Brother B’s religious experience was not sound. He moved from impulse, not from principle. His heart was not right with God, and he did not have the fear of God and His glory before him. He acted very much like a man engaged in common business; he had but very little sense of the sacredness of the work in which he was engaged. He had not practiced self-denial and economy, therefore he had no experience in this. At times he labored earnestly and manifested a good interest in the work. Then again he would be careless of his time and spend precious moments in unimportant conversation, hindering others from doing their duty and setting them an example of recklessness and unfaithfulness. The work of God is sacred and calls for men of lofty integrity. Men are wanted whose sense of justice, even in the smallest matters, will not allow them to make an entry of their time that is not minute and correct—men who will realize that they are handling means that belongs to God, and who would not unjustly appropriate one cent to their own use; men who will be just as faithful and exact, careful and diligent, in their labor, in the absence of their employer as in his presence, proving by their faithfulness that they are not merely men pleasers, eye-servants, but are conscientious, faithful, true workmen, doing right, not for human praise, but because they love and choose the right from a high sense of their obligation to God. (3T 25.1) MC VC

Parents are not thorough in the education of their children. They do not see the necessity of molding their minds by discipline. They give them a superficial education, manifesting greater care for the ornamental than for that solid education which would so develop and direct the faculties as to bring out the energies of the soul, and cause the powers of mind to expand and strengthen by exercise. The faculties of the mind need cultivation, that they may be exercised to the glory of God. Careful attention should be given to the culture of the intellect, that the various organs of the mind may have equal strength by being brought into exercise, each in its distinctive office. If parents allow their children to follow the bent of their own minds, their own inclination and pleasure, to the neglect of duty, their characters will be formed after this pattern, and they will not be competent for any responsible position in life. The desires and inclinations of the young should be restrained, their weak points of character strengthened, and their overstrong tendencies repressed. (3T 25.2) MC VC