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Testimonies for the Church Volume 7
A Demonstration of Christian Principles
We are not only to publish the theory of the truth, but to present a
practical illustration of it in character and life. Our publishing insti-
tutions are to stand before the world as an embodiment of Christian
principles. In these institutions, if God’s purpose for them is fulfilled,
Christ Himself stands at the head of the working forces. Holy angels
supervise the work in every department. And all that is done in every
line is to bear the impress of heaven, to show forth the excellence of
the character of God.
God has ordained that His work shall be presented to the world
in distinct, holy lines. He desires His people to show by their lives
the advantage of Christianity over worldliness. By His grace every
provision has been made for us in all our transaction of business to
demonstrate the superiority of heaven’s principles over the principles
of the world. We are to show that we are working upon a higher
plane than that of worldlings. In all things we are to manifest purity
of character, to show that the truth received and obeyed makes the
receivers sons and daughters of God, children of the heavenly King,
and that as such they are honest in their dealings, faithful, true, and
upright in the small as well as the great things of life.
In all our work, even in mechanical lines, God desires that the
perfection of His character shall appear. The exactness, skill, tact,
wisdom, and perfection which He required in the building of the
earthly tabernacle, He desires to have brought into everything that
shall be done in His service. Every transaction entered into by His
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servants is to be as pure and as precious in His sight as were the gold
and frankincense and myrrh which in sincere, uncorrupted faith the
Wise Men from the East brought to the infant Saviour.
Thus in their business life Christ’s followers are to be light bearers
to the world. God does not ask them to make an effort to shine. He
approves of no self-satisfied attempt to display superior goodness. He
desires that their souls shall be imbued with the principles of heaven,
and then, as they come in contact with the world, they will reveal the
light that is in them. Their honesty, uprightness, and steadfast fidelity
in every act of life will be a means of illumination.
The kingdom of God comes not with outward show. It comes
through the gentleness of the inspiration of His word, through the