74
Christian Leadership
Your holy example will be the greatest corrector of these things.
You have noticed these little things and spent many words upon them
and have suffered yourself to become irritated over them. Even if the
ones you reproved sinned, your sin was greater by arbitrarily bearing
down upon them for these small matters when in many things you
were more faulty than they.—
Letter 5, 1864
, p. 2 (February 22, 1864,
to Brother Hutchens).
Making a World out of an Atom—O how many might do a noble
work in self-denial and self-sacrifice, who are absorbed in the little
things of life! They are blind and cannot see afar off. They make
a world of an atom and an atom of a world. They have become
shallow streams, because they do not impart to others the water of
life.—
Evangelism, 215
.
Minor Matters Made Major—Some had been bringing in false
tests, and had made their own ideas and notions a criterion, magnifying
matters of little importance into tests of Christian fellowship, and
binding heavy burdens upon others. Thus a spirit of criticism, fault-
finding, and dissension had come in, which had been a great injury
to the church. And the impression was given to unbelievers that
Sabbathkeeping Adventists were a set of fanatics and extremists, and
that their peculiar faith rendered them unkind, uncourteous, and really
unchristian in character. Thus the course of a few extremists prevented
the influence of the truth from reaching the people.—
Evangelism, 215
.
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