The men who now stand before the people as representatives of Christ have generally more ability than they have training, but they do not put their faculties to use, making the most of their time and opportunities. Nearly every minister in the field, had he exerted his God-given energies, might not only be proficient in reading, writing, and grammar, but even in languages. It is essential for them to set their aim high. But there has been but little ambition to put their powers to the test to reach an elevated standard in knowledge and in religious intelligence. (TM 194.1) MC VC

Our ministers will have to render to God an account for the rusting of the talents He has given to improve by exercise. They might have done tenfold more work intelligently had they cared to become intellectual giants. Their whole experience in their high calling is cheapened because they are content to remain where they are. Their efforts to acquire knowledge will not in the least hinder their spiritual growth if they will study with right motives and proper aims. (TM 194.2) MC VC

Need of Workers VC

Workers are needed all over the world. The truth of God is to be carried to foreign lands, that those that are in darkness may be enlightened. Work should be done that will qualify the students to be laborers together with God. (TM 194.3) MC VC

God requires that a zeal be shown in this direction infinitely greater than has hitherto been manifested. As a people we are in some respects far behind in missionary work. We are not doing one twentieth part of the good we might accomplish in positions of trust, because selfishness prevails to a large extent among us. Some are envious of others, fearing that they will be more highly esteemed than themselves. (TM 195.1) MC VC

Cultivated intellects are now needed in every part of the work of God; for novices cannot do the work acceptably in unfolding the hidden treasure to enrich souls. God has devised that schools shall be an instrumentality for developing workers for Jesus Christ of whom He will not be ashamed, and this object must ever be kept in view. The height man may reach by proper culture has not hitherto been realized. We have among us more than an average of men of ability. If their capabilities were brought into use, we should have twenty ministers where we now have one. Physicians, too, would be educated to battle with disease. (TM 195.2) MC VC

Cities and towns are steeped in sin, yet there are Lots in every Sodom. The poison of sin is at work at the heart of society. God calls for reformers to stand in defense of the laws He has established to govern the physical system, and to maintain an elevated standard in the training of the mind and the culture of the heart. (TM 195.3) MC VC

Heart Culture VC

There is danger of pharisaical exactitude, burdening minds with worldly forms and customs which will, in many cases become all-important, making a world of an atom and an atom of a world. The grace of Christ with its purifying, ennobling influence will do more for us than all the worldly education upon etiquette that is made so essential. To many the externals are the sum total of religion, and yet it will be evidenced that the heart has not that genuine courtesy which alone is of value with God. If they are spoken to about their faults, they have so little Christian politeness that the sacred position of the minister whom God has sent with His message of warning is lost sight of in their effort to criticize his attitude, his gestures, and the formation of his sentences. They think themselves paragons of wisdom, but they pay no heed to the words of God from the courts of heaven. To all such God says that they will have to become fools in order to know the true wisdom of Christ. (TM 195.4) MC VC