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Christian Leadership
Among a multitude of counselors there is safety. God would not have
many minds the shadow of one man’s mind. God has given men brains
to use, intellect to cultivate, to employ to His glory; and He would
be the One to mold, control, and fashion the minds after His own
impress. Men are only men whatever may be their work. The more
responsible the position, the more important that the one who stands
in this position have no more honor or exaltation given him than is for
his good. In fact, people are ruined through praise and honor bestowed
upon them as though they were infallible. While due respect should
be given to those whom God has entrusted with more than ordinary
talents, that man thus endowed needs to walk more humbly and closely
with God as he advances. All the influence that these capabilities give
him will make him a better, holier, more meek and humble man or
it will lead him to think as others have thought, I am not a common
man, and I may do things that others can not do, and it will be no sin.
This is a common error, but it is a destructive error. That man needs to
learn daily important lessons from the greatest Teacher the world ever
knew. Christ must dwell in that man’s heart, just as the blood must
be in the body and circulate there as a vitalizing power. I can not on
this subject be too urgent. I can not press it home to you too strongly,
that you shall not trust in self.—
Letter 7, 1886
(April 26, 1886, to J. H.
Kellogg).
[46]
Duty to Train Others—Although it may appear to you difficult to
disentangle yourself from responsibilities which others cannot take, it
is your duty to train others to stand in responsible positions that should
you need a change and rest, which is your due, you can have it. I think
you and your wife should visit California. And again you have worked
intensely upon the high pressure plan. God has spared your life, but
you are not immortal, and you may die as others have died before you
who have lived two years in one.
For several years as the matters of the Sanitarium have been opened
before me, I have been shown that you were loading down yourself to
your injury, and in thus doing were depriving others of an experience.
Those connected with you so closely in the Sanitarium are ready to
assent to every move you may make, and to any proposition, saying,
Yes, but without using their individual judgment and without taxing
their minds to hard thinking that they may have sound opinions and
clear ideas, not borrowed but their own. Men in responsible positions