God requires that a zeal be shown in this direction infinitely greater than has hitherto been manifested. As a people we are in some respects far behind in missionary work. We are not doing one twentieth part of the good we might accomplish in positions of trust, because selfishness prevails to a large extent among us. Some are envious of others, fearing that they will be more highly esteemed than themselves.
(TM 195.1)
MC
VC
Cultivated intellects are now needed in every part of the work of God; for novices cannot do the work acceptably in unfolding the hidden treasure to enrich souls. God has devised that schools shall be an instrumentality for developing workers for Jesus Christ of whom He will not be ashamed, and this object must ever be kept in view. The height man may reach by proper culture has not hitherto been realized. We have among us more than an average of men of ability. If their capabilities were brought into use, we should have twenty ministers where we now have one. Physicians, too, would be educated to battle with disease.
(TM 195.2)
MC
VC
Cities and towns are steeped in sin, yet there are Lots in every Sodom. The poison of sin is at work at the heart of society. God calls for reformers to stand in defense of the laws He has established to govern the physical system, and to maintain an elevated standard in the training of the mind and the culture of the heart.
(TM 195.3)
MC
VC
There is danger of pharisaical exactitude, burdening minds with worldly forms and customs which will, in many cases become all-important, making a world of an atom and an atom of a world. The grace of Christ with its purifying, ennobling influence will do more for us than all the worldly education upon etiquette that is made so essential. To many the externals are the sum total of religion, and yet it will be evidenced that the heart has not that genuine courtesy which alone is of value with God. If they are spoken to about their faults, they have so little Christian politeness that the sacred position of the minister whom God has sent with His message of warning is lost sight of in their effort to criticize his attitude, his gestures, and the formation of his sentences. They think themselves paragons of wisdom, but they pay no heed to the words of God from the courts of heaven. To all such God says that they will have to become fools in order to know the true wisdom of Christ.
(TM 195.4)
MC
VC