Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 2 (1869 - 1875)

13/363

Lt 13, 1869

Smith, Harriett; Cornell, Cornelia; Amadon, Martha

Massasoit House, Chicago, Illinois

September 24, 1869

Portions of the letter are published in 6MR 114-115.

Dear Sisters Harriett [Smith], Cornelia [Cornell], and Martha [Amadon]:

I have a few words I wish to say to you three. I have been thinking over matters through the night and think I should give you the benefit of my thoughts. I am assured that great blindness is upon you, and I fear that you have so long resisted the light it has forever become darkness to you. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 1

While in Montcalm County I attempted to write out matters in regard to the church in Battle Creek, as shown me at Adam’s Center. I was shown that you have been left to great blindness. You might not be walking in the light. If you had confessed your faults you could have freed yourselves long ago and freed the church from her bondage if they had followed the light. But your unsanctified bond of union seemed firm to cover your sins; and you regarded iniquity in your hearts and the Lord has not heard your prayers or prospered you in your religious experience. Had you confessed frankly and cleared your souls from the least vestige of your wrongs, the dear Saviour would have written pardon, and these matters would have been healed. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 2

My husband was so glad of the least signs of your making your wrongs right that he met you half way, confessing when not required of him, to make your case less humiliating, meeting you more than half way. You have, every time you attempted, made the matter worse. You eased your conscience by admitting wrongs all brought out plain to you but you went no deeper. Every thing hid, every thing covered, was left concealed in darkness to be revealed in the trying day of God when it was too late for wrongs to be righted or sins to be washed away. I saw that you had acted out the hypocrite. You professed great sympathy and friendship for us when you were acting another part; especially you, Harriett [Smith], wished us to think you our special friend, when in your heart you were our enemy. Our prosperity did not make you glad. You would have been pleased had it been otherwise. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 3

You have had favorable opportunities to confess frankly your true state and feelings but you would not do it. You were afraid to have us know how far you had gone in the feelings you had cherished toward us. You knew if the people generally, who were our sincere friends, knew your true feelings, they could have no confidence in you and indignation, you feared, would be felt toward you. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 4

When I called two meetings to speak in my own defense, you were glad to hear me speak plainly in reproof to Martha [Amadon]. You exulted over her discomfiture, yet felt not over your own sins. In these meetings, when I had the privilege of speaking for myself, you were all convicted of your very wrong course. God has marked your wicked feelings in your apparent indifference, when my poor husband, who had been your faithful, self-sacrificing pastor so many years, came to you. His heart was all love for you, glad that God was restoring him, and in his simplicity expecting you to be glad also. Oh, what a bitter disappointment. Like Jesuits you came in, took your seats in the back part of the house and showed contempt in your looks and deportment. He was writhing under the wound; his bruised spirit was in anguish, yet he spoke humbly and in the fear of God. I saw in vision that manifestation on your part was against Jesus; your contempt was marked against Christ. It has not been blotted out. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 5

When I called you together in that office and placed before you the reports brought me in regard to my testimonies, that you had not confidence in them because my life did not accord with my testimonies; also the letters Cornelia had written relating every word and act she deemed worth noticing to our disadvantage, you met my complaints with a few trivial, silly things, too weak to mention. Instead of your confessing, or at least of frankly telling me my inconsistencies as you had freely told others, you dissembled; you did not condemn me; you could not; neither did you take back what you had said. I noticed you watched one another and seemed fearful something would come out. You acted, all four of you, the hypocrite, Angeline [Cornell], Cornelia [Cornell], Martha [Amadon], and Harriett [Smith]. And the ministers present who knew the depth of your bitter, wrong feelings, your unbelief, your prejudice and jealousy, were guilty with you for dissembling, but the power of the influence of you three women held these strong men. They did not dare to open their mouths to reprove your hypocrisy and deception. You three professed great love for me, kissed me, and asked me to forgive you and declared you were my true friends. This was for effect. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 6

I then told you I would forgive you and then asked you if you would take back the influence you had cast, and set matters right to Brother Abbey’s family and to those you had prejudiced against us. You said you would do it. In my simplicity I believed you would gladly right your wrongs, but I was disappointed. When we were on our way west and the work of investigation commenced in Battle Creek, I asked you what you had done to right the wrongs you had done us, and found out it was nothing. You had deceived me, you had pacified me by your protestations, of love and there your efforts ended. The angels have that meeting in the office recorded with your dissembling. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 7

Cornelia [Cornell] has, I saw, never realized or confessed her wrongs. She had gossiped not only with her tongue but her pen, and she let the whole matter slide off from her without specifying anything when she knew just as well what to confess and what to particularize as she will in the future. Cornelia, Martha [Amadon] and Harriett [Smith] have taken advantage of the willingness of James to forgive every thing and overlook every thing, and when they have made an attempt to correct the past, he has met them so freely and seemed so well satisfied they stopped without making thorough work. This makes your case, Sisters, worse. You had evidence if you should make clean work and reveal the worst features, you would be received and not held off; you would be forgiven. But you have shown in this a lack of sincerity and of principle. You have tried to satisfy us and felt that you had no work further; if we were satisfied, it was all you had to do. But you have not repented before God and met the mind of His Spirit. His eye has searched out the secrets of the hearts. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 8

At Adam’s Center I was let into things revealing the deceptions in Battle Creek that brought other discouragements to me. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 9

I was shown from the time of your dissembling in the office, darkness closed you about and you have been blinding your own eyes to your sins and errors. I was shown that jealousy, envy and retaliation was the foundation of very many of your feelings and burdens in our case. The visit of you three in my house just before our going to Greenville, when you tried to make me believe you felt no coldness toward us, when we came to Battle Creek you dissembled, you said and acted falsely. You deceived your own souls in trying to deceive us. You laid upon me burdens which were intolerable to be borne. When I was then pressed as a cart beneath sheaves, you were all too proud to admit that you had erred. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 10

I told you how your behavior seemed to me when my husband came to speak to you in his feebleness. I told you how grateful I had felt that he had taken his pen to write again; how I had wept in gratitude to God that all who regarded his case aright felt a spring of joy as they had some evidences of his again being restored to the work. I thought, said I, you would all be so glad, you would rejoice with us when you saw my husband’s faculties returning. [?] said I am so disappointed, so grieved, so oppressed. Harriett [Smith] answered: “When we saw those pieces in the paper we thought that if Brother White should come up to do as he had done, have the same spirit of cutting and slashing he had had, we should go into despair.” What right had she to make that statement? The Lord had repeatedly shown He had chosen him for a special important work to bear burdens, to zealously stand for the right, to do a work which some could do but would not because not congenial to their feelings. This work which required unwavering courage, firmness, and quite a degree of sternness, Harriett called “cutting and slashing.” This then was the feeling—all was explained. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 11

It was not with joy that the recovery of my husband was received. It would have been a relief to you at that time could you have seen him in a state of utter imbecility. Then the troubler of Israel would no longer interrupt your carnal peace and security. A new administration had commenced. J. M. Aldrich, in his selfishness and unconsecration, suited the minds better. Self and selfishness had abundant room to thrive. No more terror now, fearing a testimony would be given. These testimonies were no longer reliable. This was the true state of the feelings. Just as soon as these feelings were developed, God began to raise up His servant to stand at his post, improved by the severe afflictions through which he had passed. That God, who had thrust him in the forefront of the battle, would not suffer him to drop, that your unconsecrated hearts should interpret his death as a visitation of God’s wrath for doing the very work He gave him to do, which no other one would do. God, I saw, would vindicate His work, and His servant. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 12

You could have cleared your souls of all your sinful, envious, jealous feelings if you had set about the work. But you thought the cause was a trying one and you were justified in having the feelings you did, because of its peculiarities. But this is no excuse. When the Lord has sent us to Battle Creek with the word from Him to the people, I saw God had given you overwhelming evidence that His power and Spirit were upon us; you did not want to be convinced. You had all the evidence you will ever have that God was in a special manner using us in His work, yet your hearts were not fearful because of your past course, your past wicked feelings. When things were brought out, facts you could not dodge,—you admitted they were wrong and went no further. You were not diligent to search out your wrongs and put them away, that every sin might be pardoned, every root of bitterness rooted out, lest others should be defiled. Your wrongs, you maintained, were known to only a very few in the church. So a very few alone knew of the wrongs you had done us; for in our meetings but few were present. You know how the matter was. You knew that you were spreading these things largely, yet your undoing or admitting your wrong and placing us in a right light was done in a corner. You have never made thorough work. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 13

At Adam’s Center I was shown [that] if the secreting of a golden wedge and a Babylonish garment by one man brought the frown and wrath of God upon all the armies of Israel, the sin of you three women has been grievous in the sight of God. With your dissembling and covering it has been of greater magnitude than that of Achan’s. You are closely connected with the cause at large because so closely connected with the heart of the work. Your husbands fill responsible positions especially George [Amadon] and Uriah [Smith]. Your wrongs have affected your husbands and they have not freed themselves from your influence. You have talked and you have felt, and they have been blinded and led astray by you. Especially Harriett [Smith] and Martha [Amadon] have moved impulsively. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 14

Martha [Amadon] has had a zeal but not according to knowledge. She has taken burdens for others when she should be burdened only over her own case. Your wrong course, your state of unconsecration, has worked like a lever upon the minds of your husbands. They have been affected by your unconsecration, your murmurings, your dissatisfaction with anything or anybody which should affect self or not meet your ideas. Your influence has had the effect to mold the religious experience of your husbands. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 15

Harriett [Smith] has lived under a cloud. She has obtained much sympathy by appealing to her sympathizers,—if any close work was being carried on or straight testimonies borne. Harriett, instead of working to the light, joining right into the work to keep on the side of the loyal, she yields up to feeling. She is in such agony of mind, she will become crazy. All this is a delusion of the devil. All this is feelings originating from an unsanctified heart disturbed in its peace and security. She has been in a state of doubt and infidelity. Why? I saw because it is the element she cherishes, the element she encourages. It is more congenial to her nature than to be cheerful and to have the peace of God dwelling in her heart and being thankful. Dark angels love the atmosphere of unbelief and darkness. They are hovering about her and she poisons the atmosphere where she lives and breathes with the poison of unbelief. She chooses to dwell under a cloud and Uriah [Smith] has not a correct religious experience which every Christian should have in order to be successful in vanquishing the foe. He has no knowledge of victories gained, of especially being influenced and directed of God. Harriett has been shown that she might be a blessing to her husband or be the agent in Satan’s hands of his ruin. She has not been transformed. Rebellion is her natural element. Gloom and darkness and despair, she leaves in her track, instead of showing forth the praises of Him who hath called her out of darkness into His marvelous light. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 16

Uriah [Smith], I saw at Adams Center, was entirely made unfit for his position. He could not tell light from darkness or darkness from light. Satan was paralyzing his sensibilities that he might come in the more readily and substitute error for truth, darkness for light. He was in the position, so also was George [Amadon], of the murmurers against Moses: “Ye take too much upon yourselves, seeing the congregation is holy every one of them.” [Numbers 16:3.] Why all this exactness about J. M. Aldrich? He is right after all. These testimonies are uncalled for. Notwithstanding Harriett’s feelings and course during my husband’s sickness, Uriah writes in his befogged, benumbed, stupefied condition: Harriett [Smith] has been your true and fast friend for the last seven years. My prayer is, “May God save me from such friends, that will be sincere to my face, and demonstrative in her efforts to keep us in her favor; but working secretly against us, throwing out hints and jealousies, insinuations and doubts; every time found on the side of those in wrong sympathies, going with those who curse the church of God by their wrongs.” 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 17

When Satan gets control of minds, he makes fools of men and women. May God have mercy upon you is the sincere feeling of my heart. Many souls will perish in the general ruin who might have been saved, if you had stood in the counsel of God, consecrated to Him. You have bound the church, bound your husbands, and your wrong influences have been felt far and near. Brother Andrews has sanctioned wrong in that he has not laid hold zealously to correct the existing evils. When he comes to the matter of the wrongs at Battle Creek he is faint-hearted for fear of hurting feelings. He has not done all he ought to have done. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 18

You have complained of Brother Andrews. You have watched to see what he would confess. Brother Andrews said that you charged your wrongs in a great measure to his influence, and you asked why he did not acknowledge his wrongs, for the position he took gave you encouragement that you must be right. You reason correctly, but who gave Brother Andrews the feelings he had? From what has been shown me, Brother Andrews, at times, felt that he would give his life could my husband be in health of mind and body, and take his place in the work as he had done. His feelings did not arise from jealousy, envy, and retaliation; yet he could not see things clearly. The case of my husband was a matter of great perplexity, and yet the minds would have been controlled by God and they would have seen all things clearly if they had left the matter for God to work out instead of being in haste, interpreting things themselves, and explaining matters, and acting in accordance with their views of the matter. Brother Andrews received his impressions and many of his burdens from no higher source than from you at Battle Creek. He believed you to be our best friends when you were not. You wrote to him everything unfavorable and his mind was stirred by your representations of the case. Old matters which had been a source of trial in the past, came up in the mind of Brother Andrews and others who had been reproved, and thoughts and feelings arose that the sickness of my husband might be a judgment of God for things they supposed wrong and sinful on his part. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 19

Elder Loughborough was not right. He commenced to build himself up upon what he supposed was the ruin of my husband. He was not afflicted with the affliction of one who had done him good and only good during their entire intercourse. Elder Loughborough talked and laughed and made himself jovial over the humiliating features of my husband’s case. My heart was nearly broken; yet all would bring to me all the disagreeable features in his case, which drove me nearly to insanity. I tried at Brother Abbey’s to agonize with God in his behalf, but Brother Andrews thought it was only injuring him. He must act himself, he thought. He sincerely viewed matters thus, but not correctly. Had all his brethren, with true hearts, not regarding iniquity in their hearts, prayed more, afflicted their own souls, and talked less, God would have been better pleased. The time when the church was guilty of sin was when my husband attempted to act upon the testimony God had given, and started out in his feebleness to go to Wright in the cold winter. Then Satan stirred up the feelings and there was a separation in the feelings and interest from us; and our friends became our enemies. They were of that class Paul calls False Brethren, which placed us in great perils than we have ever experienced in our lives. If it had been an enemy that had done this then we could have borne it, but it was our familiar friends that had sat at our table and walked with us to the house of God. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 20

Your zeal at Battle Creek to present matters before Brother Andrews in the strongest light stirred him to feel and act. He in his turn told his convictions and the things he had noticed and you strengthened one another’s hands. Brother Andrews sympathized with you as though you were suffering under a crushing burden. Brother Andrews did not possess feelings of jealousy, envy and retaliation that many of you did. He was stirred for the cause of God and zealous for its prosperity. At times, as he saw the low state of the cause, he would have been willing to give his life if my husband could have been raised up to health of body and mind to work as he had done in the cause of God. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 21

Then his mind would revert to the past and he would think that his past course in reproving others was not in God’s order and for this God had laid His hand upon him. Martha [Amadon] had in her positive, excited manner related her sufferings because of reproofs given George [Amadon] and her. Harriett [Smith] related her grievances in her serious, pious manner, leaving the impression that she had been on the borders of despair and insanity. Cornelia [Cornell] had things to tell of what she had seen and how she had suffered in feelings. But you did not tell your whole heart. You did not, Martha and Harriett, relate that it would have been good news had you heard my husband was dead. Brother Andrews believed you sincere when you made your strong statements with such pious looks, and apparently grieved, oppressed hearts, how much you had borne and done for Brother and Sister White, and yet they did not appreciate it. Brother Andrews looked upon you as greatly wronged, when you were Satan’s agents working out the evil he had concocted to compass our ruin and silence our voices in the work and cause of God. You strong women were a host on Satan’s side. Brother Andrews was deceived and he moved strangely. He set the case of my husband before other ministers, and they see the case as these women and Brother Andrews set before them. God did not lead Brother Andrews in the matter of withholding the credentials, but the mistake of these others must bear the greatest share. Could I have the same scene to pass through again as in the past I should do differently. I would not put confidence in a friend or trust in a brother. I would separate myself from the society of all and praying God for strength, go to some isolated place away from curious eyes and jealous watchers and rest my affliction in the hands of God, our kind heavenly Father. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 22

I have regarded the sisters I have mentioned as having their interests identified with mine as closely as my arm is united to my body. The separation of my affections and my faith from those has been like tearing limb from limb—like severing the members of my body. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 23

In my distress, feeling that the interest of others was as great as my own, I appealed to them for help. But when I decided that my husband was not sane, I regretted that I had not humored every whim, I look back with deep regret. I thank God with all my heart that my husband lives,—a monument of His grace, a miracle of mercy. My husband’s life has not been faultless, yet he has been sincere and conscientious. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 24

Sister Amadon remarked that we had done you a great injury by so readily being satisfied with their confessions when they did not make thorough work. My husband had been reproved because of his not having a forgiving spirit. Here was a lesson that his affliction was to teach him. He believed you all as sincere as himself and he was ready and too joyful to meet you, expecting the same firm union would exist you had once enjoyed. But time and again has he been disappointed. You could not advance; you have not increased in spiritual strength, you have been growing blinder and darker; and the reason was given to me: You have not met the mind of the Spirit of God. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 25

After the long, hard three weeks of unsuccessful labor in Battle Creek I have felt that I must write out the things shown me in regard to the people at Battle Creek and let the people abroad have the reasons why we could not live at Battle Creek. We knew that there was no liberty for the church till there should be a mighty break and perhaps one-half shaken out. We know from what God has shown us that a few in responsible positions have bound the church these years; and now we are aware [that] a terrible necessity alone will bring things to a point where there will be efforts made, zealous work to meet the mind of the Spirit of God. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 26

Efforts have been made and in a few weeks the impressions have worn away. Every effort has let you down lower and in more dense darkness. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh shall find mercy.” [Proverbs 28:13.] You have had all the evidence you will ever have that God has especially worked through us; yet your evil hearts of unbelief have not been subdued; you have not made an entire surrender. You have not yielded your sinful, criminal unbelief. Should a favorable opportunity arise for you to doubt and become jealous and take sides with the unconsecrated, you would be liable to be found our enemies, distrusting our work, doubting the testimonies of reproof, doubting the plain work we are called to do for God’s people in this perilous and adulterous age. What if we had manifested an unwillingness to meet you in your confessions, and had held you off? You would then have said we had a hard, unforgiving spirit. We have felt it a privilege to us to forgive; but as we have traveled from place to place, we have met your statements, your reports. Your influence has cursed and blighted the work in Battle Creek and like a poisonous venom it has been diffused through every branch of the work. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 27

You may think your evil work is not so great after all. Had you been in an isolated corner the result would not have been so fatal. You were right at the heart of the work, at the great center; your close connection with this heart has affected its pulsations. You sewed poisonous seed through Battle Creek and broadcast through a broad, extended field. The fruits are now manifested not only in Battle Creek but in every part of the body. There are hundreds of souls being lost through this special device of Satan. The message of warning might have gone to hundreds more if the servants of God had not been held in Battle Creek toiling, wearing out their strength for a corrupt, unconsecrated people. You know not, and you have not cared to know, in regard to the reaping time. Your sowing was to produce a bountiful crop, a plentiful harvest. You will reap what you have sown. You might have rooted out, in a measure, the seed you had sown, had you taken hold of the matter in earnest and plucked up the roots of bitterness springing up, and thereby prevented the defilement of very many. You should have worked just as zealously to counteract as you worked to influence and affect. I will not leave matters here. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 28

Brother Andrews has not borne the burden he should have borne in setting matters right, following the fruits of his course, of his influence, and the fruits of yours, to see that thorough work was made. He was especially exercised and burdened in my husband’s case, fearing that I should in some way lack faithfulness to my husband. There was not a corresponding zeal, a corresponding burden for decided wrongs committed in that office and in the Institute. There was an unconsecrated, inexperienced man that his influence placed in that position, yet he felt no special burden, he walked around before this man, light and jovial, sanctioning virtually by his influence the course of the man who was leading the Israel of God back to Egypt. Here Brother Andrews sinned against God. He had a work to undo what he had done. A confession merely could never do this. Like the man Joshua, he might humiliate himself and supplicate God, yet this was not just the work required of Joshua. Up, says God, why liest thou here on thy face; there is an accursed thing in the camp. The case of Joshua exactly represents the case of Brother Andrews. He has neglected prompt, decisive action to root out the wrong, the sin, the dissembling, and the evil, which has to his certain knowledge cursed the armies of Israel and weakened them before their enemies. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 29

He has been willing these burdens should slide from him, but God holds him accountable in a great measure for the condition of things at Battle Creek because he has not taken up the work he should have done and promptly acted to root out the evil. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 30

Harriett [Smith] has talked and has influenced. Brother Andrews has never felt the sinfulness of J. M. Aldrich’s course. He has been too ready to excuse wrongs. You at Battle Creek have persisted you had not been rebellious; but you have deceived yourselves. You have been rebellious. Envy, jealousy, retaliation, hatred, and a spirit answering to the definition of murderer in the Scripture has been cherished in your hearts, and yet you are well acquainted with the hopeless condition of the rebellious. You have tried to make yourselves believe you were free from genuine rebellion. Call it what you may, I think I shall have no further burden for you. The church must be enlightened that they may free themselves. I speak now decided. I speak now that you may understand. I shall call things by their right names now. God helping me, I will leave no duty undone if it be possible that we may stir and move matters in Battle Creek. I expect now I shall have to publish publicly the whole transaction at Battle Creek. I have no more smooth words to speak to you. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 31

Uriah [Smith] has been like a man paralyzed for years because of the accursed influence he has had at home, which he has lived in and breathed in. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 32

George [Amadon] has been about ruined because of the accursed influence he has lived in and breathed in at home. He has become lifted up, puffed up by the devil, and he has killed out the Spirit of God from the meetings by his lack of judgment, his reproofs stirred up by the spirit of his wife. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 33

Angeline Cornell has not made thorough work. She has made her confessions. She was not aware that she had done this and that, but if she had, she did wrong and was sorry. She knows what she has said, how she has felt, and the influence she has exerted. She has done more harm to the cause generally then good, especially when the new order of things was flourishing. Angeline is too selfish to make a good Christian. She is not willing to bear burdens. Oh what a work will have to be done for her before she can hear the “well done” from the Master. Angeline, is it not time for dissembling to cease? You are not right with God. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 34

Cornelia [Cornell] was zealous in talking and acting and writing, but she has been too proud to show much zeal in working to counteract. She has confessed in general terms but this will not do, it does not meet the mind of the Spirit of God. Never can the wound she has needlessly brought to her own soul be healed without thoroughly probing the wound to the bottom and removing the pestilent matter. Every time a plaster is covered over it while it is not thoroughly cleansed the pestilent matter will break forth again, more incurable than ever. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 35

I have stated that Brother Aldrich was idolized by some in Battle Creek. Cornelia [Cornell] has denied she was one, but she has been blinded; she has worshipped Aldrich. She has idolized him in her heart. So also has Harriett [Smith]; and you have set the example for very many to worship this man whose life has been marked with selfishness, pride, and love of the world. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 36

Cornelia [Cornell], you have a great lesson to learn. To deny self, and cease to be self-caring; love self less, and the Lord and His cause with an unselfish love. The second commandment, she has not carried out in her life. The second commandment is like it, namely, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” [Matthew 22:39.] She will have to work upon a different principle or she will never hear the “well done good and faithful servant” [Matthew 25:23] from the lips of the Master. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 37

Cornelia [Cornell] is not a burden bearer. Unpleasant duties she feels at liberty to shun. A great work is before her if she carries out the work of Christ. “If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” [Luke 9:23.] The cross is shunned because it is inconvenient. Many worldlings are more hospitable than Sabbathkeepers at Battle Creek more willing to put themselves to inconvenience to do others good than Sabbath-keeping Adventists at Battle Creek. 2LtMs, Lt 13, 1869, par. 38