Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 3 (1876 - 1882)

Lt 30a, 1876

White, J. E.

December 1875 [?]

Previously unpublished.

Dear Edson:

Here is the testimony written for you last February. I have removed twenty-five pages that was especially for Elder Loughborough, which has not a special reference to you. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 1

I wish you to read this over carefully and prayerfully and do not, my son, copy the mistakes of your past life. From what the Lord has shown me, the parents’ duty and care exists toward their children as long as they both shall live. Also the children’s obedience, respect, and filial love is binding upon the children to the parents as long as both shall live. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 2

I do not feel free to have you do as you are doing without a remonstrance. I think you are working too hard. And, as in other days, your religious interest is being sacrificed or swallowed up for the poor return of the profits gained by hard work. This will not pay. You cannot afford to disconnect from God. It has been a fearful venture in the past and very poor pay. It will be still worse in the future because you have greater light, and God has blessed you with a spirit of labor to be a help to others in Sabbath School and meetings. While you make the kingdom of heaven your first business, God will prosper you, but when you sink your eternal interest into your business, grasping for wages brought to you by constant and wearing taxation, it will not pay. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” and the promise is “all these things shall be added.” [Matthew 6:33.] May God help you, my dear children, to work with the greatest interest for the better life. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 3

In regard to the matters of the Office [Pacific Press], Edson, I believe Father’s voice should control, his judgment be respected, his counsel be sought for, and deference paid to it, as well by his children as those who labor under him who are not connected by the ties of relationship. You have not, you know, in the past succeeded in planning, and your scheming has all proved a failure. God did not, He could not, prosper you in your plans. You should not be persistent to follow your own judgment and carry out your ideas, contrary to the judgment of your father. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 4

Edson, I believe with your father that your introducing job work in the Office is all wrong. It looks exactly to me as the same piece as that of Aldrich and Walker who desecrated the Office by making it a piece of merchandise. They claimed that they did not take time from business hours, but I saw that there was none too much of them physically or mentally should they put all their powers to the careful performance of the work necessary and important for the upbuilding of the cause. The extra hours devoted to their own personal matters taxed their vigor and detracted from their strength so that the work of God was marred. It did not come out in all its points with that thoroughness and perfection it should. Their minds became diverted and finally they lost all sense of the sacredness of the work. Common and sacred were placed upon a level. This same danger I see with you. I want to warn you before it shall be too late, before you get into a similar deception and blindness which ruined them. I cannot see how you can feel free to introduce job business into the Office on the back of the music work. There is a great volume of work of our own. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 5

You, my poor boy, are overworking every day. I have no heart to introduce anything more. There is a hymnbook to be printed here in the Office if it can have the entire attention. Father does not object to your music while you are connected with the Office, because it is an elevated business and will be a special help to you. But he does feel opposed to your introducing job printing in the Office, and thus bringing in a set of men coming and going to do little jobs that will really lower the dignity of the Office. I think he is correct. When you once get started on a wrong track, Edson, you have plenty of help. Satan knows that nothing will dishearten us like this, and this has been his special purpose, to cause unhappy differences between you and us. This must not be. We want you to feel right. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 6

I know that your father has felt a deep interest in you that you should succeed. He has tried to make it as easy for you as he could. You may not see this, but I know it is so. But you see that you are in need of means and you strain every nerve to acquire means, and just as surely as you are a living man the snap will come by and by, no one can tell how soon. I think it has been for your disadvantage to withdraw yourself from Sabbath school and from religious labor. Your mind is the more fully turned in the wrong channel of acquiring, and to get means is becoming an absorbing passion. All the vitality of your being is devoted to getting the highest wages possible. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 7

I feel sad over some things. I do not desire to control your actions, but I feel it duty to counsel you, nevertheless. I think your hard-earned means should not be spent in needless things. Count up how many dollars you have spent in purchase of birds and cages. Place this under the head of “Needless Use of Means.” Emma had two birds given her; one was enough. These two birds had to have two cages. Then you went still further and purchased another bird, and you are today paying no less than ten percent interest on all this money. Then there are other things I might mention, but will not now, that eat up means. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 8

I see no reason why Emma should not bear some responsibilities in the labor as well as you, Edson. I think in the place of being a detriment to her health, it would be a real blessing. I feel burdened over this state of things. I cannot see how the blessing of the Lord can rest upon Emma in taking life so very easy and you so very hard. There is an abundance of light work Emma can do if she will task herself to do it. She can, if she takes up her life burdens cheerfully, help Edson and in doing this will help herself more. It is really a subject of remark—all the rest doing all they can to get along, Emma bearing no weight of responsibility, excusing herself from everything unless it is very agreeable or pleasant to her. If anything will carry her to the grave it will be inaction. Useful labor will be a blessing. I cannot see how she can let her husband work early and late and she not feel under obligation to bear her part or even make her own clothing. This does not look right. God will not give a person His blessing of health while it is not used for any good purpose. We love Emma, you know we do, but I feel that you both need to ponder your steps carefully. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 9

Emma allows her mind to be in the east. She wants to visit her friends and her inclination and her pleasure alone are consulted in this matter. What good could she do, or what good gain? It would be a gratification to her. And Emma has been favored and petted and indulged until she makes herself a subject of thought and consults her own wishes and pleasure irrespective of duty or the good of others. I wrote to you both fully on this point more than one year ago. I presented the matter as it was presented to me, and I can but feel that you both are in danger of disregarding the light God has given you. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 10

Should Emma go east it would take no less than two hundred dollars to go and come, first-class fare, and to have a little means to go about with after she got home. For this extra draught, Edson must put in extra labor and it may be at the cost of his life in this world and his life in the better world. This would be a dear journey indeed. Edson is ambitious, struggling for a home, wrenching himself one way and another. His interest in the Office will, if it has not already, become a matter of dollars and cents, of working for wages. The enemy will come in and will have strong power upon his mind and so pervert things that Edson will be really deceived, ensnared, and will backslide from God. All his energies now and all his anxiety are to make wages fast to get him a home. Edson, your reaching out to get all the work you can is wrong. It brings perplexity and anxiety upon Father. We shall have to leave Oakland, for your father cannot bear these perplexities. I beg of you to surrender to God and not take matters so much in your own hands to drive through. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 11

Oh, Edson, your heart should be broken and humbled because of your past life; you should be hating your former course of sin. Don’t imitate the past mistakes. God has given you excellent abilities to glorify Him, but you are turning God’s gifts to serve a selfish purpose. You have received a license to improve your gift, and since that have done less than before and are every day hedging up your own way so that you cannot do anything. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 12

You have a favorable chance. You earn all that you should earn and that you have strength to earn, and Emma can help you and not injure herself any more than in doing unnecessary things that do no one any good. All in the east get the impression from Emma’s letters that she is not happy, that she is discontented. Well, it need not be so. If Emma would interest herself in the work she can and ought to do without injuring herself, she will forget herself. It is her duty to cultivate cheerfulness. She may look and see how she can be a blessing to others, how she can be useful. She can meditate upon heavenly things and commune with her Saviour. A Christian living daily to glorify God will never be repining. Said Christ, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Luke 9:23. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 13

The study of the Word of God has no interest and attraction for Emma. Is this as it should be? Emma loves to read storybooks, but this reading only weakens the mind and does not strengthen it. Oh, look well, children, to see if you are both building on the true foundation, if you are really connecting with the Cornerstone. In Christ there is a refuge from temptation, from fatigue and weariness. In this great fatigue and constant taxation you rob God of the service due Him. There must come a change. Your feelings are now overwrought. Satan is ready to suggest things in a perverted light. Shut out the tempter. Be suspicious of yourselves. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 14

Edson, your nervous energy is exhausted. A worldly atmosphere has its influence upon you. Your feelings are excited, irritable, and uncomfortable. An adversary is upon your track to discourage you. God is your refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Let not the enemy succeed in distracting your spirit. There is repose for you in Jesus. I point you to Jesus for relief. But I have written, you will say, quite enough. I will stop. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 15

Your Mother. 3LtMs, Lt 30a, 1876, par. 16