True Refinement in the Ministry
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and self-sufficient, themselves walking in darkness and stumbling at
every step. They are bodies in darkness.
Brother E, you have narrow ideas, and your labor has a tendency
to lower rather than to elevate the truth. This is not because you have
no ability. You could have made a good workman, but you are too
indolent to make the effort necessary to attain the object. You would
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rather come down in a harsh and overbearing manner upon those who
differ with you than to take the trouble to elevate the tone of your
labor. You take positions, and then when they are questioned you are
not humble enough to yield your notions though they are shown to
be wrong; but you stand up in your independence and firmly hold to
your ideas when concession on your part is essential and is required of
you as a duty. You have stubbornly and unyieldingly held to your own
judgment and opinions to the sacrifice of souls.
Brother E, your set positions and your strong, determined will to
carry out your points at all hazards were felt and deplored by your
wife, and her health suffered in consequence. You were not gentle and
tender to this sensitive child of God; your strong spirit overbore her
more gentle disposition. She grieved over many things. You could
have made her life happier had you tried; but you sought to have
her see things as you saw them, and, instead of trying to assimilate
yourself to her refined temperament, you tried to mold her to your
coarser nature and your extreme ideas. She was warped in her nature
and could not act out herself. She withered like a plant transplanted to
an uncongenial soil.
You should not seek to mold minds and characters after your pat-
tern, but should allow your own character to be molded after the divine
Pattern. If this world were composed of men like yourself in char-
acter and temperament, woe would be to it. As like would meet like
whichever way you might turn, you would be disgusted with your
associates, the exact patterns of yourself, and would wish to be out of
the world.
You boast and glory in yourself. But, oh, how improper is this
for any man, even if he have the finest qualities of mind and the most
extended influence! Men of fine qualities have the greatest influence
because they do not know their worth and how much good they do
accomplish in the world. But it is all out of place for men of your
stamp of character to be lifted up and boastful in self.
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