NOW when a man purchases a servant, he does not buy him to sit all his days with a bushel on his head in complacent quietude. A doulos or slave, owns nothing, neither himself, nor any thing belonging to self before he became a slave. Such is the relation of brethren to Christ their Lord and Master. A complacently quiescent Christian is one who will never inherit the kingdom, though his faith be ever so orthodox, or his baptism ever so valid. He is an unprofitable concealer of his Master's property in a napkin. He is the napkin, and the property the truth he has received, and concealed within himself. Woe be to the Christian brother who presents himself at the tribunal of Christ with nothing else to offer but a hidden truth. Ill-starred will he be who can only say, "I received the truth and was immersed, and henceforth enjoyed myself in silence!" Quietude and silence are not the prerogatives of the Saints in this present evil world. Their duty is to "cry aloud and spare not; to lift up their voice like a trumpet and show the people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." They have nothing to do with results and consequences -- let them make the truth known, and leave the rest to him who gives the increase.

JOHN THOMAS, The Herald of the Kingdom, October 1858