Bible religion is very scarce, even among ministers. I mourn day and night for the coarseness, the harshness, the unkindness in words and spirit, that is manifested by those who claim to be children of the heavenly King, members of the royal family. Such hardness of heart, such a want of sympathy, such harshness is shown to those who are not special favorites, and it is registered in the books of heaven as a great sin. Many talk of the truth, they preach the theory of the truth, when the melting love of Jesus has not become a living, active element in their character.
(TM 151.1)
MC
VC
This is an age of almost universal apostasy, and those who claim to hold advanced truth mislead the churches when they do not give evidence that their character and works harmonize with the divine truth. The goodness, the mercy, the compassion, the tenderness, the loving-kindness of God are to be expressed in the words, deportment, and character of all who claim to be children of God, especially in those who claim to be messengers sent by the Lord Jesus with the word of life to save the perishing. They are enjoined by the Bible to put away all that is harsh and coarse and rough in their character, and to be grafted into Christ, the living vine. They should bear the same quality of fruit that the vine bears. Thus only can the branch be a true representation of the preciousness of the vine.
(TM 151.2)
MC
VC