To Do Good Your Must Do More Than Do Good. You Must Tell of the Good Done.

“Does any reader of this paper want to do good in the world? I hope that many do. He is a poor style of Christian who does not wish to leave the world better, when he leaves it, than it was when he entered it. Take the advice I give you this day. Beware of being content with half-measures and inadequate remedies for the great spiritual disease of mankind. You will only labour in vain if you do not show men the blood of the Lamb. Like the fabled Sisyphus, however much you strive, you will find the stone ever rolling back upon you. Education, teetotalism, cleaner dwellings, popular concerts, blue ribbon leagues, white cross armies, penny readings, museums, —all, all are very well in their way; but they only touch the surface of man’s disease: they do not go to the root. They cast out the devil for a little season; but they do not fill his place, and prevent him coming back again. Nothing will do that but the story of the cross applied to the conscience by the Holy Ghost, and received and accepted by faith. Yes! it is the blood of Christ, not his example only, or his beautiful moral teaching, but his vicarious sacrifice that meets the wants of the soul. …If we want to do good, we must make much of the blood of Christ. There is only one fountain that can cleanse anyone’s sin. That fountain is the blood of the Lamb.” —J.C. Ryle, The Upper Room