To a Young Minister and His Wife
281
prepared to bear much prosperity and a great amount of success. A
thorough conversion alone will do the work necessary to be done in
your case.
[308]
I have been shown that both of you are naturally selfish. You are
in constant danger, unless guarded, of thinking and acting in reference
to yourselves. You will lay your plans for your own accommodation,
without taking into account how much you may inconvenience others.
You are inclined to carry out your ideas and plans without regarding
the plans and respecting the views or feelings of others. Both of you
should cultivate reverence and respect for others.
Brother A, you have considered that your work was of too great
importance for you to come down to engage in household duties. You
have not a love for these requirements. You neglected them in your
younger days. But these small duties which you neglect are essential
to the formation of a well-developed character.
I have been shown that our ministers generally are deficient in
making themselves useful in the families where they are entertained.
Some devote their minds to study because they love this employment.
They do not feel that it is a duty which God enjoins upon ministers to
make themselves a blessing in the families which they visit, but many
give their minds to books and shut themselves away from the family
and do not converse with them upon the subjects of truth. The religious
interests in the family are scarcely mentioned. This is all wrong.
Ministers who have not the burden and care of the publishing interest
upon them, and who have not the perplexities and numerous cares of
all the churches, should not feel that their labor is excessively hard.
They should feel the deepest interest in the families they visit; they
should not feel that they are to be petted and waited upon while they
give nothing in return. There is an obligation resting upon Christian
families to entertain the ministers of Christ, and there is also a duty
resting upon ministers who receive the hospitality of Christian friends
to feel under mutual obligation to bear their own burdens as far as
possible and not be a tax to their friends. Many ministers entertain the
idea that they must be especially favored and waited upon, and they
are frequently injured and their usefulness crippled by being treated as
pets.
[309]
Brother and Sister A, while among your brethren you have too
frequently made it a practice to make arrangements agreeable to your-