WHAT MINISTERS CAN DO FOR THE CAUSE by Dudley Marvin Canright

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 30, 1868

WHAT MINISTERS CAN DO FOR THE CAUSE.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Just now I was thinking of how little I have been doing for the cause, and yet how much the cause has to do for me. I began to meditate in what way I might make myself useful by little things as well as by large ones. I now think of the following things which I can do, and thus be a help to the cause:

1. I can preach the word of God, wherever men will hear. Some may be saved by this means.

2. I can pray and speak in the prayer-meetings and social meetings. If I have the spirit of Christ, this may help some, and perhaps convert others.

3. I can visit from house to house, and thus I may be able to encourage some, enlighten others, and perhaps save a few.

4. I can write for the REVIEW, Instructor, and Reformer, and, by the blessing of God, this may in some way help some one.

5. I can, during the year, distribute a large number of our books and tracts. In the course of time, this may bring some one to the knowledge of the truth.

6. I can use all my endeavors to extend the circulation of the REVIEW, Instructor, and Reformer. This will also spread the light.

7. I can give of my means, to support the cause in its various branches, and to the different benevolent objects. This may help a little.

8. I can interest, and stir up others who are able to do the same. This may aid the cause a little.

9. I can obey the truth myself by the grace of God, and this may encourage others.

Here are nine ways in which I may be of some little use to this blessed cause. If I fail in one, I may not in another, at least, not in all. Here I make a covenant with God and his people, to work for the cause in these different ways, according to the best of my knowledge and ability. May my God grant me grace to keep this covenant.

When I consider the blessed Jesus, how he labored, and toiled, and suffered, for us, for me, I feel ashamed of my selfishness, my lack of interest and devotion to his cause, my unwillingness to bear a few burdens, and suffer a little for his blessed cause. I think of the faithful Paul, and others, who have labored in tears, and poverty, and affliction, for this same cause, and I feel to cry out, “My leanness, my leanness!” Oh! for a baptism into the sacrificing spirit of Christ, that I may labor for the Lord’s sake, and not for self’s sake. I must be wholly the Lord’s. I must not rest till I am. D. M. CANRIGHT.

Washington, N. H.