Your wife has been petted by her parents and by her husband until she is of but very little use. You have both seen others burdened with care and have not lifted the burdens with them. Your wife has lain as a helpless weight upon families, greatly to her own injury and to theirs, when, in point of health, she was better able to do than some who were bearing her burdens and yours. Yet she did not think of this. Neither of you could see the facts in the case and feel for others. Some from whom you have received help in care for yourselves and your child were not able, financially, to do what they did; but they thought they were ministering to self-sacrificing servants of Christ; therefore they denied themselves and endured inconvenience and trouble, to bear burdens that you were better able to bear for yourselves than they were to bear them for you. (2T 546.1) MC VC

Your wife has been reluctant to take up her life burdens. She wants a higher calling, and neglects the duties of today. Neither of you obeys the commandment of God: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Self and selfishness shut out the needs of your neighbors from you. Your small, mercenary spirit is contagious. Your example has done more to encourage love of the world, and a close, penurious spirit, than anything else which has occurred in Wisconsin and Illinois. Had you done nothing but attend to your temporal interests, the cause of God in these two states would have been in a far better condition than it is in today. The success you have had does not come up to the injury you have done. The cause of God is prostrated. Your sensitiveness and jealousy have been an example for others. We met this spirit in Illinois and in Wisconsin. The state of the churches in ----- and vicinity has been deplorable. The lack of love and union, the surmising, jealousy, and stubbornness, apparent in these churches, have been shaped very much by your traits of character. The position which you occupied after the fanaticism at -----, standing back upon your dignity, splitting hairs, dividing the matter with the fanatical and with those whom God had sent with a special message, stood directly in the way of others’ seeing and correcting their wrongs. Your course at that time, in failing to take hold and work on the right side to correct that blasting fanaticism, gave shape to the discouraging state of things which has grown out of that dark reign of fanaticism. Brethren C and D, and the entire church at -----, and the people at -----, were not brought out upon correct positions, as they might have been had you been humble and teachable, working in union with the servants of God. (2T 546.2) MC VC