Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 211, 1900

White, Mabel

St. Helena, California

November 2, 1900

Previously unpublished.

My Dear Granddaughter Mabel White: 15LtMs, Lt 211, 1900, par. 1

When I was at Cooranbong, just before your last sickness, I dreamed that we were working over you and praying for you, and we were greatly troubled because you were in nervous spasms and we did not understand the matter. In our perplexity One whom we knew was a messenger from heaven appeared in our midst and said to us, “This child needs special care. She should indulge in reading very little. The nerve of the eye is connected with the brain nerve. When the eyes are taxed the brain nerves are excited and soon become overcharged with blood. It is dangerous for her to read. When she takes a book in her hand she is not any more safe, for intemperance in reading will follow. She must not tax her brain in any way, for there will be danger that the eyes will be taxed and she may lose her sight beyond recovery unless there is a constant guarding of this inclination to read. It is a dissipation. 15LtMs, Lt 211, 1900, par. 2

“She is obtaining no good whatever in indulging her passion for reading. The physical, mental, and moral powers are enfeebled. She only skims over the surface and fills her brain with hay, wood, and stubble. It does her only injury and creates a nervousness that will result in the increased passion of filling the brain with trash. And from the light given me this is one of the great evils that retards spiritual growth. They read those things that in no way enrich or improve the mind or the manners. No good whatever results from this.” 15LtMs, Lt 211, 1900, par. 3

Something must be devised for the child to do that is not of a sedentary character. Keeping her indoors is not good for her. She needs exercise in the open air. Light exercise, work, is much better for the child than sedentary employment. She becomes nervous by thinking much or reading much. But there is one Book which is safe, pure, elevating, ennobling, and is as partaking of the leaves of the tree of life. The Word of God is to be studied, not rushed over as you are forming the habit of doing with your storybooks. Nothing should be put into your hands in the form of bound books of many pages, for it [is] like putting brandy to the lips of the one whose appetite craves strong drink. He has lost his control and the right thing to do he does not do, which is to dash the cup from him. 15LtMs, Lt 211, 1900, par. 4

Your brain is a fine, strong machine. You can injure it by exciting story reading. The Bible is to be your educator, but you have no right to depress or injure one organ of the body. Your happiness and usefulness in this world, and your salvation in the world to come, demands that you treat your body with sound care, because it is the Lord’s property, not to be abused but to be carefully preserved to honor and magnify your Redeemer. 15LtMs, Lt 211, 1900, par. 5

Your life is in no way to be trifled with. It can be extinguished by imprudence and presumption. There must be especial attention given to the reading subject of the books brought into the sanitarium that shall be allowed to the patients; no newspapers containing exciting rehearsals of news or books ... [letter ends here.] 15LtMs, Lt 211, 1900, par. 6