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To Brethren in Responsible Positions
249
selves taken no responsibility. Should the men who have taken this
responsibility upon themselves step out of our ranks, or die, what a
state of things would be found in our institutions!
Leading men should place responsibilities upon others, and allow
them to plan and devise and execute, so that they may obtain an
experience. Give them a word of counsel when necessary, but do
not take away the work because you think the brethren are making
mistakes. May God pity the cause when one man’s mind and one
man’s plan is followed without question. God would not be honored
should such a state of things exist. All our workers must have room
to exercise their own judgment and discretion. God has given men
talents which He means that they should use. He has given them
minds, and He means that they should become thinkers, and do their
own thinking and planning, rather than depend upon others to think
for them.
I think I have laid out this matter many times before you, but I
see no change in your actions. We want every responsible man to
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drop responsibilities upon others. Set others at work that will require
them to plan, and to use judgment. Do not educate them to rely upon
your judgment. Young men must be trained up to be thinkers. My
brethren, do not for a moment think that your way is perfection, and
that those who are connected with you must be your shadows, must
echo your words, repeat your ideas, and execute your plans.
Effects of Constantly Following Others
There are men who today might be men of breadth of thought,
might be wise men, men to be depended upon, who are not such,
because they have been educated to follow another man’s plan. They
have allowed others to tell them precisely what to do, and they have
become dwarfed in intellect. Their minds are narrow, and they cannot
comprehend the needs of the work. They are simply machines to be
moved by another man’s thought. Now do not think that these men
who do follow out your ideas are the only ones that can be trusted.
You have sometimes thought that because they do your will to the
letter, they were the only ones in whom you could place dependence.
If anyone exercised his own judgment, and differed with you, you
have disconnected from him as one that could not be trusted. Take