Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 3 (1876 - 1882)

Lt 1a, 1880

Fairfield, William

Battle Creek, Michigan

January 5, 1880

Previously unpublished.

Dear Brother:

Your case urges itself upon me tonight, and I wish to write you and speak to you as my brother in Christ. I have been shown that you are in temptation, under a cloud, but God has not forsaken you by any means. It is no evidence that you are not a child of God because you are assailed with temptations and buffeted with perplexing doubts. Angels of God are guarding you. But serious dangers threaten you should you yield to Satan’s suggestions. Should [you] make a wrong decision, you will not imperil merely your own soul but the souls of others—how many, the judgment alone will reveal. The Spirit of God is touching the strings of your soul that it shall produce sweet harmony. 3LtMs, Lt 1a, 1880, par. 1

The Lord in His providence brought Willie Fairfield and Sprague in connection with His work. You were both young men of promise. The Lord loved you. He had a place for you [to] fill in His vineyard. You had your trades to learn, your characters to form. Satan would not allow young men like these to engage in the work of God without doing his uttermost to hedge up the way. He has assailed you both. Your marriage, Dr. Fairfield, would prove to you a blessing or a curse. It rested with you to determine this. Your wife was not that sympathetic woman she might be with cultivation. This you need to know and to help her to be congenial. You have the qualities to make a most successful man, and God would have you to be a man of His love, after His own heart. You have precious traits of character. You have a purpose, a principle, a faithful adherence to the voice of conscience. 3LtMs, Lt 1a, 1880, par. 2

God would have you His worker in the sanitarium. You can do good; you can be a great blessing to humanity. You can make a success and be of that character which Isaiah represents. “I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.” Isaiah 13:12. 3LtMs, Lt 1a, 1880, par. 3

You have been schooled in self-reliance. You dared not follow the course others pursued around you. The fear of God has been before you and a wide field of usefulness is open before you. 3LtMs, Lt 1a, 1880, par. 4

But you have been perplexed, troubled and distressed in mind, thrown into uncertainties. Some things my husband has said and the course he has pursued has not been all as it should be. It has thrown you into uncertainty and plunged you into unbelief. Satan has come in and has tempted and has suggested many things to your mind. God does not, neither has He, justified my husband in any thought, word, or action contrary to the plain Christian course marked out in His Word. But God has been very merciful, for His shattered nerves, and his diseased head has led to the extremes he has shown in his life. Some cannot understand his condition; but the Lord knows and bears with his weakness. 3LtMs, Lt 1a, 1880, par. 5

These things in my husband have [Remainder missing]. 3LtMs, Lt 1a, 1880, par. 6