Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 6 (1889-1890)

Lt 70, 1890

Daniels, E. P.

Salamanca, New York

October 30, 1890

Previously unpublished.

Elder Daniels:

Your letter was remailed to me from Battle Creek to New York City. You speak of my saying I would forgive you freely and try to help you all that I could, but you never asked my help. You did not write me a line. In the place of seeking with all your powers to make straight paths for your feet, showing that you had reformed, you did nothing to place yourself in the light. And I knew that it was no manner of use for me to try to help you unless you felt the need of help yourself. 6LtMs, Lt 70, 1890, par. 1

I wrote a letter to you both, but it never was sent to you, for I was taken down sick. It was some weeks before I knew that it had not been sent, and the strange course you have pursued made me cautious. I have again and again encouraged the brethren to have patience with you. I have brought up everything favorable that I could in your behalf and then you have, in a high-headed, presumptuous manner, made me feel so sorry that I did this; I thought this was no way to do. This I had done in the case of Elder Canright, for I felt that if after receiving so great light he should make shipwreck of faith, his punishment would be proportionate to the light God had given him. 6LtMs, Lt 70, 1890, par. 2

I have tried to hold you up, that you should not be discouraged entirely, and when I felt compelled to write the matter which I did write, it was because I dare not do otherwise. You would at every favorable opportunity do the very things the Lord warned you not to do. You did not care for the testimonies. They were nothing to you, nor to your wife. I set this thing before her when at Oakland after the camp meeting in 1889. And when you felt so terribly over the publicity given to the testimonies, I thought your wife’s feelings and yours might much more appropriately be exercised in reference to your own past history, in connection with the cause and work of God where you had marred it; but I saw that the opinion of the brethren was to drop you and take no more part in you. I then made every effort to counteract this for your sake and to save souls from ruin through you. I think there was no other way for me to do than as I have done; only, if this work had been done two or three years before, several of our brethren would not have been deceived in you, to trust your representations and you to take means from their hands which they designed were to be invested in the cause of God. 6LtMs, Lt 70, 1890, par. 3

This has been done, as has been presented to me over and over again. I do not make plain the errors and faults of others through any want of love or pity or sympathy for them; but I must not permit my Lord to be dishonored and your example to be before them as one whom God is using in His cause and in His work, for you reflect by your course of action reproach on the ministers of God. 6LtMs, Lt 70, 1890, par. 4

Reproof [was] given to Elders Loughborough and Waggoner because their course was blameworthy when you were at Healdsburg, but afterward, although warned and entreated and reproved, you did not heed it, and gave evidence that the fears expressed in regard to you by others was made truth by your aftercourse. You moved like a blind man. 6LtMs, Lt 70, 1890, par. 5

Elder Loughborough has borne with you, worked with you, tried to help you; and you in your turn have done a work that I know you have not seen the wrong of in its true light. You have bruised him, uprooted the confidence of all who received your statements of him. This was cruelty itself. Such work is a terrible offense to God. 6LtMs, Lt 70, 1890, par. 6

Now, I did all that I possibly could do to assure you that we would forgive you, and help you; but you made no moves further, and I have not had anything that I could do or say to you. If God was working in your heart then I will see the work go thorough, a transformation take place. I was withheld from making any efforts further until you should show that you were reformed. If your weakness was so ingrained that there were the same developments that had been again and again reproved, I had not any ... [Remainder missing.] 6LtMs, Lt 70, 1890, par. 7