It is impossible for you to bring others up to any higher standard than that to which you yourself attain. If you do not advance, how can you lead the church of God forward to a higher standard of piety and holiness? All such ministers as you have been for several years are more of a curse than a blessing to the cause of God, and the fewer we have of them the more prosperous will be the cause of present truth. (3T 461.1) MC VC

You are not elevated in your ideas, or aspiring in your labors. You are content to be commonplace and to make a cheap minister. You do not aspire to perfection of Christian character and to that position in the work that Christ requires every one of His chosen ministers to attain. No one professing to bear the truth to others is fitted for the responsible work unless he is making advancement in knowledge and in consecration to the work, and is improving his manners and temper, and growing in true wisdom from day to day. Close communion with God is necessary for every man who would guide souls into the truth. It should ever be borne in mind by those who take upon themselves the burden of guiding souls out of nature’s darkness into the marvelous light that they themselves must be advancing in that light, else how can they lead others? If they are walking in darkness themselves, it is a most fearful responsibility which they assume in pretending to teach others the way. (3T 461.2) MC VC

You have engaged in labor in places where you were not competent to do justice to the work which you undertook. You did not labor judiciously. You sought to make up for your lack of real knowledge by censuring other denominations, running down others, and making hard and bitter criticisms upon their course and condition. Had your heart been all aglow with the spirit of truth, had you been sanctified to God and walking in the light as Christ is in the light, you would have moved in wisdom and would have had enough ways and means at your command to maintain an interest without going out of your way and aside from your specific work to rail out against others who profess to be Christians. (3T 461.3) MC VC