Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 8 (1893)

Lt 53, 1893

Roth, Mary

Gisborne, New Zealand

October 22, 1893

Previously unpublished.

Mary Roth
Battle Creek, Michigan

Dear Sister,

I have a heart full of sorrow as I write to you. Your influence is not of a character to be a blessing in the family of Brother and Sister Gage. The Lord is displeased with you, and displeased with Brother and Sister Gage. O, that the truth for this time would be loved and cherished, and [would] sanctify your souls. What a change would be wrought with you all if this were true. Your association with this family is detrimental to them. As your course has been presented before me, since you left Switzerland for America, it is not a record that you will be pleased to meet in the judgment. The enemy has used your powers to advance his own ends and glorify his own name. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 1

You have absorbed the mind and attention of others, committing robbery toward others and robbery toward God. O, it would have been better had your life closed when you were in Switzerland. Your heart has not been yielded to God, and you have not been improving spiritually. You have made a very poor use of your time and influence, and unless your eyes are open to the deceptive working of the powers of darkness, and you come under the control of the Spirit of God, you will be used by the enemy to entrap souls. You are wrong in spirit and in your acting. May God grant that you may see your true position. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 2

You are, yourself, leading minds to you. The same spirit, which wrought so much evil that was reproved in Edith Andrews, is working in you. Persons are foolish enough to be infatuated with you. Do you forget and lead others to forget the natural corruptions of the human heart, and the perilous tendencies of sin? The salvation of the soul is the very first and highest consideration. The elements of happiness here, and hereafter, is through obedience to all of God’s commandments. It becomes you to watch carefully in pursuing a course which will imperil your salvation. If you lose heaven you lose everything. You need to pray to our heavenly Father to be guarded, yourself, against being led into temptation and in becoming, yourself as did Edith Andrews, a tempter. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 3

All the qualities of mind, all the attractiveness of personal character, may be made a curse or a blessing. You are under the training process of a power, not from above but from beneath. Now, for Christ’s sake cut the threads proceeding from you which has led from you to the entanglement of souls, and go away, any where you can go, rather than remain where you now are to catch souls to place in the enemy’s service. It was understood when you left Switzerland that you came to America to recover, if possible, your health and return to Switzerland to engage in missionary work in that country. You have greatly disappointed me. You have not glorified God in America, neither have you glorified Him in Switzerland. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 4

Mary, you are God’s property by creation and by redemption. “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God’s.” [1 Corinthians 6:19, 20.] Separate yourself from the family of William Gage, never to again become a member of it. How much your influence has done to confirm Fred Gage in his skepticism, his infidelity to God and his family, the day of God will reveal. How much your influence is weighing in the scale to cause the apostasy of Wm. Gage the future will determine. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 5

Let not your vanity of mind make corrupt beyond remedy your principles, that you will lead souls away from God, away from truth and righteousness into the enemy’s ranks. Were you following on to know the Lord, you would not move forward presumptuously as you have done, but you would have a distrust of self, you would receive warnings and counsels, you would discern your danger. Please bear in mind that you will be called to give an account hereafter when every soul shall be judged in regard to the influence they might have exercised in doing righteously, and did not do, but put their endowments to the enemies service, to win them away from truth and moral integrity and holiness of character. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 6

Never can you expect to receive the reward heaven gives to the faithful ones while you are going directly contrary to His will. Should you be cut off suddenly, as you now are you would not be numbered with the Lord’s faithful ones. Will you, my sister, come to Jesus now, just as you are? Will you make diligent work for repentance? Will you come to God with true contrition of heart and seek not the gilding merely of life, but its realities? That alone is really life which is begun and ended in God—begun with God’s grace, continued in God’s strength, and ended in God’s glory. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 7

“Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” [Revelation 3:4, 5.] You have now an opportunity to form a character for the future immortal life, but you have no time now to longer live to serve and please yourself. The time has come for you to chose whom you will serve. Eternal life is worth a lifelong, persevering, untiring effort. Although Jesus has paid the ransom money for your soul’s salvation, that precious soul will be lost unless you co-operate with God in the great work of saving your soul. Mary, dear sister, you are not pleasing God, but living under His displeasure. You look to human agents for help and pleasure and satisfaction, but you do not put your trust in God. You have the lesson to learn to wean your heart from all other confidences, clinging to Jesus in full faith that He can help you. You have need that Christ should reshape your character. You have lost the moral image of God. By beholding Jesus, looking unto Jesus, we become changed into His image. Self, dear self is made a center. You need not to seek for happiness in outward surroundings, but it is the inward adorning you need, inward grace which you have not now. When you are emptied of self, and seek and cleave [to] Jesus praying, “Lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us,” you will not seek for admiration from human beings. [Psalm 4:6.] 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 8

O believe now. Come to Jesus just as you are. Surrender your way, your will, to Jesus and He will take you just as you are, but O, when you see yourself as a lost sinner saved alone through the merits of Jesus Christ and take the precious gift of God—Christ as your personal Saviour—the darkness which surrounds you will be dispelled. That affection which fastened upon human beings will surely fasten upon the One who has died to save you from eternal ruin. He will be your light, your joy, and the crown of your rejoicing. You attract attention to yourself, but do not win the affections to Jesus. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 9

If you have Christ you have all things, the joy of the Lord shall be your strength. This fountain once open to you, by you discerned, appreciated, improved, the healing stream, will flow forth from you to others. You will not merely have good hope through grace, but having nothing, you possess all things. You will naturally, from a heart full of heavenly treasures, show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. You will know then, enjoying the riches of His grace, what it means to be content in God, and [to] be still in God. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 10

Rest in God, a quiet life, enjoying the fulness of God, poor in this world’s treasure, but rich in contemplation and assurance of the heavenly treasure. The treasure of gladness is in the heart of the one who believes in Christ as his personal Saviour. The sunbeams of righteousness is health and strength to the physical as well as to the spiritual and moral. When you find Christ, my dear erring child, you will find rest and peace and contentment, happiness and joy, that create melody in our hearts. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 11

“Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” [Isaiah 8:13.] If you will now come to the Lord with contrition of soul, if you will really educate your heart to have that faith that works by love and purifies the soul, you will be resting in the love of Jesus. Faith, genuine faith, you are a stranger to. Faith is peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Study the plan of redemption. Your carnal, faithless position is robbing yourself every day and robbing God of heart service. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 12

When you come to God through Christ and cast yourself upon Him just as you are, you will not lean on broken reeds for support and seek other sources for peace and contentment, for you have peace and joy in Christ. That which will bring to you immediate relief is to lay your heart before Jesus and pray and take God at His Word. Confess your sins, and your dishonoring God by your separation from Him. Ask Him to forgive you. Lay hold on the promises as for your life. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 13

O, Mary will you make a determined effort to co-operate with God and be all that He has made provision you should be? Elevate, chasten, purify your soul through the merits of Jesus Christ, then believe and delight your soul in God. Be able to say with Paul, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8:38, 39.] 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 14

Your brother Paul has not advanced as he would have done had not there been threads leading him to human beings that would only be a device of the enemy to lessen his usefulness and dwarf his religious spiritual advancement. You might have helped him, but you have not been a help to him. You need the converting power of God upon your own soul. I fear your and his coming to America may prove an injury to both of you, but it need not be thus. O, that you might individually see and sense that you should have an experience of altogether a different character than you have had, else you will never enter the portals of bliss. You are daily deciding your own destiny. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 15

Those who serve God must watch diligently, lest the thousand little things, objects of mere consequence, shall interest and circumstances supply the themes of conversation in the family circle that crowd out the elevating, ennobling themes of the higher and eternal interest of God and heaven, and the soul be left barren of the spirit of God. We have as Christians a large field of thought, that the conversation shall be in a higher, holier channel than has been with you and your associates. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 16

Human love should draw its closest bonds from divine love. Why should the words of our lips dwell upon themes of commonplace subjects, and the greatest, grandest, richest subjects be discarded. O, how much the family of Brother and Sr. Gage need remodeling, that the family religion may have its most blessed work upon minds and characters of every member of the household, devotion to God coloring every thought, stimulating every hope, sanctifying every sympathy, ennobling and elevating the affection. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 17

I address myself to you in the name of Jesus Christ to seek the Lord without one moment’s delay. Let your lovesick sentimentalism die as quickly as possible, and never be resurrected again. It is a curse to you and a curse to all with whom you associate. It leaves the soul exposed to fall an easy prey to the deceptive wiles of Satan. You need, O so much self-control. You need to keep a curb upon your feelings and affections. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 18

Never this side of heaven is it safe for self-control to cease. You need daily to be under discipline to Jesus Christ. You need to practice self-denial. You need to be placed in altogether different relations than you now are, for this conflict between reason and conscience on one hand, and the sinful pantings of the natural heart on the other, is spoiling your life and making your character very defective. What battles are you fighting, nature against God or God against nature? Self-control to be under discipline to God is your only remedy. You have need that you take heed to your ways and cherish self-control. Be under discipline to Jesus Christ, your every thought being brought into captivity to Christ Jesus. Self-control needs to be wisely, judiciously managed. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 19

There is danger of always giving loose reign to every passing feeling, until one becomes the slave of their own emotion, immoderate in their joy as they are extravagant in their grief. They are easily swept away by every passing gust of emotion. They have not inward stability, and power over themselves. They resemble the froth of the seafoam, restless, disquiet, fretful as it is tossed by the tempest. All this feeling indulged is supreme selfishness that only thinks and acts for itself. Now you need to engage in some employment that will occupy your mind, not an overtaxing one, but to be employed. Make Christ your counsellor. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 20

You have petted yourself, my dear child, and you have lived on the sympathy and love of others until you have about spoiled your character and solidity of religious experiences. Your only safety now is an entire change, to exercise self-control over your natural feelings and affections, else you will never have a healthy soul life. So long as the feelings are under the control of the divine will all is well, but as soon as feelings control the mind and soul and interfere with the duties God requires, it becomes sin. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 21

There are sources of pleasure opened before you, and you become elated and carried away with joy. Take heed, then, lest you indulge your impulse extravagantly, and then some little things change the current of your feelings, and you go just as far to the opposite extreme. Your love dies out of the soul and reveals you do not know yourself. Again, your grief is extreme to lose one you love. Your only hope is strong faith in God. Let not your heart tendrils entwine around any earthly object, or any earthly being, and become so fast united to them that they take the place of God. Let your tendrils entwine about God. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 22

Your extremes of feeling make you incapable of performing the duties of life, which it is essential for your good and happiness that you should do in order to forget yourself and not study your feelings and be controlled by impulse. You need active duty, self-dependence. Cut yourself away from this sentimentalism that makes you a subject of feeling, which is ruinous to your spiritual life and character. You do not know yourself. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 23

If you will fasten your soul’s affection upon God, and work in Christ’s lines, it is the best antidote you can have for not only the bodily ailments but for the soul maladies. You need to substitute for this depending on your feelings, active interest in wholesome occupation of mind and muscle, and obedience to God’s will. This will strengthen the body and the soul. Whatever comes in to interfere with the discharge of practical duties, which you can do, is all out of God’s order and a serious injury to the physical, mental, and moral powers, for the graces of the heart are being destroyed. That is, the grace of faith, hope, and a divine love that has not the mixture of the carnal. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 24

You need to be converted soul, body, and spirit; then you will acquire a habit and power of self-control, and feelings will not obtain the mastery over your judgment. The power of feelings acquired by indulgence over judgment, in excess of that which is lawful, will spoil your life. In the practice of that which is not lawful in temper, taste, habits, and affection left to have its own impulsive way, will lead you into forbidden paths, irrespective of consequences, and far from God and far from heaven. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 25

But you can now make a change. Cease to leaven this one or that one, and make God your support. You have been leaning on broken reeds. This will be difficult at first, but keep to the point steadfastly. By constant effort and repetition it will become easy, until it will work reformation in your life, and your religious character, and you will become useful and a blessing to others. The Holy Spirit of God mold Mary into a new character. 8LtMs, Lt 53, 1893, par. 26