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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
lives and character of others, the friendly intercourse will prove a
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source of evil, and your influence will be a savor of death unto death.
I cannot distinctly call to mind all the persons in your church who
were shown me; but I saw that many had a great work to perform.
There is too much talking by nearly all, and too little meditation
and prayer. With many there is too much selfishness. The mind
is devoted to self and not to the good of others. Satan’s power is
upon you in a great degree. Yet there are precious lights among you,
and those who are seeking to walk according to the will of God.
Pride and the love of the world are the snares which are so great a
hindrance to spirituality and a growth in grace.
This world is not the Christian’s heaven, but merely the workshop
of God, where we are to be fitted up to unite with sinless angels
in a holy heaven. We should be constantly training the mind to
noble, unselfish thoughts. This education is necessary to so bring
into exercise the powers which God has given us that His name shall
best be glorified upon the earth. We are accountable for all the noble
qualities which God has given us, and to put these faculties to a use
He never designed we should is showing base ingratitude to Him.
The service of God demands all the powers of our being, and we fail
of meeting the design of God unless we bring these powers to a high
state of cultivation, and educate the mind to love to contemplate
heavenly things, and strengthen and ennoble the energies of the soul
by right actions, operating to the glory of God.
Women professing godliness generally fail to train the mind.
They leave it uncontrolled, to go where it will. This is a great
mistake. Many seem to have no mental power. They have not
educated the mind to think; and because they have not done this,
they suppose they cannot. Meditation and prayer are necessary to a
growth in grace. Why there is no more stability among women is
because of so little mental culture, so little reflection. Leaving the
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mind in a state of inaction, they lean upon others to do the brainwork,
to plan, and think, and remember for them, and thus grow more and
more inefficient. Some need to discipline the mind by exercise.
They should force it to think. While they depend upon someone
to think for them, to solve their difficulties, and they refuse to tax
the mind with thought, the inability to remember, to look ahead