The Ingredients of Success
Success is not principally the result of natural brilliance plus favoring circumstances. Rather it is the culmination of painstaking preparation and ceaseless effort blessed by the Spirit of God. The successful man is the one in love with his work. He not only has the vision of the larger objectives to be achieved, but the mastery of details as well. It will be found that the successful man usually works harder and more effectively than his mediocre brother. It is thus that he pays the inevitable price of achievement. Let none of us think that, because engaged in spiritual work, we are thereby exempt from the toil involved in mastery of our sacred tasks, and can escape the ceaseless study imperative to growth and improvement. The venerable trio, "grit, grace, and gumption," constitute the foundation stones upon which the superstructure of ministerial success is reared.
This movement is not national, but international, or more accurately, super-national in scope and objective. It is not American, nor British, nor German, nor Chinese, but Christian. It is to advance and complete its work under every flag and form of government. It is to function under democracy, monarchy, state socialism, dictatorship, or whatever may be devised. Its progress is not dependent upon a particular form of civil government, nor is its completion contingent upon. the place of its rise. It is for every race and color and tongue. It therefore transcends all national considerations, for its supreme purpose is to herald, and to prepare men for, God's eternal kingdom now at the door, in which all these segregating earthly barriers will be forever removed.
Never should we as Christian workers in any land create difficulties by invidious comparisons, through public utterance or printed word, as to different types of human government. Advantages and disadvantages are obvious, but our commission does not include discussion thereof. Our perfect Pattern never indulged in such, and we should follow in His steps, for unwise utterances now will become serious deterrents later.
The liberal wing of the popular church has largely substituted such burdens as civic improvement, , humanism, and social betterment, for the saving "gospel of the kingdom," from which they have turned. Others are avowedly national reformers, endeavoring through the medium of civic reform to establish the kingdom of God in the world as it is. And such will erelong become our implacable foes and persecutors, because they have turned from the founding purpose of the church. But we should not needlessly precipitate these difficulties.
It is but natural and right that every normal man should have feelings of love, loyalty, and pride as to his native land and race. But this is best expressed in obedience to its laws when they do not contravene the eternal law of God, which is international, or rather universal, in its sovereignty. It finds its outlet also in those efforts for human betterment consistent with the gospel program.
But we as Seventh-day Adventist workers have no continuing country here. Our citizenship is in heaven, as the apostle Paul expresses it. We look for the better land that is to be established soon, superseding all present conditions, blighted as they are by sin and selfishness, ambition and injustice. A vivid consciousness of these realities will save us many an unwise word that would bring estrangement or perplexity. Moreover, it will forestall disparaging mental comparisons that act reflexly against that fervent love of all men, irrespective of national, social, or racial differences, that is to characterize this last movement. God's church is one in faith and purpose. Yes, the advent message is international, intranational, and supernational.
L. E. F.
Principles Governing Selection
The "question is occasionally asked, What should be the worker's attitude toward the Ministerial Reading Course books which he secures? Is he to consider that these books were chosen because they were found to be free from all technical, factual, or doctrinal error, and should therefore be received as a student accepts his textbooks in college? Or, is it expected that the books are to be read more as one would approach other helpful volumes of one's personal selection, unsurprised and undisturbed by occasional statements with which he cannot agree?
These are fair questions, and are entitled to a frank statement of policy in reply.
The Association Reading Course is chosen for mature minds; for trained, discriminating public workers—preachers and teachers of truth.
The books are submitted to men and women who read continuously and selectively, and who are reckoned as competent to form discerning judgment on all such details as are involved in the questions stated.
The principles which govern the selection of the Ministerial Reading Course volumes are wholly different from those underlying the selection of suitable books for immature minds. The basis of choice is the fundamental purpose of stimulating and aiding in the study of subjects profitable to the minister and the Bible worker. The books are sent forth to broaden the horizon, to stimulate the reasoning powers, to add to the stock of knowledge; and in each course there are to be found certain volumes which spur us spiritually.
With the exception of the Spirit of prophecy volumes, it is practically impossible to secure books that can be indorsed in toto. Virtually all books have some flaws. But an unfortunate expression here and there is not a valid and reasonable basis for criticism or rejection of the whole. One thing is certain, and that is that we as a body of workers, do not individually accept every statement in the books and articles by even our own denominational writers; and whenever we listen to a sermon, even by one of our own men, we usually find some expression- of fact, viewpoint, or interpretation of doctrine with which we cannot fully agree. But that does not—or surely should not —destroy our enjoyment of, or the profit derived from, the presentation as a whole.
Thus with regard to the Reading Course books. They are not offered as flawless treatises. No one thinks of them as impeccable. Rather they are invaluable study aids to our ministerial group. They are not selected to control theology, but to stimulate vital, personal study. Final analysis and conclusion on the various volumes is each reader's inalienable right, which must not be infringed. This is the only wholesome basis of Reading Course relationship in a democratic body of ministers.
There must be no attempt to control the individual convictions of our workers. Nothing more unfortunate could be conceived. Individual discernment and responsibility are ever to be preserved.
L. E. F.
Auspicious Omens
°toms for sets of the new 1934 Reading Course began coming in before the formal announcements were sent out to the field, and these were received both from outside and from within North America.
The first formally signed enrollment card received through the mails bore the name of L. E. Aldrich, South Lancaster, Massachusetts, and this, too, was received before the release of the regular promotion material for the North American Division. A sample of the announcement of the new course, together with an enrollment card, had been sent a few days in advance to all Book and Bible House secretaries, and Brother Aldrich used that preliminary blank for his own registration.
As is well known, quadrennial Reading Course Certificates are provided for all individuals completing the four-year groups of annual courses specified. And not only is the latest certificate being sent out (No. 4, for the years 1927 to 1930), but some are going back into earlier years and are making up back courses, and so are applying for past quadrennial certificates. A. N. Anderson, of AizuWakamatsu, Japan, already had quadrennial certificate No. 4, and now we have just mailed to him certificates, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Surely this is a fine achievement. Congratulations, Brother Anderson.
