Exact Methods Not To Be Prescribed
We fully believe in church organization, but this is not to prescribe the exact way in which we shall work; for all minds are not to be reached by the same methods. Nothing is to be allowed to keep the servant of God from his fellow-men. The individual believer is to labor for the individual sinner. Each person has his one lamp to keep burning, and if the heavenly oil is emptied into these lamps through the golden pipes, if the vessels are emptied of self and prepared to receive the holy oil, its light will be thrown on the sinner’s path to some purpose. More light will shine on the pathway of the wanderer through one lamp than through a whole procession of 20torchlights got up for a show.—Letter 54, 1899. (MR311 19.2)