This Kind of Management Must Change—Did the Lord counsel you to devise the various means to work and control human minds? No, I tell you, no. The case of Elder Littlejohn has been strangely mismanaged. He has appealed to me to set things right, but I have done nothing about it; it was not the time. Your course in the treatment of him was all wrong. It bears the signature of the adversary of souls. Your treatment of Frank Belden in his work was not right; it is strange fire, not the fire of God’s kindling. This kind of management must come to an end, else God will work in a way that will not be pleasing to those who have done this work. These men have not been right, they needed judicious management, but those who tried to manage them needed themselves to be managed.
ChL 29.1
Did your devising in regard to the Gospel Primer meet the approval of God? No; the principle upon which you acted was wrong. Individual service is to be rendered to God, not to be controlled by man or by any set of men. Movements have been made which mean much in their outworking. An example has been given by men who are serving where they should not be, which is leavening your Conferences. The Presidents of Conferences are being imbued with a spirit to rule, to require men to bow to their judgment; if any refuse, the course pursued toward them is such as to fill heaven with indignation.
ChL 29.2
How can God move upon the churches to contribute their hard earned means to be handled by men who are self-sufficient, selfish, and so arrogant and overbearing that the frown of God is upon them? Our institutions need cleansing as did the temple when Christ was upon the earth. Man lords it over men’s consciences, man dictates to his fellow-men as God. Everywhere throughout the field this spirit is leavening hearts with the same narrow and selfish purposes. Reaction must come, and who shall then set things in order? Jesus says, “He that will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”—Letter 65, 1895, pp. 7, 8 (June 19, 1895).
ChL 29.3