True Refinement in the Ministry
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turned souls from the truth by a harsh, censorious, overbearing spirit.
Your words have not been in the gentleness of Christ, but in the spirit of
E. Your nature is naturally coarse and unrefined, and because you have
never felt the necessity of true refinement and Christian politeness,
your life has not been as elevated as it might have been.
You have remained in the rut of habit. Your education and training
have not been correct, and therefore your efforts should have been the
more earnest to improve, to reform, and make decided and thorough
changes. Unless you realize a decided and thorough conversion in
almost every respect you are entirely unfitted to preach the truth, and
unless you can have a proper and becoming elevation of character,
manners, and address, you will do more harm than you can do good.
You have not done much in advancing the truth, for you have lingered
about the churches too much, when you could do them no good, but
only injury. Your ways and manners need refining and sanctifying.
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You should no longer mar the work of God by your deficiencies, since
you have shown no decided improvement in becoming a workman in
the cause of God.
It is impossible for you to bring others up to any higher standard
than that to which you yourself attain. If you do not advance, how can
you lead the church of God forward to a higher standard of piety and
holiness? All such ministers as you have been for several years are
more of a curse than a blessing to the cause of God, and the fewer we
have of them the more prosperous will be the cause of present truth.
You are not elevated in your ideas, or aspiring in your labors. You
are content to be commonplace and to make a cheap minister. You
do not aspire to perfection of Christian character and to that position
in the work that Christ requires every one of His chosen ministers to
attain. No one professing to bear the truth to others is fitted for the
responsible work unless he is making advancement in knowledge and
in consecration to the work, and is improving his manners and temper,
and growing in true wisdom from day to day. Close communion with
God is necessary for every man who would guide souls into the truth.
It should ever be borne in mind by those who take upon themselves the
burden of guiding souls out of nature’s darkness into the marvelous
light that they themselves must be advancing in that light, else how
can they lead others? If they are walking in darkness themselves, it is