p. 64 | HOW TO SPOIL YOUR MINISTERS

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 9, 1867

HOW TO SPOIL YOUR MINISTERS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

MINISTERS are men with like passions as other men. They are subject to pride and vanity as are others. They cannot always withstand temptation better than other men. People who love their ministers should remember this. By the way some of our good brethren and sisters talk to their ministers, it would seem, as though they had entirely forgotten this. Often we hear them saying to them, “What an excellent sermon you preached this morning, it was so plain that it seems as though any body might understand it. I never heard that subject made so plain before. You are just the person that is needed here; no one else could do so well,” &c., &c. If those good brethren and sisters would stop to think a moment, they might know that they were feeding the pride of their minister, and thus taking his strength and power from him. Such remarks are very wrong, and should be very carefully uttered. If you appreciate what your minister says, the best way to show it is by doing what he tells you. It is right to speak words of encouragement, but you should be careful that they are not words of flattery. See on this point, Testimony, No. 11.

D. M. CANRIGHT. Cornville, Me.