p. 101 | What is Needed? by S. B. Whitney

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 11, 1873

What is Needed?

By S. B. Whitney

UNDOUBTEDLY, all who have read Testimony No. 22, have been, more or less, impressed with the great and urgent necessity of a better preparation for the work committed to us as a people. Upon us are laid responsibilities more weighty and important than any other people were ever called upon to bear, and such as can be properly borne, only by those most fully qualified for them. But by the light given us, we can all see that we are all greatly deficient; and this calls loudly upon us to awake from our lethargy, to seek for the spirit of labor and sacrifice that characterized our divine Lord, to have our efforts vitalized by the Spirit of God; and our precepts strengthened by a godly life; remembering that every individual must do his or her part faithfully, in order that the work of the whole be accomplished.

The following from the Independent of Jan. 30, is to the point. “To-day this world's sorest want is more Christ-like men and women. The preaching it needs is not only the precept, but the practice of a pure Heaven-born piety. A worldly, fashion-loving, covetous, cowardly church, will never save men from hell. But a church of living disciples, whose hearts have been cleansed by atoning blood, and whose lives are made beautiful by inward conflict and secret prayer, and made eloquent by noble, holy deeds, these are the preachers who shall win this wicked world to Jesus. Their voice is a trumpet. Their influence is salt. Their example is a light. Their lives are the sermons that shall wake the dead. But to be such preachers of Christ, we all need the ordination and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

This want, all, both ministers and people, should feel, and realize the responsibility resting upon us to supply it. May God help us to arouse, and heed the injunction, Hold fast . . . that no man take thy crown.”

S. B. WHITNEY.