Testimony for the Church — No. 17

Epistle Number One

Dear Sr. ——: In the vision given me last June, I was shown that you had firmness, and rather a determined will. Your disposition savors somewhat of stubbornness. You are unwilling to be led, yet you feel anxious to know and do the will of God. T17 65.2

You have been deceived in yourself. You have not understood your own heart. You have thought that your will was in subjection to the will of God. but in this you have not judged aright. You have met with trials, and have permitted your mind to dwell upon disappointed hopes. T17 65.3

Your life, for some years back, has taken a peculiar turn. There has seemed to be a spirit of unrest with you. You have not been happy, although there has been nothing in your surroundings which need to have cast so dark a shadow. You have not disciplined your mind to dwell upon cheerful subjects. T17 66.1

You are capable of exerting a strong influence in favor of truth, if you will only train your mind to run in the right channel. All your words and acts should be such as to honor your Redeemer, and exalt his love, and magnify his charms. T17 66.2

You have fallen into the sad error which is so prevalent in this degenerate age, especially with females. You are too fond of the other sex. You love their society. Your attention to them is flattering, and you encourage, or permit, a familiarity which does not always accord with the exhortation of the apostle, to “abstain from all appearance of evil.” T17 66.3

You do not really understand yourself. You are walking in darkness. You have had something to do with match-making. This is most uncertain business; for you do not know the heart, and may make very bad work, and may be aiding the great Rebel in his work of matchmaking. He is busily engaged in exerting his influence to lead youth, who are wholly unsuited to each other, to unite their interests. He exults in this work, for by it he can produce more misery and hopeless woe to the human family than by exercising his skill in any other direction. T17 66.4

You have written many letters, which has greatly taxed you. These letters have dwelt somewhat upon the subjects of our faith and hope, but mixed with this have been close inquiries in regard to whether this one or that one was about to marry, making suggestions relative to marriage, guessing that this one or that one was about to marry. You seem to know considerable about anticipated marriages, and write and talk upon these things, which only causes dearth to your soul. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” T17 67.1

You have done great injustice to yourself, in permitting your mind and conversation to dwell upon love and marriage as you have. You have not been happy, because you have been seeking after happiness. This is not profitable business. When you seek earnestly to do your duty, and arouse yourself to minister unto others, then will you find rest of spirit. Your mind dwells upon yourself. It needs to be drawn out away from yourself. By seeking to lighten the cares of others, and in making them happy, you will find happiness, and cheerfulness of spirit. T17 67.2

You have a diseased imagination. You have thought yourself diseased to quite a degree, which has been more imaginary than real. You have been untrue to yourself. You have conversed with young men, and permitted freedom in your presence which should only be permitted in a brother. T17 67.3

I was shown that your influence at —— was not what it might have been. You permitted your mind to take a low level. You could chit chat, and laugh, and talk cheap talk unworthy of a Christian. Your deportment was not as it should have been. You appeared like a person without a backbone. You were half reclining upon others, which is a wrong position for a female to occupy in the presence of others. You could have sat as erect as others, if you had only thought so. You could have walked as well as many others, if you had only thought so. The condition of your mind leads to indolence and to a dread of exercise, when this exercise will prove one of the greatest means of your recovery. You will never recover unless you lay aside this listless, dreamy condition of mind, and arouse yourself to do—work while the day lasts. Do, as well as imagine and plan. Turn your mind away from romantic projects. You mingle with your religion a romantic, love-sick sentimentalism, which does not elevate, but only lowers. It is not your mind alone that is affected, but others are injured by your example and influence. T17 67.4

You are naturally devotional. If you would train your mind to dwell upon elevated themes which have nothing to do with yourself, but are of a heavenly nature, you could yet be of use. But much of your life has been wasted in dreaming of doing some great work in the future, while, the present duty, small though it may appear to you, has been neglected. You have been unfaithful. The Lord will not commit to your trust any larger work until the work now before you has been seen and performed with a ready, cheerful will. Unless the heart is put into the work, it will drag heavily, whatever that work may be. The Lord tests our ability by giving us small duties to perform first. If we turn from these with dissatisfaction and murmuring, no more will be entrusted to us until we take right hold cheerfully of these small duties, and do them well; then, higher and greater responsibilities will be committed to us. T17 68.1

You have been entrusted with talents not to be squandered, but to be put out to the exchangers, that at the Master's coming he may receive his own with usury. God has not distributed these talents indiscriminately. He has dispensed these sacred trusts according to the known powers and capacities of his servants. “To every man his work.” T17 69.1

He gives impartially, and he expects a corresponding return. If all do their duty according to the measure of their responsibility, the amount entrusted to them will be doubled, be it large or small. Their fidelity is tested and proved, and their faithfulness is positive evidence of their wise stewardship, and they can be entrusted with the true riches, even the gift of everlasting life. T17 69.2

At the N. Y. Conference, Oct. 1868, I was shown many who are now doing nothing, who might be accomplishing good. There was presented before me a class who are conscious that they are possessed of generous impulses, and devotional feelings, and a love of doing good, yet at the same time are doing nothing. They possess a self-complacent feeling, flattering themselves that if they had an opportunity, or were circumstanced more favorably, they could and would do a large and good work; but they are waiting the opportunity. They despise the narrow mind of the poor niggard who grudges the small pittance to the needy. They see he lives for self, that he will not be called from himself to do good to others, and bless others with the talents of influence and of means which has been committed to him to use, but not to abuse, nor to lay and rust, nor to be buried in the earth. Those who give themselves up to their stinginess and selfishness, are accountable for their niggardly acts, and are responsible for the talents they abuse. But more responsible are those who have generous impulses, and are naturally quick to discern spiritual things, if they remain inactive, waiting an opportunity they suppose has not come, yet contrasting their readiness to do with the unwillingness of the niggard; and reflecting that their condition is more favorable than their mean-souled neighbors. These deceive themselves. The mere possession of qualities, and yet not using them, only increases their responsibility; and if they keep their Master's talents unimproved, or hoarded, their condition is no better than their neighbors for whom their souls feel such contempt. To them it will be said, Ye knew your Master's will, yet did it not. Had you trained your mind to dwell upon elevated subjects, meditating upon heavenly themes, you could have done much good. You could have had an influence upon the minds of others, to turn their selfish thoughts and world, loving dispositions into the channel of spirituality. You are capable of doing good, were your affections and thoughts brought into subjection to the will of Christ. T17 69.3

Your imagination is diseased because you have permitted it to run in a forbidden channel. The mind has been allowed to become dreamy. Day-dreaming and romantic castle-building have unfitted you for usefulness. You have lived in an imaginary world; have been an imaginary martyr, and an imaginary Christian. T17 70.1

There is much of this low sentimentalism mingled with the religious experience of the young in this age of the world. My sister, God requires you to be transformed. Elevate your affections, I implore you. Devote your mental and physical force to the service of your Redeemer, who has bought you. Sanctify your thoughts and feelings that all your works may be wrought in God. T17 71.1

You have been in a sad deception. God would have you investigate closely every thought and purpose of your heart. Deal truly with your own soul. Had your affections been centered upon God as he has required, you would not have passed through the trials you have. T17 71.2

There is a restlessness of spirit which will not be relieved until the thoughts are changed, and day-dreaming and castle-building cease; and you do the work of the present—that which you find T17 71.3

In your letter writing, leave match-making and guessing about the marriages of your friends. The marriage relation is holy, but in this degenerate age it covers vileness of every description. And Satan is constantly busy to hurry inexperienced youth into a marriage alliance until marriage is abused, and is a crime now which constitutes one of the signs of the last days; even as marriages were a crime the way they were managed previous to the flood. The less we glory in the marriages which are now taking place, the better. T17 71.4

Marriage which is entered into even now, in this degenerate age, with its claims and sacred nature understood, will be approved of Heaven, and the result will be happiness to both parties, and God will be glorified. May the Lord enable you to do the work before you to do. T17 71.5

I am about to write upon this wrong, deceptive work which is carried on under the cover of religion. The lust of the flesh has led men and women. The mind has been depraved through a perversion of the thoughts and feelings, and yet the deceptive power of Satan has so blinded their eyes, that poor deceived souls flatter themselves that they are spiritually minded, especially consecrated, when their religious experience is composed of a lovesick sentimentalism, more than of purity, true goodness and humiliation of self; having the mind drawn out of self, and exercised in blessing others, and being elevated by good works. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this; to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” True religion ennobles the mind, refines the taste, sanctifies the judgment, and makes its possessor partaker of the purity, and the influences of Heaven, brings angels near, and separates more and more from the spirit and influence of the world. T17 72.1

E. G. W.

Battle Creek, Mich. T17 72.2

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