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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
overshadowed with a cloud, desponding, and frequently sad. They
felt a lack of the Spirit of God.
Dear Brother P, you should at all times be circumspect in your
conversation. Has God called you to be a representative of Christ
upon earth, in His stead beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God?
This is a solemn, exalted work. When you cease speaking in the desk,
that work is but just begun. You are not released from responsibilities
when out of meeting, but should still maintain your consecration to
the work of saving souls. You are to be a living epistle, known and
read of all men. Ease is not to be consulted. Pleasure is not to be
thought of. The salvation of souls is the all-important theme. It is to
this work that the minister of the gospel of Christ is called. He must
maintain good works out of meeting and adorn his profession by his
godly conversation and circumspect deportment. Frequently, after
your pulpit labor is over and you are seated with company around the
fireside, you have, by your unconsecrated conversation, counteracted
your efforts in the pulpit. You must live out what you preach as duty
to others, and must take upon yourself, as you never yet have done,
the burden of the work, the weight of responsibility which should
rest upon every minister of Christ. Confirm the labor bestowed in
the desk by following it up with private effort. Engage in judicious
conversation upon present truth, candidly ascertaining the state of
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mind of those present, and in the fear of God making a practical
application of important truth to the cases of those with whom you
are associated. You have failed to be instant in season, out of season,
to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine.
As a watchman upon the walls of Zion, constant watchfulness
is necessary. Your vigilance must not abate. Educate yourself to be
able to appeal to families around the fireside. You can accomplish
even more in this direction than by your pulpit labors alone. Watch
for souls as one that must give an account. Give no occasion for
unbelievers to charge you with remissness in this duty, by neglecting
to appeal to them personally. Talk with them faithfully, and beseech
them to yield to the truth. “For we are unto God a sweet savor of
Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one
we are the savor of death unto death, and to the other the savor of
life unto life.” As the apostle views the magnitude of the work and
the weighty responsibilities resting upon the minister, he exclaims: