376
Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
When plans are to be laid that will affect the cause of God, they should
be brought before a council composed of chosen men of experience;
for harmony of effort is essential in all these enterprises.
Men of various temperaments and defective characters can see the
[419]
faults of others, but do not seem to have a knowledge of their own
errors; and if left to carry out their own plans without consultation
with others, they would make sad mistakes. Their ideas must become
broader. With ordinary humanity there is a selfishness, an ambition,
that mars the work of God. Self-interest must be lost sight of. There
should be no aiming to be first, no standing aloof from God’s workmen,
speaking and writing in a bigoted manner of things that have not been
critically and prayerfully investigated and humbly brought before the
council.
The future world is close at hand, with its unalterable and solemn
issues—so near, so very near, and such a great work to be done,
so many important decisions to be made; yet in your councils the
preconceived opinions, the selfish ideas and plans, the wrong traits
of character received by birth, are lugged in and allowed to have an
influence. You should ever feel that it is a sin to move from impulse.
You should not abuse your power, using it to carry out your own ends
regardless of the consequences to others, because you are in a position
that makes this possible; but you should use the power that is given
you as a sacred, solemn trust, remembering that you are servants of
the most high God and must meet in the judgment every decision that
you make. If your acts are unselfish and for the glory of God, they
will bear the trying test. Ambition is death to spiritual advancement,
genius is erring, slothful indolence is criminal; but a life where every
just principle is respected must be a successful one.
Many of your councils do not bear the stamp of heaven. You do not
come to them as men who have been communing with God and who
have His mind and His merciful compassion, but as men having a firm
purpose to carry out your own plans and to settle questions according
to your own minds, In every department of the work it is essential to
have the mind and spirit of Christ. You are God’s workmen; and you
must possess courtesy and grace, else you cannot represent Jesus.
All who are employed in our institutions should realize that they
[420]
will be a blessing or a curse. If they would be a blessing they must