DO THYSELF NO HARM. 
 
 When an individual is observed to be yielding more 
 and more to the ensnaring power of strong drink, or of 
 profanity, Sabbath-breaking, immorality, and neglect of 
 the great salvation, lie replies to any voice of warning: 
 "If I am doing wrong, I am injuring only myself — I do 
 no one else any harm." But even were this true — which 
 it is not; for, such a man by his influence, example 
 and connection with oiliers, is doing serious injuiy to 
 all around him — Ik; forgets that in doing harm to him- 
 self lie sins against God and incurs his wrath. God 
 says: " Thou shalt love thyself;" and God also says, 
 "Do thyself no harm." 
 
 Now look at the harm you have done yourself already. 
 
 1. In regard to your character. A most precious gift 
 of God is youi reason. Its dictates would have led you 
 to God in sweet obedience and confiding love; but they 
 have not been obeyed. You are a moral being, and 
 capable of noble and delightful emotions toward all 
 holy beings, similar to those that fill the bosom of an- 
 gels; but all the impulses which would have led you to 
 harmony of feeling and character with God and nil the 
 good, have been resisted Dependent, too, as you have 
 been, on the divine kindness for every blessing, you 
 have yet been a stranger to pious gratitude. The no- 
 blest motU'es that ever invited a rational being into the 
 service of his Maker, have been addressed to you in 
 vain. You may stand fair before the world; but every 
 tie that has bound you to God, has been broken. Can 
 you look on the map of life and point out any spot, and 
 say, " There I sincerely and cordially sought to glorify 
 God?" Men may praise you; but were all the holy 
 beings in the universe to give their decision, you would 
 sink overwhelmed by the unanimous voice of condem- 
 nation. Nothing stamps a rational being with such dis- 
 honor as sin, and in your case there is not one act of 
 holy obedience to relieve the dark picture. 
 
 2. S^e, too, the harm done your happiness. You 
 have been a stranger to the pure and holy joys of God's 
 service. You might have seen the world in which you 
 dwell radiant with the beauty and glory of God, and 
 
% A DO THYSELF NO HARM. 
 
 might have tasted the sweetest pleasures from the 
 vision, had you not suffered sin to darken and pervert 
 your mind. Your early acceptance of Christ would 
 have opened a fountain of holy joys, and the streams 
 issuing from it would have run along parallel with the 
 whole path of life. » But direct! ;/ have you done vour 
 happiness harm. You hare violated the laws of your 
 moral nature by disobeying God. The wounded flesh 
 does not more certainly insure pain than the wounded 
 spirit. Suffering treads in the footsteps of transgression. 
 You have fell the painful rebukes of a guilty con- 
 science. You have realized an aching void in your 
 soul, which all you have gained of the world has not 
 been able to fill. You may have drank of tin 1 sweets of 
 earthly bliss; but they have been often turned lo bitter 
 waters by the consciousness that you were starving an 
 immortal mind. 
 
 3. See, too, the harm you have done your usefulness. 
 Had you followed the first impulse you felt to a life of 
 piety, by yielding your heart to the gospel's first ap- 
 peal, what a blessed influence you might have shed 
 around you. What salutary rebukes you would have 
 administered lo evil-doers, and what joyful and animat- 
 ing encouragement to fellow-disciples. Your example, 
 prayers and labors might have turned many from sin 
 and death. One and another, now departed, might 
 have gone exulting into eternity, praising God for your 
 happy influence over them, and be now waiting to wel- 
 come you to the same happy home in heaven. 
 
 4. Most of all, consider the peril into which you have 
 brought your soul. Here has been a dreadful desola- 
 tion. I3y resisting all the holy and reasonable will of 
 God, you have obliged him to become a consuming fire 
 against you. Look at this awful attitude of his holy 
 government: "Cursed is every one that continue! h not 
 in all things written in the book of the law to do them." 
 Now look at another more terrific still, if possible: "Of 
 how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be 
 thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of 
 God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, 
 wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath 
 done despite unto the spirit of grace ?" All the holy 
 universe would approve the instant infliction upon you 
 
DO THYSELF NO HARM. 3 
 
 of'the sentence of eternal banishment from the presence 
 of God. lis immediate execution nothing but sovereign 
 mercy prevents. 
 
 Have you not, then, already done yourself harm? 
 Linger now, for a moment, on another point. You are 
 the '.sole author of all tin's evil. The combined agency 
 of all the wicked in the universe could not have done 
 you this injury, irrespective of your own will. Who 
 but yourself debased your noble powers to the service 
 of sin? What hindered you from exerting the best in- 
 fluence on the best welfare of others, but your love and 
 practice of iniquity ? What has robbed you of the joys 
 'of holy obedience, but your refusal to obey? 
 
 But the harm already done will be greatly increased 
 by continuance in sin. 
 
 I. In respert to character. All the dark hues of ouih 
 will grow darker. Actions dishonorable to vou a* a 
 rational being, and such is every sin, are rapidly accu- 
 mulating; and each adds a deeper shade to the already 
 melancholy picture. One sin blasted the honor of the 
 angels that fell, and banished them from heaven. One 
 sin drove our first parents in ignominy from the garden 
 of Eden. If one sin stamps the soul with ignominy, 
 what is done when increa>ing years of guilt multiply 
 sins by millions? To what a depth, O, sinner, are you 
 plunging. You are sinking in the view of God and m 11 
 holy beings. And to such a point is the matter rapidly 
 hastening, that God, in awful justice, will suffer you to 
 sink where the shame of sin shall be eternal. 
 
 2. See, too, the increasing harm to happiness. Sin is 
 hastening to consume every form of it, like a devouring 
 fire. The last draught from the cup of worldly pleasure 
 will soon be taken, and sin will leave your ^oul incapa- 
 ble of any other. It has already cut you ofF from hap- 
 piness in God, and when the poor joys of this life are 
 over, the cup will be empty forever. There is no de- 
 stroyer of happiness so terrible as sin. It cuts off the 
 branch and tears up the root, and burns them both 
 together. 
 
 3. Go on in ui repented sin, and tin 1 spiritual and 
 eternal welfare of not one human being will be promoted 
 by your earthly existence. How melancholy the 
 
4 DO THYSELF NO HARM. 
 
 thought, that you should complete your career on earth 
 under il;e accusation of having never exerted the 
 smallest direct and holy influence to turn a perishing 
 sinner to G<hI. Persisting in sin will involve you in 
 the guilt of knowing that multitudes around you are in 
 danger of everlasting burnings, and yet leaving them 
 unblest by a single prayer in their behalf, or a single 
 warning of their danger. Useless! Oh, think- of it, 
 amid the rnost exciting motives to do good known any- 
 where in the creation of God. Useless, that when God 
 has revealed lhat every sincere effort for man's salva- 
 tion shall meet a gracious, an eternal reward! Useless, 
 when through Divine grace, you might have turned 
 many to righteousness, and with them have shone " as 
 the stars for ever and ever!" 
 
 4. Go on, sinner, ami the harm will he fully done in 
 the ruin OF your soul. The danger is not in the fact 
 of past guilt, vast as that guilt has been. Your mad- 
 ness and folly have indeed fired your dwelling, but you 
 need not peru-h in the flames. The devouring woes of 
 the law's vengeance may be repelled by " the Lion 
 of the tribe of Judah," and all your guilt washed 
 away in his atoning blood. .No past sin necessarily 
 seals your doom ; it is the commission of another, the 
 rejection of the Loul Jesus Cluht. Here is the dreadful 
 peril. ll He that believeih not the Son, shall not see 
 life ; but the wrath of God abideih on him." 
 
 Let the btuev'f encc of this warning touch your heart. 
 Paul's cry to the Phillippian jailer stayed his hand, 
 and saved him from the guilt of self murder. 
 
 Ii is, too, a timely warning. Had Paul's voice reached 
 the jailer a moment later, it would have found him wel- 
 tering in his blood. But it came in time. So does this. 
 
 It may be the List warning. Think of that. God's 
 patience has been amazing toward you ; but it has a 
 boundary. Your rejecting of this warning may be the 
 only drop wanting to fill the cup of iniquity. Oh, that 
 you would heed the ap|**al, perhaps to be repeated no 
 
 more, DO THYSELF NO HAItM. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTH CAROLINA TRACE' SOCIETY. 
 
 Printed by li^aus <fc Cogswell, No. 3 Broad street, Charleston, S. C. 
 
Hollinger Corp. 
 P H8.5 
 
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