Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 2 (1869 - 1875)

Lt 41a, 1874

Abbey, Brother and Sister

Battle Creek, Michigan

July 11, 1874

Portions of this letter are published in OHC 227.

Dear Brother and Sister [Ira] Abbey:

I had very impressive and remarkable dreams on my way from California to the camp meetings. Two dreams were on the cars, and two were given me while at the camp meetings West. In these dreams I seemed to be laboring with the patients and helpers, superintendent, and physicians of the Health Institute. Everything there seemed to be in a reckless condition. The controlling influence of the Spirit of God seemed to have left, generally, patients and helpers, superintendent and his family, physicians and matron. All seemed to be letting go of God and did not realize their danger. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 1

I watched the goings and comings and deportment of Lillie Abbey, and marked the influence of these things upon helpers and patients. I saw that even the influence of one girl, allowed to do as she pleased, indulged and petted, not conforming to the rules and principles which should be strictly carried out at a Health Institute, would deprave in a most alarming degree those connected with the Institute. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 2

One person, who as far as any influence for good is concerned may be only a cipher, yet if placed on the wrong side, may carry a telling weight of influence for evil. Such persons can serve the purposes of Satan so naturally and so very readily. They stand in his ranks and work with a will to advance his interest. Although professed followers of Jesus Christ, they do nothing to bear fruit to His glory. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 3

This is exactly the condition of Lillie Abbey. She is a bramble bush, bearing thorns, only thorns. She is not a partaker of the sap and nourishment of the True Vine. I dreamed that I saw Lillie. I saw her influence. I saw her father and mother deceived and blinded in regard to the course they should pursue toward her. They could not really credit the fact that her influence was just what they would not tolerate in another soul in that Institute; that the very things both would be quick to discern and condemn in an unsparing manner in others, they allowed in Lillie. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 4

Lillie is not a girl of principle. Her word cannot be trusted. She will take advantage, when out of the sight of her parents, to do the very things she knows that they will condemn. As for filial obedience, she has little regard for it. Her influence on the helpers and patients is demoralizing. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 5

You have, as a family, spoiled Lillie through indulgence, and then you felt that you have made a mistake, and Sister Abbey makes it up in scolding and fretting, and then in promises of some gratification or indulgence if she will do thus and so. If Lillie had not been sick and come near dying at one time, things might have been different. But I have been shown that it would have been better for her and for you all had her life’s history then closed. For in the book of records in heaven there remains no record of deeds of self-denial, of filial obedience, of love to God, and of good works; but her life stands in God’s records like a barren, sandy desert, without buds, flowers, or leaves—only a crisp, dry, barren life. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 6

The dreams I have had alarmed me, and when I came to Battle Creek, a burden came upon me which I could not throw off. I could not sleep nights. I arose mornings at three o’clock and lit my lamp and wrote many pages before breakfast. I instituted inquiries in regard to the state of things at the Health Institute, and especially in regard to Lillie’s influence there. My fears were confirmed, which leads me—with a strangely burdened heart—to write these lines this morning. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 7

How important that the family of the superintendent of the Health Institute should, if brought in connection with patients and helpers, be right. If the course of any one of your family should be wrong, with all the light God has given you in regard to your dangers and the sins which He has condemned, great will be the guilt which rests upon you. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 8

I sincerely regret our urging Sister Abbey to go into the Health Institute. I think Brother Abbey had reasons of weight which we could not appreciate fully. Her going there has brought Lillie there, and her influence is, to say the very least, very objectionable, decidedly contrary to the rules and regulations of the Institute and decidedly contrary to the light given of the Lord in regard to the influence which should prevail in the Institute. God’s Spirit has been grieved away from the Institute, for it cannot abide there. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 9

I have looked matters over and over. I have read the full and explicit testimony of warnings and reproof given to Sister Chamberlain and Josey, that all might be profited by the light there given. I have read the published testimonies so fully explaining the exalted character of the Health Institute and the watchful care which should be exercised by all, lest a wrong influence should come in and the favor of God depart. I have read the testimonies given me for your family; and I am deeply grieved when I see these testimonies are not regarded. You have gone directly contrary to them. Lillie’s life is a failure, a terrible blank. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 10

Life is not made up of great things alone; it is the little things that make the sum of life’s happiness or miseries. It is the little things in life that reveal a person’s real character. Oh, if all youth and those of mature age could see as I have seen the mirror of persons’ lives presented before them, they would look more gravely upon even the little duties of life. Every mistake, every error, unimportant though it may be regarded, leaves a scar in this life and a blot on the heavenly records. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 11

Life is full of duties that are not agreeable, but all these unpleasant duties will be made agreeable by a cheerful performance of them because it is right. Taking an interest in the duties which someone must do, and striving to do them with the heart, will make the most disagreeable duties pleasant. Each man and woman and youth is bearing a weight of influence for good or for evil. Example will be a power for good on the side of right. How important it is that we each should live pure, true, and holy lives that God can approve, and which others will have no occasion given them to condemn, but we be living epistles, known and read of all men. It is in doing life’s duties that we make ourselves useful in the world, whether these duties are agreeable to our natural inclinations or otherwise. Christ pleased not Himself. While we are seeking to do good to others we are serving our heavenly Father. We can be fellow workers with our Redeemer in saving others from sin and death. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 12

Moral power in Lillie has become very feeble because she has not strengthened it with exercise. Her weakened moral perceptions can but poorly sense sin and wrong and she does not love piety or see the beauty of holiness, that it should be desired. She makes resolves, she acknowledges wrongs, but no sooner is temptation thrown in her path than she is overcome. She has not courage to deny self, because for self she lives. When she sees a wrong habit, she does not take up warfare against the lust of the eye, the pride of life, and lustful passions. If she took up the warfare against these strong inclinations to evil and sin, determined to conquer or die, she would be victor. But her indulgence in that which she knows to be wrong enslaves her mind so that the will power to govern herself is not at her command. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 13

Instead of reason, judgment, and conscience holding sway, selfishness, indulgence, and lustful passions control. Lillie has buried a living conscience to quiet its rebukes. Lillie has pleased herself in not loving useful labor. There were duties to her parents binding upon her which she would not see or regard because they did not please her natural feelings. She has excused herself from a useful life, and her parents have excused her for one pretext after another. Her mother gives credit to these excuses and has often prostrated herself by doing those things Lillie should have been made to do but was excused from doing by her deceptive plea of inability. God would not sustain the mother in her needless expenditure of strength to do that which the daughter could and should have done, for her own and her mother’s good. God has noticed and condemned these things. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 14

Sister Abbey could and should have had regular duties for Lillie to perform, but instead of laying upon her responsibilities which would have given her an experience in practical life, she did these things herself or got others to do them for her, while her daughter—seeking her own pleasure—was as well able to do them as the one who did them for her. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 15

Her mother sees she has no heart in useful labor and dreads the task of urging any care upon her. Lillie is ready to exert herself to please herself. She will tax her strength to almost any degree to indulge her pleasure to row a boat, which taxes and tries the lungs severely. She expresses no inconvenience. But when it comes to washing, or doing needful labor not requiring half the exertion, she uses deception to excuse herself by pleading that her lungs pain her. She will be fascinated with rolling the balls upon the croquet ground, in a stooping position which is trying to the lungs, but she has no complaint to make of this. When she wants to shirk work she has only to say her lungs or her head pains her and she is excused. If she had moral principle she would not do this, but she has neither principle or change of heart, but is as truly unconverted as any poor lost sinner. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 16

My soul is weighed down heavily as I review the past and present of this case. If Brother and Sister Abbey had acted upon the light given them on Lillie’s real character years ago, there would now be a different state of things. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 17

Lillie loves society, especially the society of young men and boys, but the mother was blind to this inclination of Lillie’s and flattered herself that Lillie was exactly the opposite of what she really was. Vanity in dress and to study her own pleasure seem to be the aim and purpose of Lillie’s life. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 18

When I heard that Lillie was encouraged by her mother to have her picture taken with a young man, I said, Wrong, all wrong. It was encouraging in Lillie a disposition that needed to be checked. Lillie seems to have her perceptive powers blunted, that she does not sense the real fitness of things. She has such a vain conceit in regard to herself, her appearance, that she thinks young men are charmed with her deportment, when they are disgusted and out or mere politeness conceal their feelings. They read her superficial character like an open book. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 19

The Health Institute is the most unfavorable place to make the acquaintance of young men and to encourage their address. Many who come to the Health Institute to be treated are suffering from their impure, corrupt habits and illegal associations. The world is becoming like Sodom. Licentiousness, with its moral evils and fearful degradation, is not only weakening mental power but is diminishing the vital forces and shortening life. Young men are not only ruining their reputation and moral character by their lustful passions, but they are planting seeds in their system which will ruin their constitutions and shorten their lives. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 20

There are but very few young men who are pure and fit to become companions of the virtuous and refined. These habits, begun and continued in early life, are frequently carried on in their married life, whatever may be the sacrifice to the moral and physical character. This polluting sin in youth of both sexes is destroying its thousands and tens of thousands, and is doing greater injury to society than has been done by any and every other crime. Many youth of rare promise have, through indulgence of this sin, reduced their minds to imbecility. Many lose all sense of their moral accountability to God in this matter. Disease of every type is the result of self-indulgence. Accompanying the disease brought on by this indulgence are spinal afflictions, kidney difficulties, hopelessness, dejection, melancholy, and despair. The world is one vast lazarhouse of corrupting, diseased mortals, made thus by their own doings. The Health Institute is no place to flirt with young men and retain an untarnished reputation. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 21

We are very near the fullness of crime and abominable corruptions which existed previous to the flood. God alone can keep us from the general pollutions of these last days. The young seem to feel that marriage will be the crowning period of happiness in their lives, but they find that where they looked for peace and happiness is sadness, disappointment, and anguish. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 22

The course Lillie has taken has not been allowed in others for a moment. They would have been reproved and sent away from the Health Institute at once. Not one particle of anything like flirting between young men and women, or even of courting, should be allowed at the Health Institute. Familiarity between men and women in the parlors or on the grounds should not be encouraged. I have been shown that the very worst results will follow if any leniency is given in this direction. If men and women had possessed self-control and moral power to restrain appetite and keep all their passions in subjection, many would have no need of coming to the Health Institute. Therefore if sanction is given for young ladies and gentlemen to be on familiar terms and encourage the society of each other, the imagination will become excited and there will be a strange abandonment of principle which characterizes this generation. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 23

Lillie has placed herself in the way of young men and encouraged an intimacy and flirted with them, all of which God abhors. There should not be the first indulgence of anything of the nature of flirting or courting, for serious evils will grow out of this. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 24

But Lillie should know that her course does not gain respect. Some of the very ones whom she thinks she is charming see through the gloss of her movements and read her character. They laugh and make sport of her vanity and frivolous mind. They make her the butt of their jests and ridicule. She is, in short, a byword with many. Lillie’s real sense of propriety and what constitutes modesty and becoming reserve is very deficient. God has given Lillie light as to how she might possess a beautiful character that Heaven could approve if she would be guided by the Lord. But instead of Lillie’s cultivating her intellect, she has cultivated her vanity. Everything connected with her character is without depth. She is superficial. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 25

You have petted and indulged Lillie until you have spoiled her. You have been foolish enough to talk about Lillie’s delicate appetite, and you have fostered her appetite and encouraged a perverted taste. Lillie should have been made to understand that she could not have these things her appetite craved for, that they were not the best for her. But the idea of prescribing the diet, or having regular rules or habits in Lillie’s case could not be thought of. She was considered an exception to the general rule. Others might do thus and so, but it would not do for Lillie. So long has the girl in her childhood and youth been looked upon as a special case, upon whom should come no yoke, that she has become willful, determined, headstrong, and almost wholly useless. Sister Abbey has not allowed Lillie to bear burdens; she has been ready to shield her from responsibilities and from care, until she can now see the fruit and feel its benefit, for just as the twig is bent the tree inclines. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 26

Lillie has not relish for good, wholesome food. She has but very little regard for the laws of life and health. She eats when she is inclined, be it early or late or between her meals. She has tampered with her appetite until her appetite and taste are perverted. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 27

God chose to restrict the diet of the children of Israel for their good. He even promised them that He would take all sickness away from the midst of them if they would be obedient and follow Him fully. He gave them angels’ food morning by morning. But what a pitiful sight do we see in the camp of Israel! Men and women are weeping in the doors of their tents, and there is heard the pitiful cry, “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots and did eat bread to the full.” Exodus 16:3. “Our soul,” say they, “loatheth this light bread.” Numbers 21:5. What, is it possible God could be so hard-hearted as to prescribe a died for the children of Israel which could not satisfy their wants or sustain their life? Would that God who created man require of him that which would make him miserable?. Oh no! Israel had been fostering a perverted appetite which would, if indulged, shorten their life. God, for their good, restricted their diet; but they rebelled against God’s requirements and thought themselves better able to choose their own food than God was to choose for them, and they would not submit to God’s requirement. The result was disease and death in the wilderness. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 28

Just so will it be with modern Israel. God has given them the light upon health reform in these last days, that His people may reform their unnatural habits and come into a more healthful condition where their bodies and minds might be preserved in a good condition of health for their good in this world and their eternal happiness in the next world. Our Redeemer proposes to lead the people of God through to the heavenly Canaan if they will be led by Him. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 29

Satan comes with his temptations upon the point of appetite and overcomes thousands and tens of thousands. The senses become so perverted through the indulgence of appetite that sacred and common things are placed upon a level. Through indulgence of appetite Adam fell, and the race was ruined. Through the denial of appetite man may overcome the temptations of Satan on this point and may become victor on every other point by determined effort. Our Saviour fasted nearly six weeks in behalf of the race, that man might overcome through His name. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 30

If Lillie has useful, steady employment to exercise her inventive faculties, and she is brought where she really has a burden of perplexity and thought, it would mature and strengthen her mind and discipline her for future usefulness. As it is, from what has been shown me, her mind is inefficient and feeble. She has not depth of thought or of character. Lillie has eaten between meals and eaten the third meal even at the Health Institute irrespective of consequences. She has eaten late at night, preparing some little extras to tempt her delicate appetite. Were she engaged in useful labor, her appetite would not be so delicate. If she worked as other girls of her age have worked, who have a far superior mind to hers, she would not be troubled with loss of appetite. It is indulgence and petting the appetite which educates the taste and makes wholesome food unpalatable. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 31

God cannot approbate such a course as you have pursued in Lillie’s case at the Health Institute. Almost imperceptibly the father has been molded by mother and daughter, and the regulations, order, and discipline of the Health Institute have been trampled upon. Lillie has been indulged to her suppers, while the helpers and patients have had their two meals only. But what an example has Lillie been in the Health Institute—and she a daughter of the superintendent! This of itself has given her influence. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 32

You had considerable feeling and much to say in regard to Josey Chamberlain’s influence at the Institute. You could see, you could feel over the matter, and you insisted on strait measures being pursued toward her. You thought she ought not to have a room as good as she occupied. You felt, Brother Abbey, over Sister Chamberlain’s having a good room, No. 2, for you thought that she could just as well have a less expensive room. You were very persistent that Sister Chamberlain should not have No. 2. We allowed you and Addie to control our judgment in this respect. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 33

Now compare this with the course pursued toward Lillie. She had an expensive room and yourself and wife had an expensive room, while Sister Chamberlain was made to take a small room overlooking the bathroom. Here was self exhibited plainly. Sister Chamberlain’s age required respect. She has not had it. I do not feel that things are right in this respect. Josey Chamberlain’s course at the Health Institute was not a tenth part as objectionable as Lillie’s. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 34

The very things you knew had been reproved in Sister Chamberlain in regard to some things, you carried out and saw carried out to a far greater degree in your own family and by others—in eating between meals, in seeking for extras, in self-regard. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 35

Lillie said to Willie last night that she could not live on such food as they had at the Health Institute. Then she should not remain at the Health Institute. She was going down town to get something good to eat. The helpers who do the work subsist on the good, healthful food prepared at the Health Institute, and accomplish hard labor upon it. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 36

This is the example of the superintendent’s daughter, and here is the appetite you both have indulged and educated. There is a demoralized state of things at the Institute. The light God has been pleased to give has not been followed. God has been good to His people, to shed light upon their errors and darkness and to show that the only course for true Christians to pursue to perfect Christian character was to be temperate in all things. I was shown that both Sister Abbey and Lillie would have much better health if they had accepted the light God had given. I fear that the influence of these things has molded matters at the Institute in a wrong direction. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 37

Brother and Sister Abbey, you have not fully adopted health reform. Brother and Sister Abbey’s indulgence of Lillie on the point of appetite has had a weight of influence over others who have but little control over their appetites. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 38

If Lillie cannot eat the wholesome food prepared for the tables at the Health Institute, how can feeble and sick patients be satisfied? How can the helpers be satisfied, who have to work and are continually industrious and cannot flirt and idle away their time as Lillie does? One unruly person like Lillie Abbey may unconsciously bring in an influence which would mold both patients and helpers, and bring in a spirit of insubordination and willful independence that would bring it into a state of demoralization that would do more harm than its existence could do good. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 39

If there is a place anywhere that order and perfect discipline should be maintained, it is at a Health Institute. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 40

Lucinda, whom I love better than myself, forms a connecting link between your family and ours that makes it hard for me to call things by their right name. But the jealousy I have for the cause of God has stirred me to the depths. I cannot let matters go on as they have done. I feel sorry that dear Lucinda is coming east, to have her soul burdened to death by these things. O, if I only get a letter to tell her not to come. These things will kill her. The cause of God is as dear to her as her own life. Poor, dear, precious child, my heart aches for her. She has been a burden-bearer all her life. I want to shield her, if I can, from increasing troubles. 2LtMs, Lt 41a, 1874, par. 41