Testimony for the Church — No. 14

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Introduction

In Testimony No. 13, I gave a brief sketch of our labors and trials, reaching from Dec. 19, 1866, to Oct. 21, 1867. I will, in these pages, notice the less painful experience of the past five months. T14 1.1

During this time I have written many personal testimonies. And for many persons whom I have met in our field of labor the past five months, I have testimonies still to write as I find time and have strength; but just what my duty is, in relation to these personal testimonies, has long been a matter of no small anxiety to me. With a few exceptions, my course has been to send them to the persons to whom they related, and leave them to dispose of them as they chose. The results have been various, as follows: T14 1.2

1. Some have thankfully received the testimonies, and have responded to them in a good spirit, and have profited by them. These have been willing that their brethren should see the testimonies, and have freely and fully confessed their faults. T14 1.3

2. Others have assented that the testimonies to them were true, and after reading them have laid them away to remain in silence, while they have made but little change in their lives. And these testimonies related more or less to the churches to which these persons belonged, who could also be benefited by them. But all this was lost in consequence of these testimonies being held in private. T14 1.4

3. And yet others have rebelled against the testimonies. Some of these have responded in a fault-finding spirit. Some have shown bitterness, anger, and wrath, and have, for my toil and pains in writing the testimonies, turned upon us to injure us all they could. While others, in personal interviews, have held me for hours to pour into my ears and my aching heart their complaints, murmurings, and self-justifications, perhaps in a spirit of appeal to their own sympathies with weeping, in which they would lose sight of their own faults and sins. The influence of these things has been terrible upon me, and sometimes has driven me nearly to distraction. That which has followed from the conduct of these unconsecrated, unthankful persons has cost me more suffering, and has worn upon my courage and health ten times more, than all the toil of writing the testimonies. T14 2.1

And all this has been suffered by me, and my brethren and sisters generally have known nothing about it. They have had no just idea of the amount of wearing labor of this kind which I have had to perform, nor of the burdens and sufferings unjustly thrown upon me. I have given some personal communications in several numbers of my testimonies, which in some cases have offended because I did not give all. This, on account of their number, would be hardly possible, and would be improper, on account of some of them relating to sins which need not, and should not, be made public. T14 2.2

But, finally, I have decided that many of these personal testimonies should be published, as they all contain more or less reproofs and instructions which apply to hundreds or thousands of others in similar condition. These should have the light which God has seen fit to give, which meets their cases. It is a wrong to shut it away from them by sending it to one person; or to one place, where it is kept as a light under a bushel. My convictions of duty on this point have been greatly strengthened by the following dream: T14 2.3

A grove of evergreens was presented before me. Several, including myself, were laboring among them. I was bidden to closely inspect the trees, and see if they were in a flourishing condition. I observed that some of them were fading, and turning yellow, as if dying. Some were dwarfed. They did not grow. Some were being bent and deformed by winds, and needed to be supported by stakes. I was carefully removing the dirt from the feeble and dying trees, to ascertain the cause of their condition. I discovered worms at the roots of some. Some had not been watered properly, and were dying with drought. The roots of others had been crowded together to their injury. My work was to explain to the workmen the different causes of the want of prosperity of all these trees. This was necessary from the fact that trees in other grounds were liable to be affected from different causes as these had been, and the knowledge of the cause of their not flourishing, and how they should be cultivated and treated, must be made known. T14 3.1

I have spoken freely of the case of Sister Hannah More, not from a willingness to grieve the Battle Creek church, but from a sense of duty. I love that church notwithstanding their faults. I know of no church that in acts of benevolence and general duty do so well. I present the frightful facts in this ease to arouse our people everywhere to a sense of their duty. There is not one in twenty of those who have a good standing with Seventh-day Adventists who is living out the self-sacrificing principles of the word of God. T14 3.2

And let not their enemies, who are destitute of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, take advantage of the fact that they are reproved. This is evidence that they are the lawful sons and daughters of the Lord. Those who are without chastisement, the apostle says, are bastards and not sons. Then let not these illegitimate children boast over the legal ones of the Almighty. T14 4.1

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