Self-Caring Ministers
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teachings, to see the necessity of religious principle and righteousness
in everyday life. The people are not fed by the ministers of popular
churches, and souls are starving for food that will nourish and give
spiritual life.
Your life has not been marked with humbleness of mind and meek-
ness of deportment. You love God in word, but not in deed and in truth.
Your dignity is easily hurt. Ministers should first feel the sanctifying
influence of the truth upon their own hearts and in their own lives, and
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then their pulpit efforts will be enforced by their example out of the
desk. Ministers need to be softened and sanctified themselves before
God can in a special manner work with their efforts.
You have let slip the golden opportunity of gathering a harvest of
souls because it was impossible for God to work with your efforts, for
your heart was not right with Him. Your spirit was not pure before
Him who is the embodiment of purity and holiness. If you regard
iniquity in your heart, the Lord will not hear your prayer. Our God
is a jealous God. He knoweth the thoughts and the imaginations and
devices of the heart. You have followed your own judgment and made
a sad failure when you might have had success. There is too much at
stake in these efforts, to do the work negligently or recklessly. Souls
are being tested upon important, eternal truth, and what you may say
or do will have an influence to balance them in deciding either for or
against the truth. When you should have been in humility before God,
pleading for Him to work with your efforts, feeling the weight of the
cause and the value of souls, you have chosen the society of young
ladies, regardless of the sacred work of God and of your office as a
minister of the gospel of Christ. You were standing between the living
and the dead; yet you engaged in light and frivolous conversation, in
jesting and joking.
How can ministering angels be round about you, shedding light
upon you and imparting strength to you? When you should be seeking
to find ways and means to enlighten the minds of those in error and
darkness you are pleasing yourself and are too selfish to engage in a
work for which you have no inclination or love. If our position is criti-
cized by those who are investigating, you have but little patience with
them. You frequently give them a short, severe reply, as though they
had no business to search closely, but must take all that is presented as
truth, without investigating for themselves. In your ministerial labors