If you will take hold of the work earnestly and, without making any apology for sin, will condemn sin in the flesh and reach up in faith and hope for divine grace and right judgment, you may overcome those deficiencies in your character which disqualify you for laboring in the cause of God. You have not advanced or improved for many years. You are further today from the standard of Christian perfection, from possessing the qualifications which should be found in the minister of the gospel, than you were a few months after you had received the truth. (3T 465.1) MC VC

God is displeased with those who are not intelligent in regard to the Christian religion and yet are trying to lead others. You are correctly represented by the man who sought to pull out a mote from his brother’s eye when a beam was in his own eye. First set your own heart in order, and reform your own character; obtain a connection with God, and gain a daily Christian experience; then you may bear a burden for souls who are out of Christ. (3T 465.2) MC VC

There are but few of the brethren who have taken more time to read different authors than you have, and yet you are very deficient in the qualifications necessary for a minister teaching the truth. You fail to quote, or even read, the Scriptures correctly. This should not be. You have not advanced in mental culture and have not secured a growth of grace in the soul which would shine out in your words and deportment. You have not felt the necessity of reaching up for higher and holier attainments. (3T 465.3) MC VC

Chasing through books superficially clogs the mind and causes you to become a mental dyspeptic. You cannot digest and use one half that you read. If you should read with the one object in view to improve the mind, and should read only as much as the mind can comprehend and digest, and would patiently persevere in such a course of reading, good results would be accomplished. You, as well as other ministers, need to attend school and to commence like a child to master the first branches of knowledge. You can neither read, spell, nor pronounce correctly, and yet there are but few who have had less taxation and less burdens of responsibility to bear than yourself. (3T 465.4) MC VC