nothing amusing, interesting or instructive in the depiction of typical scenes in a house of bad character. In order to avoid attracting attention and exciting comment by going out while the players were on the stage, they waited until the curtain fell on the first act and then left the theater.
(974)
See [Courage]; [Living the Gospel]; [Precept and Practise].
EXAMPLE, ATTENTION TO
It is related of William E. Gladstone that at one time, when he was a mere boy, he was invited to dine at the home of a distinguished nobleman in England, who was also an official of high rank.
His father, fearing that the child might in some way make himself appear ridiculous in the eyes of the prominent gentry who were to assemble at the same dining-table, gave him the parting injunction, “Watch your host and do just as he does.”