Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 204, 1900

Sister

Crystal Springs, St. Helena, California

December 14, 1900

Previously unpublished.

My Dear Sister:

I feel more sorry for you in your affliction than I can express. While praying for you, I was blessed. Your prayer I could not hear, except words that were telling the Lord of your devotion and what you had done. Then I knew you had not been blessed, else you could not have said the things you did say. I hope that these words will never be spoken again. 15LtMs, Lt 204, 1900, par. 1

Last night I could not sleep for a long time, for I thought of you, sick and perhaps on your death bed, and not in the mind you should have. I slept after some hours. Then the Lord presented some things distinctly before me, I was instructed to present to you. There are those who have mistaken your impressions in religious lines. You have a large stock of individuality, and self-will has been translated by you into conscientiousness. The interest of your relatives in you has not been appreciated. The judgment of many has been set aside. Your own mind and your own will have been a controlling power. You have not honored the Lord. You have not carried with you the influence that you might have carried of a pure, cheerful, fragrant Christian life. You have mistaken your calling and your duty. 15LtMs, Lt 204, 1900, par. 2

True, wholesome religion should characterize the life of Christ’s disciples. We are ever to represent proper self-denial, but you have carried your ideas of health reform until that which might be a blessing has become to you a curse, and the sad part of the matter is that others connected with you must feel the disappointment and suffering. You do not suffer alone. You have not carefully taken care of the house you live in, which is your body. You have had perverted ideas of your eating and drinking. You have refused to take counsel of those who loved you best. You have not given your body proper food to make a healthful current of blood. What mistaken ideas you have had! 15LtMs, Lt 204, 1900, par. 3

There is the blood system and the nerve system in Christianity, the same as [that which] constitutes the great agencies of healthful human physical life. The heart is the reservoir of the blood which circulates through the whole machinery, and through the blood the food is assimilated to the nourishment of the body, thus preserving and maintaining its usefulness. The food supplies the blood, and the air—the fresh, pure air of heaven—should be freely taken into the lungs, for it is constantly vivifying and purifying the blood current which circulates through the body. The blood may be starved by not taking sufficient nourishing food to carry forward its work, and the quality of the blood changes in its dispensary work throughout all parts of the human system. The life of the flesh is the blood. If the blood is not receiving the pure, vital air to purify it, and sufficient food is nourish and enrich it, [it cannot properly] do its marvelous work as it circulates through arteries, capillaries, and veins to every portion of the human building, repairing the bodily waste and cherishing the bodily growth. 15LtMs, Lt 204, 1900, par. 4

I will say no more upon this point, because you are too feeble to take it in, but it becomes one who ought to be teachable to regard the advice and counsel of others. This you have not done. In your weak, ill-nourished condition, you were unprepared to resist malaria and the consequence is you are now as you are, your life hanging upon a mere thread. 15LtMs, Lt 204, 1900, par. 5

But do not charge your sickness to the Lord, but to your presumptuous venturing in a course where God has not led you. Your religious ideas you have held to tenaciously, and they were not correct. You have not to leave your testimony as a pattern for others to practice, but tell all you have connection with, while you do live, not to follow your example in thinking they are doing God service in practicing that which you call health reform, which is a great mistake. Do not now maintain the idea that you have been the one who has suffered for Christ’s sake. You have not been required to do as you have done. You have self-will and stubbornness in your own life practice. Correct now, my sister. Put everything straight. 15LtMs, Lt 204, 1900, par. 6

That which you called conscientiousness is a species of fanaticism, and it may be to the ruin of your house, your body. That which has worked so deleteriously with your body has perverted your religious experience. You have misrepresented “health reform,” which is the most precious reformatory truth in connection with the third angel’s message. You should not have continued in self-will, but now will you see your mistakes? 15LtMs, Lt 204, 1900, par. 7