TEACH THE PRINCIPLES OF TRUTH.
THERE are many workers who are content to teach truth in detail, rarely touching its great principles. Their labor is confined to individual duties. They tell persons, "You ought to keep the Sabbath." "You ought to pay tithes." "You ought to dress plainly, and put off the wearing of gold." "You ought not to eat certain foods," etc., etc. Now all these things ought doubtless to be taught at proper times and in proper ways; but they ought not to be taught as the primary things. A person may refrain from work on the Sabbath, may pay a tithe of his income into the treasury of the Lord, may dress with the utmost simplicity, may be a strict health reformer, and yet may be eternally lost at last. All these things may be outward show, such as would lead one to think, as said the Pharisee of old, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men." Back of all these duties lie the great principles of faith in God, of submission to God's will, and, more than all else, of God's wondrous love to us in asking us to do these things, in giving us the inexpressible privilege of coöperating with him in his work of saving souls. And the heart which possesses true faith, which is wholly submitted to God's will, which is responsive to God's love, will do all Christian duties when instructed in them. The great principles when fully grasped will hold the soul amid the perils and storms of life, when a few surface facts will have but little influence on the life. Plow deeply, and sow unto righteousness. Let "the great big truths of God's word," the great underlying principles, be preached, have free course, and be glorified.