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The Publishing Ministry
anointing.... In pouring forth an overflow of praise of one whom you
do not know, who has not accepted a “Thus saith the Lord” in keeping
His commandments, they place themselves where, in the crisis coming
upon us, they will have defective discernment as they shall see the
good things done by those who will seek to deceive, who will claim to
be Christ and prophets sent of God....
Those who use their pen and voice to give such praise to human
beings need to have clearer discernment....
This is a time when every sentence written should mean something
definite, should be true, sincere. Not a scratch of the pen should
be made in order to become popular or to vindicate that which God
condemns.—
Letter 60, 1898
.
It is not the business of any of God’s stewards to extol any human
being, be he living or dead. God has given us no such message to bear.
Let all who by pen or voice are brought before the public be sifted of
all inclination to laud any human being, for in doing this work they
are entirely out of their boundary.—
Manuscript 95, 1898
.
[224]
Danger in Changing Sacred Principles—There are men in po-
sitions of trust who have not had an experience in the leading out of
this work, and these men should walk with humility and caution. In
the night season I was present in several councils, and there I heard
words repeated by influential men to the effect that if the American
Sentinel [
religious liberty publication that was suspended in 1904 and
then superseded by Liberty in 1906. See
Life Sketches of Ellen G.
White, 309-330
.] would drop the words “Seventh-day Adventist” from
its columns and would say nothing about the Sabbath, the great men
of the world would patronize it; it would become popular and do a
larger work. This looked very pleasing. These men could not see why
we could not affiliate with unbelievers and nonprofessors to make the
American Sentinel a great success. I saw their countenances brighten,
and they began to work on a policy to make the Sentinel a popular
success.
This policy is the first step in a succession of wrong steps. The
principles which have been advocated in the American Sentinel are the
very sum and substance of the advocacy of the Sabbath, and when men
begin to talk of changing these principles, they are doing a work which
it does not belong to them to do. Like Uzzah, they are attempting