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Selfishness Rebuked
477
I fear that you will not realize this sufficiently to put them away
and become like your self-denying Redeemer, pure and unselfish,
your life characterized by disinterested benevolence. Your influence
and example are such as to cause some who love the truth and
work of God, and who value our faith, to lose their spirit of self-
sacrifice and their interest in the cause of present truth. Your selfish,
covetous course begets the same spirit in them; and your disposition
to grasp and advantage yourself, while professing to be a minister of
righteousness, has closed the hearts of very many against giving of
their means to advance the cause of truth. If ministers set the people
an example of selfishness, that example will tell upon the cause of
God with tenfold greater power than all their preaching can.
God has been dishonored by your littleness. Your deal has sa-
vored of dishonesty. You have not made a clean track behind you,
and until there is an entire transformation in your life, you will be a
living curse to any church where you reside. You work for wages,
and would not kindle a fire upon the altar of God, or shut the doors,
for nought. When you set the people an example of self-sacrifice and
of devotion to the cause of God, making the truth and the salvation
of the soul primary, then your influence will bring others into the
same position of self-sacrifice and devotion, to make the kingdom of
heaven and the righteousness of Christ first. You feel authorized to
advantage yourself from the cause. Your brethren, from the liberality
of their souls, favor and help you in various ways, and you receive it
[546]
as a matter of course, as your due. And if any are not perfectly free
with you, and do not favor you, you are jealous, and do not scruple
to let them understand that you are not appreciated, and that they
are selfish. You frequently refer to others who have done thus and
so by you, as examples that they should imitate. These who have
especially favored you have gone beyond their duty. You have not
earned their confidence or their liberalities. You have had no heavy
burdens to bear in this cause, and you have cast on others many more
burdens than you have lifted; yet you have been gaining in property,
and obtaining the good things of this life, and you regard it all as
your right. Though you have received your weekly wages, you have
not always been satisfied. Notwithstanding the pay you received,
you have been managing continually to advantage yourself. The