Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 3 (1876 - 1882)

Lt 38, 1879

Cornell, James

Texas

January 16, 1879

Previously unpublished.

Brother James Cornell:

I’m seeing you. There have been brought fresh to my mind some things shown me in regard to you in my last vision. I must write this out now and hand it to you at the right time. I was shown that your married life has not been happy for either of you. There has been blame on both sides, but your own selfish temperament has lain at the foundation of very much of the unhappiness of your lives. 3LtMs, Lt 38, 1879, par. 1

You have known what poverty is, and you have known what prosperity and plenty are. God has placed you in different circumstances and with different surroundings to develop what there is in your character. But your self-esteem and self-sufficiency have so blinded your eyes you could not discern your faults. Your self-importance and arbitrary exactions were hard to bear. Your wife was not altogether what you would have her to be, and her defects were magnified continually until she lost courage and she would reflect back your censures with interest. 3LtMs, Lt 38, 1879, par. 2

I was shown you have but little knowledge of the grace of God and the humility of Christ. It is all self, self, self. Your word is not to be questioned. Your arbitrary authority is so unreasonable, so blind, and so inconsistent and out of place. This you do not see and do not sense. Yourself is the center of attraction, yourself the subject of thought. Your orders, consistent or inconsistent, are law, until the characters of your children are warped. They have failed to gain the experience they might have had, and the self-reliance they should now possess they are destitute of. They will never fully overcome the stamp of character you have given them. 3LtMs, Lt 38, 1879, par. 3

The hardest lesson you have yet to learn is to know yourself, to become acquainted with yourself, and to see and sense your defects of character—egotistical with an India-rubber conscience. You have passed your life, and now at your age habits have become fixed; your heart and soul are poisoned with selfishness. You are not a Christian, although you think you are. A Christian is Christlike. Our Redeemer was self-denying, self-sacrificing. For our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. 3LtMs, Lt 38, 1879, par. 4

What have you denied yourself of for Christ’s sake? Where have been your meekness and lowliness of heart? Where has been the evidence of a change of the selfish thoughts, feelings, and motives? Where has been the time when you have obeyed the injunction of the apostle: “In honor preferring one another.” “Let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others”? [Romans 12:10; Philippians 2:3.] 3LtMs, Lt 38, 1879, par. 5

You have not answered the purpose of God in your existence. God has not been honored by your life. Your own inclination has controlled you, rather than duty and principle. Stubbornly set to carry out your own will and your headstrong purposes from your youth, you have grown up with habits of selfishness that are offensive to God. You do not get your mind away from and above yourself. You are the principal man in your estimation. 3LtMs, Lt 38, 1879, par. 6

I was shown you are your own idol. You cannot love God supremely while you worship yourself. It is so great a pity that a man of your age has not been overcoming himself and softening and subduing his natural heart by the grace of God. 3LtMs, Lt 38, 1879, par. 7