p. 123 | What we Need by Josephine Mott

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 1, 1872

What we Need.

By Josephine Mott

We need true men and women, those who will not shrink, or yield one iota when the truth is at stake, those who fear nothing so much as violating their own consciences and displeasing God, such as Eld. D. E. Maxson spoke of in his essay before the S. D. Baptist Conference at West Hallock, Sept. 12, 1872, “We want the most manly men, and the most womanly women, to stand in our pulpits.” Every one who loves the Sabbath of the Lord and his holy word must most heartily respond to this sentiment. And not only in the pulpit do we need them, but everywhere.

How shall we obtain them? By training our youth to be truthful, honest, and faithful. We must educate them morally, religiously, and intellectually. Educate them to avoid every appearance of evil, to despise anything that looks like trickery or dishonesty, teach them always to be in earnest, always to say what they mean and mean what they say.

Trickery and corruption run riot through the land without check, and, to oppose it, we need those who will not swerve a hair's breadth for ridicule, opposition, or persecution, in whatever form it may come; those who have the moral stamina to breast the storm, from whatever quarter it may come, trusting in the strength of God and not their own, holding fast the truth in its integrity, holding it up to men as the beacon light to lead them to light and life, feeling the burden of souls laid upon their hearts, and that they must give an account to the Searcher of hearts for the talents entrusted to them, feeling that God has given them a work to do which they and they alone can do.

All must work; but all have not the same work. It is the symmetry of the parts that makes the whole body beautiful. All are members of one body and if we would have the body glorious and beautiful, we must have the members beautiful. If there is anything deformed and dwarfed in the natural body, it excites a feeling of repulsiveness in the mind. So if there is anything sinful and wrong in any of the members of this body, the world will see it, and say that it is not what it professes to be, and will become disgusted.

So the members should strive to exemplify the life of Christ in all their doings. He is the only perfect pattern whereby true womanly women and manly men can be made. So let us all strive to attain to that degree of perfection by following his example as shall cause the whole body to be symmetrical and beautiful, and show to the world around us that we are indeed born of God, by the love we show to each other and the world, remembering the words of the beloved apostle, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

JOSEPHINE MOTT.

West Hallock, Ill.