Self-Caring Ministers
315
When you, Brother F, first commence to labor in a place, you
generally have the confidence of the people; but after a more thorough
acquaintance your defects of character become so apparent that many
lose confidence in your piety. Reflections are thus cast upon all the
ministers of the denomination. A short stay in a place would not
injure your reputation. While engaged in earnest labor, pressed by
opposing influences, your mind is absorbed in the work in which you
are engaged, and you have neither time nor opportunity to think and
reflect upon yourself. But when the work is over, and you begin to
think upon self, as it is natural for you to do, you pet yourself, become
babyish, sharp, and cross in temper, and thus greatly mar the work
of God. You manifest the same spirit in the church, and thus your
influence is greatly injured in the community, in some cases beyond
remedy. You have frequently exhibited childish contention, even while
laboring to convert souls to the truth; and the impressions made have
been terrible upon those who were witnesses. Now, one of two things
must be done; you must either be a consecrated man at home, in your
family, and in the church, at all times tender and patient, or you must
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not settle down in a church; for your defects will be made apparent,
and the Redeemer you profess to love and serve will be dishonored.
The faith of Moses led him to look at the things which are unseen,
which are eternal. He left the splendid attractions of court life because
sin was there. He gave up present and seeming good that flattered only
to ruin and destroy. The real attractions, the eternal, were of value to
him. The sacrifices made by Moses were really no sacrifices. With
him it was letting go a present, apparent, flattering good for a sure,
high, immortal good.
Moses endured the reproach of Christ, considering reproach greater
riches than all the treasures of Egypt. He believed what God had said
and was not influenced to swerve from his integrity by any of the
world’s reproaches. He walked the earth as God’s free man. He had
the love of Christ in his soul, which not only made him a man of
dignity, but added the luster of the true Christian graces to the dignity
of the man. Moses walked a rough and perilous path, but he looked
to the things unseen and faltered not. The recompense of reward was
attractive to him, and it may be also to us. He was familiar with God.
The work is before you to improve the remnant of your life in
reforming and elevating the character. A new life begins in the renewed