King, Brother Battle Creek, Michigan February 19, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 11MR 201. Dear Brother King:
I wrote you in the letter entrusted to Brother Toll, in regard to the child that is living with you. You all said that she was a good, affectionate, sweet child when she came to your house. I love her much. I have ever felt an interest for her.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 1)
When I have seen any one from your place, I have inquired particularly in regard to her. I have felt sad to learn that Lena was farther from being a Christian than when she came to live with you. In short, that she hates everything like the truth or Adventism. Her mother was so anxious for the salvation of her children. She sent them from her care and entrusted them to strangers. She had confidence in Sabbathkeepers, that their influence would be of a sanctifying nature upon her children. Have you considered how that mother would feel to have her children return to her not only unconverted, but infidels in regard to the truth and religion?
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 2)
Have you done your duty, Brother King, in your own house? When you saw that the influence was not what it should be over Lena, that she was becoming less and less susceptible to the influences of the truth, why have you not been awake to inquire and learn the cause?
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 3)
I made special inquires of your wife in regard to Lena. She told me she hated the truth and religion, that she talked to her a great deal, but she could not make the least impression upon her. She hated to hear the truth mentioned. What influence could thus operate upon the mind of this child to excite such prejudices and create such determined opposition?
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 4)
You were that child’s guardian. You told me when I suggested a doubt in regard to your wife’s being the proper person to have the care of a child, that you should keep close watch; that if you saw the influence was not good and was going to hurt the child, you would not keep her, but find a place for her where she would be under the right influence. Now this child, I learn, is going home unconverted, prejudiced against Christians and against the truth. Are you satisfied with this? Are you clear in this case? Will not the blood of her soul be found upon your garments? No doubt you have done all you could for this child, and loved her with a father’s affection, and have gained her love and strong affections in return. No doubt she has been a great comfort to you. But are these reasons of sufficient weight to keep the child under an influence in your house which has had the tendency to wither, blast, and desolate, in the heart of this child, hope, faith, and confidence in Christians and in the truth?
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 5)
Have you been so blind you have not reasoned from cause to effect? Is there not a cause for this state of things? My heart aches sadly for the mother and for the child.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 6)
I charge the condition of this child to the influence of your wife. Look at your children, separated from you, separated from Christians and the truth. Trace the effect to the cause. Their home was no home to them. Their stepmother never entered into their feelings, never let her sympathies go out in token of love and interest for them. Herself, her plans, her interest was ever prominent. She selfishly made herself a center, and all must follow her directions or there was no peace. Home was made a hell. Continual censure, petty bickering and faultfinding were the order of the day. “Why do you do so?”“And why do you do this?”“Now Lena,” or, “Now Isaac, you shall do this,” or “you shan’t do that.”“I won’t have it in my house.” Inquisitively prying into their plans, interfering in all their arrangements, stirring up bitterness in their hearts, which led to a despising of anything she might say or do, hating her authority. Then she has laid her complaints before you, which has had at times too great an influence upon you.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 7)
This state of things has improved somewhat, because the cause is removed. The children have left your home. If Sister King had possessed the qualifications which every one should have who takes the charge of children, she would have gained respect from your children. She would have acted so prudently that she could have gained their love.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 8)
But the matter now before me is with regard to Lena. Your wife should never have the care of children. She has no love for children in her nature. She cannot sympathize with children. She has a peculiar faculty of stirring up all the evil there is in children. She pecks at them, crosses their plans, and is very close and selfish. She makes herself despised. This is a terrible influence to bring a child under. Could you not see this? Have you been asleep to this? I think your wife has worked the ruin of quite enough without having any more material to work upon.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 9)
No doubt your wife has changed in some respects, but oh, how small is the reformation in her compared to what must be before she can be admitted to heaven!
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 10)
Let your light so shine before men that they, by seeing your good works, may glorify our Father which is in heaven. What kind of a light has your wife let shine?
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 11)
When I have heard of your taking her with you as you go to help the churches in different places, I involuntarily sighed, “Lord, deliver Thy people from the body of this death.”
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 12)
Your wife is no help to you. She is too much wrapped up in her own selfishness to be spiritual-minded or to converse on spiritual things. The making of a dress is of greater consequence to her than the salvation of a soul.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 13)
To love her neighbors as herself she knows nothing about. To love the Lord with all her heart, she has no experience in. Self is the center of attention and attraction. Her wants are above every sacred and eternal interest. Her closeness, her selfishness, will surely shut her from the kingdom of heaven if it is not overcome.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 14)
I saw, in the last vision given in Adams Center, that you yield to her too much. You are in a degree molded by her views and ideas. You must break yourself loose. Hold firmly to God and His requirements, if everything and everybody around you sinks or swims.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 15)
Satan is on your track. You need to be wide awake or he will out-general you. To deny self has no part in the experience of your wife. Poor, blinded, deceived soul, she has so little idea how God regards her course of action.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 16)
Moral worth is estimated by what we do. Our acts, our works testify of our moral standing. There is no other true measurement. Christ was our Pattern. How important to imitate the only true Pattern given. His was a life of disinterested benevolence. He went about doing good. He denied Himself. We are required to follow in His footsteps.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 17)
We feel so great an interest in Lena. We propose to have her and her sister that is at Brother Olmsteads come to Battle Creek and we will have a care for them and labor especially for their salvation. We will have them attend Brother Bells school. He may do them good. Perhaps we may, in the strength of God, remove this prejudice that has closed about this poor child. Perhaps it would be well for the brother to come also and attend Sabbath school and meetings here. They all may be reached yet. Think and pray over this matter and send them or bring them yourself if you can make it convenient to do so. Lena needs help immediately. The manners of your wife, her inquisitive disposition, her curiosity, her lack of affection and real love, has made her positively disgusting and repulsive.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 18)
Oh, my brother, I beg of you, do not humor your wife’s penuriousness. This sin of covetousness is idolatry and is eating out her vitals. Her Christian character is very objectionable. She cannot discern Christian excellence. The truly righteous and the rebellious in the truth are about upon the same level with her. Sacred things are not discerned. Sacred and common things are upon the same level. She has never been truly converted, so that she can say, Old things have passed away; all things have become new. The things I once hated I now love, and the things I once loved I now hate. That transformation has never been experienced by your wife, which must be felt by her if she ever hears from the lips of the Master, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” [Matthew 25:21.]
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 19)
She has been faithful in looking out for herself, caring for herself, following her own desires and will. No reward will she ever have for this. To yield her will, her opinion and ways to others and submit herself to God she has never done. Her life has been all a mistake, a terrible mistake. How is she viewing this? Does she think she has made life a success? Does she think she is pleasing God when fretting and complaining and worrying about the little matters of her home?
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 20)
Brother King, expand. Don’t let the views and acts become narrowed down to the contracted measure of your wife. Let your mind be elevated above the earthly to the eternal, the immortal. May God help you to keep unspotted from the world, is my prayer.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 21)
In love.
(2LtMs, Lt 1, 1870, 22)
Lt 2, 1870
Chase, Mary Battle Creek, Michigan March 2, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in OHC 312. Dear Sister Mary [Chase]:
I have some things I feel it my duty to write you, that I cannot as well say to you. I wish you to see and read these things upon paper.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 1)
I felt rather sad this morning to learn you had spoken before members of my family in regard to Brother Waggoner’s private matters. I knew these things, but not one of my family, not even my dear Lucinda, had heard one word from my lips in reference to this most distressing, humiliating affair. My respect for Brother Waggoner would lead me to silence in regard to his wife’s being untrue to him, even if I were in the habit of loving to talk and of dwelling upon the disagreeable things in the experience of others.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 2)
Sister Mary, can you not see a great lack of prudence in thus talking out as you did? These things are against you, and lead those who hear you, if they have discernment, to decide that you are not a prudent woman, and to be afraid of your tongue.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 3)
You have a work to do for yourself, Mary, that no one can do for you. You love to talk and you talk a great deal of unnecessary, unprofitable, and positively injurious talk. I know you cannot enjoy peace and serenity of mind while you indulge in so much talking. This has become a habit with you, until you do not think you talk much, when you talk a great deal. You say things that come into your mind, and afterward forget you said them and to whom you did say them. If, from a sense of duty, they mention what you have said, you feel that they are your enemies, seeking to injure you.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 4)
You have suffered much from the wrongs of your husband, but, Mary, I fear you have not been free from blame. Have you not been fretful and overbearing? This appears even worse in a woman than in a man. Have you not been self-willed many times, and have not your words stirred up hatred and strife in your husband? The theme of your conversation, dear sister, nearly everywhere has been—your own errors? No! but the abusive course of your husband. This subject has been dwelt upon so much by you that peace has not dwelt in your heart. The blessing of God has not abided upon you.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 5)
Now, dear sister, I pray you to look candidly at the matter and see if you have not made a great mistake in your life. By your words ye shall be justified, and by your words condemned. Our thoughts, acts, and words are open to the inspection of God and the holy angels. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. You have so long dwelt upon the disagreeable topic—your husband’s course of wrong—that it is as natural as your breath for you to introduce the matter at once in conversation. We have felt sad that you would thus give publicity to your home troubles.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 6)
You have so long dwelt upon the dark side of the picture that you fail to see any bright side. You talk of these things so much your soul is in darkness. Talk upon cheerful, happy subjects and you will encourage a more contented, happy frame of mind. You seem to be in your element when you are expatiating upon the sins and wrongs of others. Talk light and faith and love and gratitude and you will encourage these heavenly gifts. Talk darkness, unbelief, and upon the sins and errors of others, and you will be unable to retain a cheerful, happy, contented, peaceful spirit.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 7)
Mary, you have work to do to subdue self. You need a new, a deep, a thorough conversion. Then you will talk less and meditate and pray more. I fear that God has not been glorified by the sisters getting together so frequently, visiting from house to house and devoting so many hours to talking. I greatly fear that spirituality has not been increased or the soul of any made better. In such gatherings there is generally much said by talking women that does harm and only harm. There is so great a temptation to gossip and engage in unprofitable conversation that God can in no way be glorified. Mary, my sister, you call the minds of others from God and the truth to dwell upon darkness, and Satan delights to have the mind diverted from heavenly things and attracted to things of minor importance that are calculated to weaken the soul. You are too much interested in watching others, in talking of your own and others’ trials and difficulties.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 8)
Mary, it is an individual work to be right with God. No one can do this work of overcoming for us. The work is between God and our own souls. You will not have to answer for your husband’s sins and wrongs, but while your mind is continually dwelling upon his wrongs, and your tongue so ready to tell his faults—not to select few of your relatives who are acquainted with your peculiar trials, but to almost anyone you may become acquainted with, especially if they are Sabbathkeepers—you have failed to cultivate a meek and quiet spirit, you fail to win. This has been your great burden, and you have not, while you have been thus viewing and talking out your husband’s faults, seen your errors and wrongs.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 9)
In your own family you are too ready to speak and to ready to censure and dictate. If censure would work a reformation then it might be excusable. But it seldom has this effect. We do not think you have taken a prudent course in your own family. You have been unhappy and have made but little effort to conceal your discontented state of feelings. Many times you would save yourself much trouble by a soft answer. You know you can not cure things and that the only way to have peace is to endure, to be patient, meek, kind, and forbearing. Never speak from passion. You have done this often. You have felt that you must bring all around you to see and feel as you do, and you are too anxious to have your own will and your own way.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 10)
You have not shown that you were a happy woman. You have failed to exhibit to your children a peace of mind that would recommend religion and the truth to them. You have said so much, when in their society, of their father and his course, and you have been so strong in your feelings, that you have created sympathy for Mr. Chase instead of obtaining it for yourself. If you would show a desire or a willingness to hide your trials, to conceal your disgrace in your own family, your children would have been more inclined to take their stand by your side. But, dear sister, your much talking in a strong manner has separated even the sympathies of your children in a great measure from you.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 11)
If you would look to God for strength and leave your burdens and sorrows with the Burdenbearer, and not leave your burden of trials upon those who have their own burdens and trials and griefs to bear, you would better please God and find strength that you have not realized. This would be a blessing to yourself, a blessing to your children, a blessing to all with whom you associate. Your children would see that the truth you profess has done a good work for you. They would see that there was a power in the truth you profess that has a transforming influence upon your life; that it gives you power to endure, wisdom to keep silent, and grace to bear up above a weight of wrong that, without the sanctifying influence of the truth, would crush you.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 12)
If you would ever bear in mind that if Mr. Chase does not reform and obey the commandments of God he must be the sufferer, he must be forever separated from God and the holy angels and all the redeemed, and must be punished with the second death, you would be stirred with pity. That which he sows he will also reap, and the God of justice will reward every man according as his works have been, whether they have been good or evil. If he continues as he has to follow a course of sin, this world, with all its sorrows, sadness, misery, and continual suffering, will be all the heaven he will ever enjoy. Resolve, then, in the strength of God to make his home as pleasant for him as possible. Do not try to make his home unhappy and as wretched as it is in your power to do, because he has been untrue and abusive to you.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 13)
You must learn of Him who has invited you, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”Matthew 11:28-30. The meek and lowly Saviour invites you to learn of Him, who, “when he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.”1 Peter 2:23. “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth.”Isaiah 53:7.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 14)
Here is your example. Have you followed it? Answer this question to your own soul and to God. Has not self had much to do in reporting your trials? What virtue has there been in this? Has it lightened your afflictions to dwell upon them and make the most of them? You have but little sense of how much you talk to others of the darkness and trials in your experience. No doubt yours has been an unhappy life. But, Mary, are you without sin? You have possessed too much of a combative spirit. You have had greater independence than humility. You have pursued a course to irritate rather than to pacify.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 15)
I would not advise you to wear the short dress. It is against you. You have appeared headstrong to your children in persisting in wearing the short dress. I should not have put it on were I similarly situated to yourself. You have been very set and exacting in these matters of minor importance, such as dress, but have neglected the weightier matters—judgment and the love of God. Your heart has grown stout and unyielding, closed in a great measure to the genuine, pitying love that dwelt in the bosom of Jesus. The short dress adopted by you and the relation of your troubles and grievances, shut you out of the hearts of your children. They are weary of hearing the same story every time they meet you and they say, “Mother is half crazy and a fanatic.” They became prejudiced against you and the faith you cherish. Every wrong word you speak, every hasty, impatient word you utter is all charged back upon your peculiar faith. Your light does not so shine before others that they will, by seeing your good works, be led to glorify our Father in heaven.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 16)
You have talked too much, in too positive a manner. You have had but little love and affection mingled with your efforts.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 17)
Mary, we expect at the conference a large collection of brethren and sisters. You will be observed, because you are Brother White’s sister. Be prudent, be circumspect, be choice of your words, keep your troubles to yourself; keep them out of sight. Magnify Jesus, talk of Jesus, His dying love for lost and perishing sinners. When you shall return to your home, do not talk about Father. Do not tell his peculiarities. Let all die. Never hint a word but that he is doing as well as can be expected for one of his advanced age. God will bless you if you will talk less and pray more. You are forward to talk. God help you to keep your tongue as with a bridle. Get right, Mary; get right; watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 18)
Dear sister, a few words more and I will not tax your patience longer. That which I have hitherto written has been by candlelight while conversation is carried on with others at the same time. I wish to speak more directly and decidedly upon a few points, especially upon the tongue.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 19)
When we consider that not a small part of the sins of every individual are the sins of the tongue, we cannot be too careful how we hear and how we speak of what we do hear. We should be on our guard constantly, lest we talk too much. If we do not talk to the purpose, the less we say the better; and if we do talk and are gifted with the very best powers of conversation, we weary those whose company we are in by too much conversation of even the best quality. But when the conversation is not of that elevated character to edify, bless, and encourage those who listen to us, we had far better leave their circle dissatisfied with ourselves because we said no more, than for them to be out of patience with us because we said so much. Dear sister, we can glorify God by our conversation, or dishonor Him. Frequently we can honor God better by reflection and silence than by talking.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 20)
We need to study from cause to effect. You should beware of talking without reflection or when you have nothing to say which will cheer, encourage, or elevate the mind. Mary, you are not accustomed to reflecting before you speak, or to have thoughts before you utter them.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 21)
I noticed that if persons come in to see Father and he begins to tell them his plans or endeavors to engage in conversation with them, you frequently jump in before Father, take the words out of his mouth, say them for him, and, in short, talk so much and so fast that he settles back discouraged in regard to being heard. This hurts you and wounds Father and Mother. They may not speak as fast and as quick as you can, yet when they talk they have something worth saying and it is a satisfaction to them to say it, without being shut off by your hurried and earnest conversation. Father has a high sense of propriety and I know he frequently feels mortified and hurt by your being so forward to make new acquaintances and to talk with them so freely as you do.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 22)
Father is a man of great independence of mind, and when he advances anything which does not agree with your views and feelings, it is so natural for your combativeness to be excited and you advance something a little different. Let Father think as he will. Do not oppose his wishes or advance to Mother your opinions differing with Father. This only keeps you in an unhappy state of mind and makes them unhappy also.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 23)
We do not wish to see you gloomy or spiritless, but, as you value your good name and to be appreciated by those who are cautious and can read character, and those who love and serve God, have decision to let it appear that you are not in your favorite element, dissecting your husband’s character, relating your sufferings endured because of his sins and wrongs, and dwelling upon your trials as though you were a martyr.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 24)
Dear sister, if you continue to feel and talk in regard to your home trials, home privacies, and in regard to the unpleasant things in the history and character of others, telling their faults and dwelling upon their wrongs, you do it at the expense of character, usefulness, happiness, and heaven. In visiting circles there is a habit or an idle way of discussing character in which wrong impressions are given and carried. This seems to be the almost common resort of filling up the time. This conversation may appear harmless, not designed to reach the ears of the person who has been the subject of conversation. Yet they do generally come to the persons in ways and manners which you did not expect, and always in an exaggerated form which separates those persons from these talkers and shakes their confidence in them, that ever after they are looked upon with suspicion. Their integrity is questioned. Their influence as Christians is greatly lessened, if not entirely destroyed.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 25)
Dear Sister Mary, we feel sorry that you are not happy. You yourself stand in the way of your happiness. By beholding we become changed. You look upon your trials and talk so much upon them that you are under a cloud nearly all the time. You see trials, see clouds, see the unpleasant, but overlook the mercies and blessings of God. Mary, make it a point never to speak of your trials and troubles to any one, not even your own children, unless you know that your condition will be improved in so doing. Jesus lives; thank God you have a compassionate, living, tender Saviour who knows your every trial. Oh my sister, let the abundant grace of God soften, refine, and elevate you. The refining furnace is to remove the dross. When the Refiner sees His image reflected in you perfectly, He will remove you from the furnace. You will not be left to be consumed or to endure the fiery ordeal any longer than is necessary for your purification. But it is necessary for you, in order to reflect the divine image, to submit to the process the Refiner chooses for you, that you may be cleansed, purified, and every spot and blemish removed—not even a wrinkle left in your Christian character. May the Lord help you, my dear sister, to submit your will and your way and to choose to have the will and work of God accomplished in you. Then will your life be a blessing to yourself, a blessing to all around you. You will be a light in your home, a ray of sunshine instead of a cloud, a shadow. Look up, Mary, look up. Jesus lives. Jesus loves. Jesus pities, and He will receive you with all your burden of care and trouble if you will come to Him and lay your burden upon Him. He has promised He will never leave or forsake those who put their trust in Him.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 26)
In much love.
(2LtMs, Lt 2, 1870, 27)
Lt 3, 1870
Shields, Brother Battle Creek, Michigan March 15, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Brother Shields:
I have something to write you for some time but have been unable to write. I recollected your countenance as I met you coming out of the Office one day. I knew not your name but knew that I had been shown your case.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 1)
I saw that you had a high opinion of your own abilities. You have imagined you had a duty to labor in word and doctrine. Here you have been deceived. God has not called you. You are not qualified for the work. You esteem yourself too highly. Had you taken up the burdens of life as you should, settled your mind that you had no duty to labor for the salvation of others, and perseveringly engaged in physical labor, you would have been in a better condition of health. You have not kept your body under. You have not controlled your passions. Your wrong habits have been telling upon your constitution until you are ruined mentally and physically. You have eaten a large amount of food, more than your system could dispose of and convert into good blood. The digestive organs have been severely taxed. Nature has been greatly burdened by overeating. Your lack was not having physical exercise, which increased the difficulties upon you.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 2)
You have gratified your animal passions at the expense of the mental and physical. You have had but little control over yourself. Before your marriage you were far from being that which God would have you. Your ways were right in your own eyes. You have used the arguments of truth to exalt and glorify yourself, and as weapons with which to combat others. You have not possessed meekness and self-denial. You have warred against friends and relatives, using the truth to quarrel over rather than in meekness and gentleness instructing those who oppose the counsel of God against themselves. You are deficient in reverence and amiability of character. You possess stubbornness and self-sufficiency, traits of character very objectionable in a Christian. You are not always frank, open, and candid, as is becoming in one professing godliness.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 3)
You are an invalid. What has made you so? Your indulgence of the animal passions and your intemperance in eating. After you have sinned against God in the manner that you have in your lifetime in polluting your own body, when, by disease and suffering you are reaping the fruit of your own wrong course of action, then you let the burden of your case fall upon those who should not bear it. You have cursed yourself by your own wrong habits and the people of God are made to suffer because of your sins. They have to bear your weight, your burden.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 4)
Your married life, what has it been? You have been wrapped up in each other. Your wife has loved you, but this love has not been of a high, refined, and elevated order. It has been of a low order. You both have abused your own bodies by the indulgence of the baser passions. You both might have preserved to yourselves a much better condition of health physically and mentally if you had sought to glorify God in your bodies and spirits, which are His. How can God accept your efforts to obey the truth when your mind take a low and sensual level?
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 5)
Sister Shields, you have had an adulterous love for your husband. You have not had an elevated love which would sanctify and ennoble, but that love of a quality that savors of a sickish sentimentalism which has an influence to disgust others. You have both had an exalted opinion of your own abilities and have felt that you were not appreciated. Sister Shields, your idolatrous love has had the effect upon you to lead to the sacrifice of your health. You are not clear before God for thus bringing upon yourself so poor a condition of health that it is impossible for you to glorify God in your body and spirit which are God’s. You are devoted to each other, worshiping one another. Brother and Sister Shields, you are not devotional. You do not enjoy the love of God. You cannot enjoy His blessing until you are both converted and transformed. Then your affections, instead of being centered upon yourselves, will be placed upon God. He will be the object of your earnest, fervent love.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 6)
But you have not, either of you, a work to do for others. You have not the work assigned you that you imagine. You have thought you had a high, exalted calling. You have felt qualified to handle five talents, when you are not in every respect fully qualified to handle even one. If you do the work the Master has left you to do with faithfulness, you will be blessed; but if you neglect the small duties and work that you are capable of doing, and are constantly getting out of your place to reach up for a higher work, a more exalted position, you will be a burden to yourself and a burden to your brethren.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 7)
Your mind, Brother Shields, is scattered. You have some knowledge and intelligence, but no anchor. You have not the ability to put to the right use what you do have. Your wife has hurt you in regard to this matter. She has encouraged your exalted ideas of yourself and has helped make you think you can do some great work and fill some exalted position. This you cannot do. You are not the man God calls to win souls to Him. Your course, your acts, your pomposity of manner, God hates; and these very things make you positively disgusting and very repulsive to others. Your influence is such as to drive men and women from the truth. You are a very poor representative of the holy, sacred truth which we profess.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 8)
All that God requires of you is to save your own souls and do no harm to others in making yourself repulsive. Take an humble position. You feel so puffed up, so high-minded, you are not teachable. You think you know all that is worth knowing, but the most important lesson that you have yet to learn, which concerns your own eternal interest, is to know yourself, to know your weakness, your foolishness. When you can see that you are poor and wretched and blind and naked, then you will begin to be wise.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 9)
You have been a great burden to the people of God. You have felt that the brethren had a duty to take care of you and supply your needs, when at the same time you were, by indulging your appetite and passions, destroying your vital energy and then throwing your unworthy weight upon God’s people. You will talk, you can be wordy. Your language is good, while you have no real sense of the words you use. Your precepts are not always as objectionable as your life, your acts. Your example is not good. You know not by experience what it is to be a Christian. You boast much and know in reality but little. Your words are frequently good, but they do not come from a renewed mind, a sanctified heart.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 10)
A few imperfect, broken sentences from an humble Christian, however humble and lowly and illiterate, can be, with the blessing of God, wholly successful in reaching the heart of a sinner. God can use humble instruments to accomplish His great purposes, and God’s name be wholly glorified thereby.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 11)
You possess an unfeeling, ungrateful heart. You have exalted self until the Lord has but very little to do with you. Without an entire reformation, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Your ways are not pleasing to God.
(2LtMs, Lt 3, 1870, 12)
Lt 4, 1870
Rhodes, S. W. Battle Creek, Michigan March 23, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in TSB 28-31. Brother [S. W.] Rhodes:
I have been writing out some things which have been shown me in regard to those who have thought that they had a duty to teach others. Among them was yourself. You feel anxious to go among your brethren and instruct, exhort, reprove, and rebuke them as your judgment shall dictate. You are mistaken in your duty. God will not trust you with this work. He will not send a man out to bear burdens and labor for others when his own case is more perplexing and troublesome to the church than anyone he may undertake to labor for. Your errors and wrong have done great injury to the cause of God.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 1)
Your case, I was shown, was a sad one. Your heart is far from being right with God. You flatter yourself that you are making improvements, but you are in danger of deceiving your own soul. You have scarcely touched the work you have to do, which is to subdue and control self. You have been a very selfish man. You have a special interest for yourself. Your attention is so much devoted to self that God will not accept your service. In your deal, in your business transactions, you will seek to advantage yourself to the disadvantage of others. Your influence and example is a reproach to the cause of God. You have had your mind so much upon yourself that you have thought others should favor you and should manifest a special interest for you because they should feel that you were God’s servant.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 2)
I have been shown that you dwell upon your infirmities and talk of them and are full of your childish notions in regard to yourself and your own interest, which makes you a special burden and an annoyance wherever you go. Your influence in this respect is bad. It grows out of your studying so much how to convenience and accommodate yourself. You wish to make everything so easy for self. You wish to save yourself care and labor, and you shun burdens.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 3)
There are hundreds who are greater sufferers than you have been, who labor for the support of their families daily. You are so constantly laboring to care for yourself and shield yourself from danger of being sick that you bring upon yourself the very evils you seek to avert. You can perform physical labor, and industry will be the greatest blessing you can have. Your active mind will be diverted and your thoughts will be turned in a more even, healthful channel. You have no burden to fear for God’s people. You have a great and important work to do for yourself to cultivate self-control. You should control your mind, bear your own burdens, not expect others to wait upon you and indulge your ideas, that you must have special care and attention because you are sick.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 4)
The best way to overcome disease is to turn the attention from self to engage in some useful, physical labor. Forget yourself. You think yourself all broken to pieces, when, as far as constitution is concerned, you will outlive a large class who make no complaint and who are not working perseveringly to save themselves, fearing they shall suffer pain or die. You have a diseased imagination and desire to be favored and petted and waited upon, when you do not need it and should not have it. Those who have done this kind of work for you have indulged you to your own injury. You expected to be the object of their special care. You were better able to wait upon them, and it would have been for your good to have done so, rather than they to wait on you.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 5)
You have a powerful will which has never been subdued. If you can turn your will in the right direction and control yourself in matters where there is a decided failure, you would complain less, and be more cheerful, and would not regard yourself so much in the light of a martyr. The will power you should bring to your aid to rise above your little ailments. You are not as great a sufferer as you imagine yourself to be, and you have had more care than you needed or deserved. You have required more attention and labor to be done for you than any three common men would think they needed. All you have done for years in the cause of God has been dearly paid for, and then they were in a worse condition than if you had done nothing at all. I have been shown your case so clearly I have no hesitancy in saying you have educated yourself to think especially of your interest, fearing that everything would not be exactly convenient or pleasant to yourself. It is self and self-interest that is the first and last with you.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 6)
Again I was shown this self-love has led to a wish to bring all others to your ideas. Their opinions or judgment was of no account in your estimation, if there was a failure to agree with yours. I saw that you were a lover of self in every sense of the word. S. W. Rhodes is his idol. Supreme love for self prevents you from regarding the opinions and judgment of others. You, I saw, are an arbitrary man. You have not heeded the light given, and overcome your overbearing spirit. You inherited evil traits of character and have so long indulged this spirit that it has become second nature.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 7)
You might have controlled yourself if you had been willing to have seen your wrongs and felt the sinfulness of them, and realized how hateful they were in the sight of God. But you had so good an opinion of yourself, with such supreme self-love, you thought yourself not far from being right after all. Here you have deceived your own soul. In regard to this overbearing, arbitrary spirit you have possessed, it has done more injury to souls than you could now do good if you should see the evil and sinfulness of your past course, and should labor with all your power to overcome and should be transformed by the power of God.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 8)
You carried your harsh, severe spirit into Brother Abbey’s family. You knew that they wished to do their duty to their children. They thought you to be God’s child and servant and you imbued them with your spirit and they moved according to your light, when you had not a correct view of how a family of children should be managed. You have done great harm. Brother and Sister Abbey used severity that they should not have used toward their children, especially in the case of Venelia. Through unwise management she was separated in her affections from her parents. You also separated the confidence of Sister Abbey from her husband. She was afraid to sympathize with him. You have a work to repair the wrong as far as you can.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 9)
Brother Abbey was so fearful he should suffer wrong in his children that he took extreme measures when love would have done much more than severity. You have caused misery in that family that God holds you responsible for.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 10)
You have been a hard man in the church to manage the cases of the supposed erring members, and you have been a hard man in families. You have taken the liberty to dictate, order, and control in matters that did not concern you in the least. You have a great work now to do to attend to S. W. Rhodes. You love to dictate and control it is almost next to an impossibility for you to keep your hands off from interfering and meddling with matters that you have not the prudence, wisdom, or judgment to correct. You mar almost everything you touch. You are in danger, through your strong, set, self-will, of being carried by Satan to insanity of mind. You are upon some points nearly insane.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 11)
If you would take a position that is humble and teachable, you would escape what now looks to me an unavoidable shipwreck of faith. You study and contrive and lay your plans to bring about your purposes to meet your ends, when all your perseverance and earnestness was prompted from purely selfish motives. You have possessed an avaricious, covetous spirit which has given form to your motives and actions. You have some qualities which would be useful in the church if you did not possess so many positively dangerous traits to counteract your every effort that might do good. I feel alarmed for you and would entreat of you, for your soul’s sake, to be converted and live a life of repentance for the past. Your influence has been very bad. You would pray earnestly and weep; your prayers would express great humility. You would frequently no sooner rise from your knees when you would exhibit your selfishness and impatience and your overbearing, indomitable will. Such prayers are a mockery and go no higher than your own unconsecrated head.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 12)
You have a most difficult job to submit your will and your way to the will of God. You have a work that will last you as long as you live, to die to self, to control self, and possess a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. You have not always been honest in your deal with others. You frequently knew that they were having a hard bargain but your hard, selfish spirit could not feel over these things. You seemed to think it was the regard the Lord had for you which placed opportunities before you to improve your condition while a brother or an unbeliever should be disadvantaged and realize loss. Here you have deceived yourself. You have not heeded the injunction of the faithful apostle, “Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have.” [Hebrews 13:5.] You have had covetousness in your heart for some things possessed by others and you have frequently talked in a manner to work upon their sympathies. You would weave into your conversation your supposed wants until the unsuspecting have been moved to gratify this spirit of covetousness and deprive themselves of things to let you have that which they needed far more than yourself.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 13)
All these things in your experience are marked by One who seeth not as man seeth. God has had His eye upon all your motives. He is acquainted with the intents and purposes of the heart. Nothing can be hid from His eye. You have accounts to settle with God in regard to these things in your experience. You have in your dealing with souls been destitute of love, compassion, and deep tenderness. You have been a stranger to true justice and mercy. Your heart in many instances has been as unfeeling as a stone. Yet you have talked as though you were especially directed of God.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 14)
I have a few words to say in regard to your marriage, not by revelation but permission. Yes, I feel compelled by the Spirit of the Lord to say to you, I have had less confidence in your integrity since your marriage than I have had heretofore. My heart was greatly burdened. I knew you were not qualified to make a proper husband for Sister Drake. If you had permitted her to lay her case before us we could have advised her according to the light God has given us of your case. You knew this, therefore you were unwilling to have us consulted. Brother Rhodes, I believe that your motives in this marriage were purely selfish. I do not believe you had a thought of the good of Sister Drake or the glory of God. You urged yourself upon her without consulting those who knew you best. You hurried this matter off with your own hasty spirit that you have ever possessed.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 15)
Your course since your marriage, in taking possession of and controlling the means of her [whom] you had made your wife, shows your motives to be wrong. All these things are against you and shows on your part very deep selfishness and a dictatorial spirit which God would not have her submit to. Her marriage does not make null and void her stewardship. It does not destroy her identity. Her individuality should be preserved if she would glorify God with her body and spirit which are His. Her individuality cannot be submerged in you. She has duties she owes to God which you have no right to interfere with. God has claims upon her which you cannot meet. In the providence of God she has become His steward, and this she should refuse to yield to you or any other one. You have not wisdom more exact and perfect than hers which should lead her to give to you the stewardship of her means. She has developed a far better character than yourself, and has a better balanced mind than yourself. She can manage this means in her hands more wisely, more judiciously, and more to the glory of God than yourself. You are a man of extremes. You move by impulse and are most of the time more directly under the control of evil angels than the angels of God.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 16)
I need not tell you I deeply regret your marriage. You are not the man that can make your wife happy. You love yourself too well to be kind, attentive, patient, affectionate, and sympathizing. How tenderly should you now treat her whom you have married. How carefully should you study to make her not regret that she has united her destiny with yours. God looks upon the course you have pursued in this matter, and you will be without excuse for the course you have taken. God reads your motives. You have now an opportunity to exhibit your true self, to demonstrate whether you were actuated by true love or deep selfish interest in your marriage. You married, I have no doubt, thinking you would come in possession of property and have the handling of it as you pleased. You have no right to dictate to your wife as you would a child. You have not earned a valuable reputation of goodness that would require reverence. You need, considering your failures in the past, to take an humble position and divest yourself of a dignity you have not earned. You are too weak a man to require submission to your will without an appeal. You have a work to do to govern yourself.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 17)
You have sacrificed your true, noble, God-like manhood to a perverse will. Therefore your demands upon a good, conscientious, God-fearing woman should be very modest. Your dictatorial spirit she should not submit to for moment. If you choose to exercise it, she should every time choose to be indifferent to it. She should no more gratify your perverse, unreasonable commands than a mother should gratify all the whims and boisterous claims of a wilful, spoiled child. You do not know yourself. God will sustain your wife in seeking to keep her own soul free and in not yielding to your arbitrary spirit, bringing herself in bondage by so doing. You are not to be conscience for your wife. She is to maintain a clear, pure conscience before God and not permit your variable, changeable, fitful spirit to terrify or intimidate her. You, sir, have yet to learn that he who has not control of his own spirit is not qualified to control or dictate to others.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 18)
You should never set yourself above your wife. She needs kindness and love, which will be reflected back upon you again. If you expect her to love you, you must earn this love by manifesting love and tenderness in your words and actions for her. You have in your keeping the happiness of your wife. Your course says to her, in order for you to be happy, you must yield your will up fully to mine; you must submit to do my pleasure. You have taken special delight in exercising your authority because you thought you could do so. But time will show that if you pursue the course your own temperament would lead you to do, you will not inspire in the heart of your wife love, but will wean her affections from you, and she will in the end despise that authority, the power of which she has never felt before in her married life. You are certainly making hard and bitter work for yourself, and you will reap what you are sowing.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 19)
I dare not do otherwise than speak to you plainly. The case demands it. How is the marriage of Sister Drake to you improving her condition? Not a wit; but your course is making her life a bitterness, her lot almost unbearable. I knew how it would be as soon as I heard of your marriage. She thought she was to have one to help her take care of her boy, but you would tear the mother from her son, and require her to yield her parental care and affection for her son to you who have only your marriage to plead why this should be so. You have done nothing to earn this great sacrifice. You have not pursued a course to even gain her confidence. Yet you demand this great sacrifice, the separation of the mother from her son. You may plead that you understand the case, while we plead you know but little about it. Instead of your feeling it to be your duty to be patient and affectionate and judiciously manage the case of this her son, you take a course that a heartless, unfeeling tyrant would pursue.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 20)
I would advise the mother to move in the fear of God and not allow a comparative stranger to come in claiming the title of husband and separate her child from her affection and care. God has not released that mother from her responsibility because she has married you. You do not possess true love. You are not acquainted with the pure article. If you were, you would never have pursued the course you have.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 21)
There are a few words more I will add. I was shown that it was your selfish spirit that led you to withhold from us means which the brethren of Jackson had sent to your aid. We were, while in Paris, Maine, in want. We had not suitable food or clothing. You knew it all. You understood our situation, but kept means that were sent expressly for us, to use according to your own judgment. God has regarded this as a great sin in you. It was not us alone that you thus wronged, but that God whose servants we were. You have never realized the crime, the cruelty of these things. Selfishness was at the bottom of it all. You took the very means which God had moved upon His servants to send to us in answer to our earnest prayers for assistance, and you handed a portion to men who had no special burden in the work and no heart in it, but who were doing a distressing work of death, rather than giving their lives for the truth. Satan’s angels stood by, close by, your side as soon as you yielded to retain that money and deprive us of it. The evil angels then prompted you to show great apparent liberality where it was not called for, and where no benefits of the means would be realized in the cause and work of God. One step in the wrong direction leaves you captive to Satan’s power.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 22)
I have been shown that you profess to receive the testimonies given, yet you do not take them to heart and realize that it is the voice of the Lord to you. You do not entirely change your course. You act over the same things which you have been reproved for doing, and this leaves you in darkness. You so have long violated your conscience by selfishly serving your own interest that you have become hardened. You do strange things for a professed Christian. Yet your heartless course in many things does not alarm you. My soul is sad over these things.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 23)
In haste.
(2LtMs, Lt 4, 1870, 24)
Lt 5, 1870
NA Battle Creek, Michigan April 3, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 2Bio 302-304. Dear Sister:
I have been confined to my chamber with illness nearly one week. I am a little better today, but too weak to write more than a few brief words.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 1)
From the light God has been pleased to give me butter is not the most healthful article of food. It taxes the digestive organs more severely than meat. We place no butter upon the table. Our vegetables are generally cooked with milk or cream and made palatable. We have a generous diet which consists in the preparation of apples, vegetables and grains in a skillful manner. We have but little pie upon our table and cake is seldom seen there; no luxuries or dainties.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 2)
Everything is plain yet wholesome because it is not merely thrown together in a haphazard manner. We have no sugar on our table. Our sauce, which is our dependence, is apples baked or stewed into sauce, sweetened as required before being put upon the table. We use milk in small quantities. Sugar and milk used at the same time is hard for the digestive organs, clogs the machinery. I know no reason why you cannot set just as good a table as we do. We have nothing but the simplest articles prepared in a variety of ways, all strictly hygienic. We have cracked wheat; for a change, cracked corn. We then take sorghum molasses, put water with it and boil it thoroughly, stir in a little thickening of flour, and this we eat on our puddings, graham or cracked wheat, or cracked corn. Why health reformers complain of poor diet is they don’t know how to cook, and should learn. We think a moderate amount of milk from a healthy cow not objectionable. We seldom prepare our food with butter. When we cannot obtain milk, we use a very trifle in some articles of vegetables. We use a milk gravy thickened with flour for our potatoes, not a particle of butter in the gravy. We have no meat on our table. I live extremely plain myself. My wants are easily satisfied.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 3)
We have but one cow. She gives but a little milk. We have made this little do [for] the cooking and table use for a company of from twelve to twenty which have sat at our table all winter and spring. Nearly all the time we average sixteen. We cannot obtain cream to use, but we should use more of it could we get it to use. I greatly object to an impoverished diet.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 4)
If you can get apples, you are in a good condition as far as fruit is concerned, if you have nothing else. We have beans at every meal, well cooked with a little salt and a tablespoonful of sugar, which makes them more palatable.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 5)
Sister Sanborn is not a health reformer and her influence or example upon that question should be no criterion for anyone. If you have eggs, use them as your judgment shall dictate. Yet I would say for children of strong animal passions, they are positively injurious. The same may be said of adults. I do not think such large varieties of fruit are essential, yet they should be carefully gathered and preserved in their season for use when there are no apples to be had. I use but little fruit beside baked apples, although we have other kinds.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 6)
I would not advise you to set aside milk or a moderate use of eggs, [or a] moderate use of sugar. Meat, I am decided, does us no good but only harm, except a person who is robbed of vitality may need a little meat to stimulate a few times. I again say, more depends upon thoughtfulness and skill in the preparations of the articles you have than of the variety or quality. Apples are superior to any fruit for a standby that grows.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 7)
In haste.
(2LtMs, Lt 5, 1870, 8)
Lt 6, 1870
Waggoner, J. H. Battle Creek, Michigan April 8, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Brother [J. H.] Waggoner:
I have felt for two weeks that I had ought to write to you or talk with you. I will do so now if I can put upon paper that which have burdened my mind. When your wife sat before me in the front slip in the meetinghouse, things came so forcibly to my mind in reference to some things I had been shown while at Adams Center, I could not free my mind from the burden.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 1)
I was shown while at Adams Center [that] your wife had been a medium of Satan. Your ministerial labor had not been one-tenth part as useful as it might have been and as it ought to have been in consequence of the influence of your wife. She has made you a weak man. I was shown that she pursued stubbornly her own course until the Spirit of the Lord was withdrawn and she was left to be led captive by Satan at his will. The Lord permitted evil angels to counsel and guide her to take a course which would separate your sympathy and confidence from her that her influence should no more affect you.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 2)
God’s providence had been at work for you to save your life and to preserve your influence to the cause and the work that He had chosen you to do. I was shown you were a man of high social qualities. You are sympathetic, and yet when you are upon the track of a person you believe to be in the wrong, you are in danger of being too severe and overbearing.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 3)
I was shown that your wife has been one that has excited your sympathies to a great extent. If she was not well she would complain and fret and groan and appear to be very feeble, when two-thirds of it all was feigned to obtain your sympathy and pity. She has been the most deceptive person I have ever come across in my experience. Satan has helped on her efforts to deceive you, for she was not smart enough to do this work alone without his help. You have watched and waited upon and exhausted your strength almost times without number, when there was in reality nothing the matter with her at all. I saw that you had tried to help her to health, but from what I saw it was [a] job you never will accomplish. All your efforts will be ineffectual, for there will not be found in her a power to react to answer to the efforts put forth in her behalf. It is not in her. She will live on and others may die all around her; but these worrying, fretting, groaning burdens who lay their whole weight upon others, drawing upon their sympathies, will live to wear others’ lives out and to curse those who have the burden of them.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 4)
Your wife is a finished, chronic complainer. She loves to be around among people that may hear her complaints and think her a dreadful sufferer. She can shed tears easily. This has affected you. You would feel it duty to talk plainly, yes, severely with her at times, and then she has given up to grief and wept, and you have taken back your work by over tenderness and great attention. She has understood how she can gain your sympathies. Your wife loves to be waited upon, loves to have a great deal of care, when if she would only go to work as other women, who are not half as able as she is have to do, she would forget her sickness, her aches, her pains which are so numerous. She nurses all her ailments and is a great tax upon the patience and strength of any where she may be, if they venture to take any burden of her case upon them. I saw that she would never get well through manifold sympathy, attention, care or treatment of any kind. The efforts in this direction might as well be saved and the strength preserved. If one or two should exhaust their strength and their lives to make your wife and persons of this class well, what is gained? Persons of worth are worn out and exhausted and perhaps life sacrificed to preserve what one or more who will be only a curse to others with their influence and unprofitable lives.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 5)
Your wife has not a well-balanced mind. She has, I saw, so long served Satan that her intellect and all her powers are so thoroughly diseased that she can never have these restored. She has a mind diseased, her powers have been so long controlled by Satan that they will never come in healthy action. She will be desponding and mourning and weeping, or the opposite, light, chaffy, her talk without weight and she giving evidence of a shallow, superficial mind. Her moral powers have been so long perverted that she cannot control them.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 6)
I saw that God had in His providence wrought to separate her influence from you, for He had a work for you to do which would be marred if you connected yourself with her influence or was much in her society. She had forfeited all right to your confidence. Her sin which was so aggravating to you was not the greatest crime and the greatest evil of her life or yours. Had her life otherwise during the period of your married life been even passable, tolerable, correct, and she through temptation or by an array of circumstances fallen, the sin of itself would not be as dreadful in the sight of God. It is not merely this sin but the bitter, determined course of rebellion, of falsehood, of deception, of artfulness, of jealousy, of envy, of hatred, and of every evil work, and last of all the crime of adultery. All these things together, which have operated upon your life, tearing down your strength, prostrating your energies, has made the sin against God and His Holy Spirit of great magnitude.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 7)
When you separated yourself from the influence of your wife, God came to your aid. He blest you. He let His divine light shine upon you, and around you. Had your children been separated from her influence long before they were, they might have been saved the formation of the character they now possess; just as the twig is bent, the tree inclines.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 8)
Deception is as natural with your eldest children as their breath, also gossip and frivolous talking, loving to visit and hear and talk.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 9)
I saw that God did not design you to place yourself in any position where your bodily or mental powers shall be drawn upon and enfeebled by your wife, for if you should, God would release you from His work and from His cause. Your strength is to have your wife where you will be in her society as little as possible.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 10)
Brother Waggoner, when you brought your wife to Battle Creek, I think you committed an error. Her presence will lessen your influence anywhere. I think you have duties to support her, to see that she does not suffer, but to have her with you and to travel with her from place to place, or for even yourself to be much in her society, I know is not in the order of God. You may try all your life to help her and to save her. She will destroy you and many others in the place of your saving her or benefiting her. She will ever be the same woman, a frown upon her face, complaining of aches and pains and calling out your sympathies, but that is all [that] will be gained. Your life is worth more to be preserved than a million of such persons as your wife. The less that there are of such ones in the world, the better. She will only be a cipher on the wrong side. The more retired she is, the better will it be for the cause of God.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 11)
If your wife would be industrious, employ her time in useful labor, instead of her never ending complainings, she would lose sight of herself. She has not felt burdened to see if she could aid you and lessen your cares, but has demanded great care and attention herself. If she would forget herself in being useful to somebody around her, she would not have so much time to magnify her trials and the evils of her lot, which she has brought upon herself. She is a terrible tax, and it is impossible for her to feel that others have burdens to bear and she should cease her complaining and whining and groaning and forget herself.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 12)
Brother Waggoner, I saw that God would make you a blessing to His cause if you will keep clear from every influence calculated to weaken you and pervert your judgment.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 13)
May God help you to move in wisdom is the prayer of your sister.
(2LtMs, Lt 6, 1870, 14)
Lt 7, 1870
White, W. C. Refiled as Lt 5a, 1872.
Lt 8, 1870
White, J. E. Battle Creek, Michigan May 17, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Son Edson:
We expect a letter from you now every day. Your father wrote you last Thursday and sent a check. Have you received it? We feel anxious to hear from you. How are you prospering? How is Emma? Does she take the powders I sent by Sister McDearmon? I think that the remedy will be of use to her now. One teaspoonful of the powders make one quart of liquid. Steep it thoroughly, keeping covered. Pour off and let settle, then bottle. Keep in a cool place. Put the dregs to steep again in a little water and mix with that in the bottle after settled. Take one great spoonful before each meal and one at night before sleeping. In one week increase to two or three spoonfuls.
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 1)
I am preparing second book. Have completed the first. My time is very much occupied. Edson, I cut you out a plaid shirt. Take it from your trunk and let Sister McDearmon make it. The machine will do it about all. How are your clothes—in good order?
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 2)
We feel interested that you should succeed, but don’t work beyond your strength, and do not forget God and the claims He has upon you. The Lord will bless you and strengthen you if your heart is submissive to Him. Take time to read your Bible and to pray. The Lord will never forsake those who put their trust in Him. Be of good courage in pursuing a course of right, and may the Lord guide you, is my prayer.
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 3)
Let us hear from you frequently, if but a few lines. I hope you will not get the ague upon you. You had better be cautious. Preserve your health. Willie and Byron work together well. I think that they will do first-rate together. Byron takes much care from Willie.
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 4)
My first book will be ready for distribution next week. Will send you one when it is out. We have Busha Dixson with me sewing now. She seems to be a very fine, good girl. She is mulatto. Has been at the Institute for eight months. I speak to the Institute quite frequently now. Always have liberty. The patients and doctor and helpers beg so hard for me to come I cannot well turn them off. The meetinghouse lots are all cleared from the lumber and ploughed and sowed to grass seed. It looks very neat and clean. There has been a job done by the carpenters, new and convenient steps made for the Office, and stairs for me to step from the carriage upon at the Office. The meetinghouse and Office have been all cleaned thoroughly. It looks like a new Office. While the women were cleaning, the carpenters were donating their work and lumber for steps and for platform, and steps to accommodate those stepping from the carriages. Father is speaking to Institute this morning. Lucinda has not come.
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 5)
In great haste and much love to all the family, and especially to you, my son. We hope Emma’s sickness is not of long duration.
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 6)
Write often.
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 7)
Your Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 8, 1870, 8)
Lt 9, 1870
McDearmon, Emma Marion, Iowa June 9, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 2Bio 290-292. Dear Sister Emma [McDearmon]:
I have just written a letter to Edson. As he is in Wright and you in Battle Creek, it will be necessary for me to write to you. We are now upon the campground.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 1)
We spent a very pleasant week in Washington [Iowa]. I wrote more in one week than I have written in six weeks at Battle Creek. We had no interruptions, although I have not spent all the time in writing. I walked in the beautiful garden, worked in the field weeding out strawberries until I become so lame I could not move without much pain. Sunday we had two meetings in a meetinghouse in Washington. The people invited my husband to speak. We had a good congregation and good interest to hear. We had freedom in speaking to them.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 2)
Monday I wrote all day until nearly dark. Then we packed up for a two days’ journey, rode three miles that night to Robert Kilgore’s and tarried with them. We did not get to rest until ten o’clock at night. We were awake at four. We were on the way on our journey at five o’clock. We halted for breakfast;—five double wagons well loaded at seven. Out upon the open prairie, James and self walked about one mile and half. We were willing to ride when the wagons came up. At noon we halted in a beautiful grove. We then overtook the teams from Pilot Grove. There were then thirteen wagons well filled with men and women and children. There were about one hundred in all. At night we tarried in a grove. Tents were pitched and we then held a meeting in the large tent. The neighbors flocked in. My husband spoke and I followed him. We had an interesting meeting, singing, talking and praying. We retired to rest but I was too weary to sleep, until about midnight. We arose at half past three and were on our way at four. We found all had the tents down and packed. Ours was soon ready and again our caravan started. Order was observed by all. At half past six, we halted on the prairie and built a large fire and all came together for a season of prayer. We then ate of our humble fare and were soon on our way again. At one o’clock we were on the campground and were faint and weary. We felt refreshed by eating a warm dinner. Our tent was pitched in the afternoon and we made our beds. Had a good straw bed to lie on and we slept sweetly the first night.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 3)
They held one meeting last night. Have had two today. Shall have another this evening. This is a most beautiful grove for a camp meeting. We feel so anxious that this meeting should be a great blessing to all assembled. We feel an assurance that God will [let] His blessing rest upon those who with humble hearts have come to work for God.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 4)
I wished to say a word, Emma, in regard to your marriage. We make no objections to your marriage; think it may be best. But, Emma, I fear it would hardly be right for you to leave your parents just as they are. Your mother will feel your loss sadly. Would it not be best to remain with your mother a short time? Do you not feel that you have some duty in this matter? Do not neglect your parents, for you are under sacred obligations to them. I have nothing to say if your parents think it best for you to go by yourselves this winter. But if they think you ought to stay with them and would feel the loss of you greatly, do not leave them till they feel it is best.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 5)
We feel an interest for you children and shall be happy to see you happy, but you must not let your pleasure come first. Be unselfish and you will never regret it in the end. This winter you can be getting things together to keep house and it will be better than to begin before you are half prepared.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 6)
We wish you may have wisdom to move in the counsel of God, dear Emma. I would entreat of you to make earnest preparation for the better world. Be true to God and your own soul. Do not on any account permit your mind to be [so] engrossed with your own interest that you will forget your Saviour and cease to feel the obligations you are under to Him. You profess to be a servant of Christ, a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus. Exemplify in your life the life of Christ. Be sober and watch unto prayer. The Lord will bless and strengthen you to glorify Him. Do not, I beg of you, be influenced to pursue a wrong course. Keep your soul free from condemnation. As a servant of Christ, wait upon Him; seek and inquire what you can do to honor Him. But do not seek your own pleasure. May the Lord help you and Edson to make an entire surrender to God, as you give yourselves to one another to share each others burdens, trials, disappointments and joys.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 7)
But bear in mind that if you lay up a treasure in heaven, you must be engaged in the work now. Do good. You have the ability. Bless others with your influence. Seek to elevate the minds of all to eternal things. Do not engage in unprofitable conversation; but let your words be seasoned with grace. You can attain to a higher state in holiness, you can hold communion with God and enjoy the approbation of God.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 8)
Oh, Emma, Satan is busy, so earnest, persevering and untiring. He will out-general you unless you are guarded. You must be earnest; you must be zealous, persevering. Your eternal interest should come first. Serve God with a humble heart with an eye single to His glory. Let your pride die. Live for God and leave everything that would hinder your service for God. I leave these lines with you.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 9)
Dear Emma, I have hopes for you and Edson, that you may prove a blessing to others. God grant it, is our prayer.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 10)
In much love to Burles and Nettie, I remain,
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 11)
Your true friend,
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 12)
In love.
(2LtMs, Lt 9, 1870, 13)
Lt 10, 1870
Dayton, Sister Oneida, New York August 5, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in UL 231. Dear Sister Dayton:
I will not delay writing you that which the Lord brings to my mind. Your case was presented to me two years ago. I then saw you were a deceived woman. You thought you had a clear light from God but it was darkness. You have had views and an experience peculiar to yourself and not in harmony with the people whom God is leading. You thought you had a work to do and you have not been especially led of God. You have been sanguine in your own ideas. You have had a diseased imagination and you would be in the utmost danger of insanity. You take extreme views. You feel that God is especially leading you, and you have been and will be a great burden to the people of God. You have so set a temperament, are so persistent that you are not in a position to receive instruction from God's servants. You are not teachable. You do not realize that you are in danger of being deceived.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 1)
These last days are days of fearful peril and all should encourage humility and meekness, and to admit the danger of their being deceived. You, my sister, I saw, would injure the cause of God unless you were teachable, subject to the body. God is leading a people, not one or two upon a track, peculiar and separate from the body. A people God is leading. The prayer of Christ to His Father was “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” [John 17:11, 17.]
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 2)
There is no such thing as an instantaneous sanctification. It is an every day work. Says Paul, “I die daily.” [1 Corinthians 15:31.] He received a conversion daily to God. As the truth and Spirit of God revealed to him the defects in his character, he put away his wrong, died to self and “cleansed himself from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of” the Lord. [2 Corinthians 7:1.]
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 3)
This is the everyday work of every follower of Christ—through the acceptance of the truth to have that truth do its work daily upon the heart until the entire being, even the thoughts of the mind, be brought into thorough subjection to the will of Christ. The theory of the sanctification the Methodists have is a delusion of the enemy. Many have entirely erroneous views of the work of regeneration upon the heart. It is not the work of a moment, of an hour or of a day, but with the Christian, the work of a lifetime.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 4)
Your peculiar ideas have had so powerful a control upon your mind, you could not dwell upon anything else. In meeting, you thought it your special duty to urge your opinions. You have taken your position above the church, as though you were exalted and in the light and they must come up to your position, receive your views. You are fanatical; you have not a healthy imagination. Your influence will do harm, and only harm, unless you become humble and teachable.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 5)
Dear Sister, you have not been guided by the providence of God. You have burdened and oppressed the church. They have not all been patient with you. They have felt exceedingly tried and have not all manifested the Spirit of Christ. You have felt that you were persecuted for Christ’s sake. But from the light that God has given me, when one takes the course you have pursued and have cherished the views you have cherished and persisted in retaining so long, unwilling to be instructed, it is a most difficult case to handle and frequently divides and ruins the prosperity of the cause where such [a] one lives. Satan is most successful when he can cover up minds in this kind of pious, sanctified consecration, which has no part in the sanctification brought to view in the Word of God. It is, in short, a spurious article, that article you possess. You received your views of sanctification from those who claim to be sanctified and holy, who have no love for the law of God and who have no love for His appearing. You received your light from a corrupt source, the stream that came from a corrupt fountain is impure.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 6)
As I write to you, your case is more plain and clear before me. You have allowed your views of sanctification to unite you to those who were grossly corrupt. You have not obeyed the Word of God and abstained from all appearance of evil. Satan has desired your soul that he might sift you as wheat. Your holy, sanctified union, as you have termed it, with individuals has been a delusion of Satan.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 7)
Hosts that were as corrupt as hell you have been united with, and called this the union which exists between Christ and His Father. You have been led through your perverse ideas of sanctification to depart from the Word of God. You have a work to do to break all in pieces and give up your experience in the past few years and become as a little child and be converted, be humble and teachable, that God may lead you.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 8)
Your heart is not right with God. You have a work to do to yield your will to the will of God. You should be led instead of seeking to lead. You will have to be broken in pieces before God and make thorough work or you will be unable to recover yourself out of the snare of the devil. You have been taken captive by him and have had your mind controlled by him. I saw that you should turn square about. Give up your will, your way, your ideas and be willing to be instructed. Become meek and lowly. Seek for Bible holiness, Bible sanctification. You have adopted Methodist sanctification, which is not in accordance with the Word of God. You have become terribly entangled in the snare of Satan, and will have to work earnestly to recover yourself from his devices. You have not exerted that influence at home you could have done had you possessed true, genuine sanctification. You have a work to do that no one could do for you. May God help you to take hold of this work earnestly. Do not leave this ground until you free yourself from the snare of Satan.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 9)
You have neglected your present work and your present duty to perform some great work the Lord has not given you to do. Your duties to your family is the work God has laid upon you to perform. If you do this faithfully, you will receive a reward. If you neglect the sacred duty, you will receive the reward which comes to an unfaithful steward. The duties of today are resting upon you. Take up these duties, these burdens, in the fear of God and make your ways and works perfect before Him. You have brought reproach upon the cause of God. Wipe it out and redeem the time.
(2LtMs, Lt 10, 1870, 10)
Lt 11, 1870
Howard, Brother Skowhegan, Maine September 5, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Brother Howard:
I feel burdened and distressed in regard to your case. I know that you do not realize the injury you have done to the cause of God in Maine. Had this occurred merely once, it would not be as discouraging. But from the light God has given me, feelings of jealousy and rebellion have been cherished by you for years. God has sent His chosen servants to help the people, but when they have come you have felt that they had come upon your ground and invaded your rights. You have kept yourself prepared to withstand them, let them pursue whatever course they might.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 1)
You have had an inward desire to control matters in the state of Maine yourself. You have been blind to your deficiencies and have not seen the necessity of thorough, efficient labor in Maine. Therefore when the help God has sent has come to Maine, you have felt jealous, suspicious and rebellious. But little could be done until your case was disposed of. As soon as your case was taken hold of, to get you out of the way that their time and labor might not be wholly lost, you have maintained a sullen indifference or a stubborn, resistant position. You have appealed to your own sympathy and there has not been wanting men and women who are not especially enlightened by the Spirit of God to sympathize with you. And when the servants of God have been convinced that their hard labor must be in vain, unless you could come into a different position and they would labor for you, who was blocking up their way? A division of feeling would take place and a part would become disaffected, for they could not see you as God saw you. They could not see you as God had caused His servants to see you,—some because of lack of experience; others who were ever ready to be found on the wrong side, ever found on the side of Satan, would be all prepared to decide Brother Howard is dealt wrongly with. Poor Brother Howard is abused. Brother Howard is pushed. These have never borne the weight and burden of the cause.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 2)
The work of God has never been seen in its sacredness and its exalted character been appreciated. Yet such dare to withstand the influence of the servants God has sent to help the people. Such, I saw, did not resist the men, but God. They murmured not against the men, but God, who was working thorough them. In short, these unwise ones array themselves against God, meddling with things that they have no knowledge of, in order to sympathize with and flatter a man whom God is displeased with and sent His servants to reprove, exhort, correct, rebuke with all long suffering and doctrine.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 3)
This work has been acted over and you brought around discouragement upon God’s servants and hindered the advancement of the work of God time and again. After Satan has gained his object, suspicion put in minds, doubts and unbelief sowed in hearts, then you have come to the crisis where you must yield up your unreasonable, foolish, wicked prejudice and rebellion or the people of God yield you up. You have not been fully prepared to break away from the truth and from the people of God, and you could but see in part as facts were so plainly before you that your course, censurable and blameworthy, you have acknowledged that you have been wrong sometimes with brokenness of spirit, but the work has never been deep enough wrought to transform the man. It has touched the surface but not changed the principles underlying the actions. Therefore upon a similar occasion he was all prepared to act over the same things when brought under similar circumstances. Satan gained his object, all he designed; he had caused seeds of suspicion, distrust and unbelief to cut off the influence of the testimony borne by the servants of God whom He has especially sent with a work to do for His people. That work is totally defeated in the cases of at least a number and they are placed in a more dangerous condition than before the servants of God came to them, through the events which have been brought about by one or two men standing in resistance and rebellion to God’s work.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 4)
Brother Howard goes on with not a hundredth part of the sense of the work he has done. The seed sown springs up and bears fruit and the result of the course passes into eternity. This has been done over and over. Now I am feeling that no more can be hoped for the future than we have hoped in the past. In the last view I saw that Brother Howard has not earned the confidence of the people. When he does, his labors will be appreciated. He could have carried a reputation in this cause and this work. [He] has done more harm to the cause of God by his wrong course, his lack of energy, his envy, his jealousy, and suspicion than all the good he has done in this cause and work.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 5)
I was made to see these things. I looked diligently to see how many souls he had brought into the truth as fruits of his labor. I saw that his general influence in a place was such that it told more against the truth than all the efforts he had made would tell in its favor. If he at first made a good impression, the longer he remained, the worse would be the real state of the cause than when he came. When I saw this state of things I felt fearful that Brother Howard would not see himself so as to make the change of his character and course of action to meet the will of God. The confession made Sunday was a wound to God’s cause. Impressions were given, that many carried away, that Brother Howard was pushed, crowded, and this would do just what Satan wanted to be done, destroy all the efforts made in behalf of these persons.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 6)
We rejoiced to have Brother Howard come as far as he did, Monday, in confession. But Brother Howard has not yet met the mind of the Spirit of God. He has this work to continue until he redeems the past. He has not exercised that repentance that needeth not to be repented of. He has not yet died to self. He has not yet seen the great sin he has committed against God’s cause and sees not that every time he permits himself to be controlled by Satan, he becomes weaker and has less strength to resist the next attack of Satan. Satan works directly through Brother Howard to serve his purposes and he can do it better through one who professes to be a teacher than through the worst sinner. One man professing to be in the truth and enlightened of God, Satan will use him with tenfold better results to his cause and to injure the work of God than he can a wicked man.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 7)
These ministers are paralyzed by Satan. They have played themselves into his hands and Satan has eagerly seized them and used them as his agents to reach a class that he could not otherwise affect. And then, these men seem to feel that they are the sufferers. Achan secreted a golden wedge and a Babylonish garment, and Israel was slain in battle because the frown of God was upon Israel, for this man had departed from the directions which he had given. There is more than one man in Maine whom Satan has used to weaken and depress Israel and destroy souls.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 8)
Brother Howard, I fear [that] unless you make an entire change here at this meeting and are a transformed man, you will slide back just where you have been. Brother Howard, your labors have lacked efficiency. You have not built up. If your efforts were successful in [remainder missing.]
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 9)
September 5, 1870 Skowhegan
Upon the Camp Meeting Ground
In the evening while Brother Waggoner is preaching, as you made acknowledgments today, we were encouraged. We hoped and prayed that you might continue the work of humiliation and confession until you had made a clean track behind you. But the afternoon meeting has closed and we feel a heavy weight upon our spirits in reference to your case. I know that you have not realized the injury you have done to the cause of present truth in Maine. Had you been found deficient and on the wrong side, merely once, it would not be as discouraging. But your occupying a wrong position has been so many times repeated, your case looks discouraging.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 10)
From the light God has given me, feelings of jealousy and rebellion have been cherished by you for years. God has sent His chosen servants to help the people in Maine and strengthen the cause there. But when they have come, you have not been prepared to help them. You have frequently felt that they had come upon your ground and invaded your rights. You have kept yourself in a position to question, to doubt and to draw off, let them pursue whatever course they might. You have had a strong desire to control matters in the State of Maine. Your experience has not been of that character that your influence could advance the cause of [God], that the prosperity of the cause of God will in any special sense be entrusted to your dictation. You have not earned a reputation of being an efficient workman, a burden-bearer in the cause of God. The work of God and the cause of present truth has not prospered in your hands. You are not aroused. You see the cause languishing, but are not agonized. You do not see the work to be accomplished to keep the cause in a healthy condition. You are too ease-loving, too indolent to put your whole being into the work. The cause of present truth for these last days demands men energized by the Spirit and power of God. Satan is working upon the right hand and upon the left to oppose the work of God to deceive, ensnare, and destroy souls for whom Christ has died. And unless God’s servants possess earnest perseverance and untiring energy, Satan will be successful in out-generaling them.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 11)
Men of God chosen to be shepherds of the flock must continually feel the responsibility of their mission, the burden of their work. This burden cannot be safely laid off for a moment. Sobriety, solemnity should rest upon men who are a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. Yet God is not pleased with His laborers being gloomy, desponding and unbelieving, for in thus doing, they are a cloud instead of being a sunbeam diffusing light.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 12)
Brother Howard, you have not seen the deficiencies in your character which, unless overcome, disqualify you from building up the cause and producing healthy action in the body of believers. Where your influence has been felt the most, the cause of God has languished and there has been felt the greatest discouragement. You feel at liberty to be guided by your feeling. If you are disinclined to labor, you will not; if you do not feel like speaking and praying, you will not. Those who wait for their shepherd to move forward suffer loss. The brethren have not felt free to move independently of you while you professed to be God’s minister to feed the flock. You do not [feel] the necessity of disciplining L. M. Howard and bringing him up to the work, whether he feels like it or not. You do not move from principle but from impulse. When you do get aroused, you then exercise yourself with some energy, showing that you possess the power to do very much more than you have done.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 13)
You have not been willing to be instructed. You have scorned the advice and help of others when it was just what you needed. When God’s servants have come to Maine, you have felt jealous, suspicious and rebellious. Your spirit was enough to dishearten and discourage if you did not say a word, but your words have been such as to create sympathy in others for you, and to cause distrust to exist in their minds in regard to the servants of God. While they have been trying to help you, you have been hurting them and making their labors hard. You have not been grateful and humble. God has been displeased with your course. God’s servants could accomplish but little until your influence was counteracted and got out of the way. As soon as your case was taken hold of, from very necessity to make their labors a success, you have maintained a sullen indifference, a stubborn, resistant position, resisting all their efforts for your good. Your language has been, I won’t be driven.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 14)
You would not be helped yourself and hindered others from receiving the help they needed and that God designed that they should have. You have not seen your crime,—your great sin in this and the injury you have done to souls and the work that now has to be put forth by the worn servants of God to counteract your influence. You have said much. It has been here a little and there a little, and Satan stands by your side to make your words of the greatest possible advantage to his own cause. You do not know the effect of your words in your family and in the church. Your blind insinuations frequently reveal more of your dissatisfaction than you are aware of. From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 15)
You have appealed to your own sympathies and pitied yourself. Your wife and children have pitied you. Oh, how much more pleasing to God and how much better for your own interest, would it have been for you to [have] humbled your heart before God, repented in the presence of your family of your deficiencies in training them, and confessed your negligence of duty in the church of God. Then with confessions and tears bowed before God with your family in humble acknowledgment of the light given of God in mercy for you, while you had time to correct your deficiencies and right your wrongs, that you need not come up to the judgment unready.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 16)
There has not been wanting men and women who are not especially enlightened by the Spirit of God to sympathize with you. Satan rebelled in heaven. He was one of the honored angels there, but he was jealous of the Son of God. He was not alone. He had sympathizers. Many of the heavenly angels were on Satan’s side and united with him in his determined rebellion. He was thrust out of heaven and his sympathizers who had joined him in his rebellion shared his fate. Ever since the fall of Satan, those who have been disaffected and caused the work of God to be hindered and the hearts of His servants to bleed, when reproved they have had sympathizers. Some who are not wise in the things of God are almost always to be found on the wrong side. And these sympathizers will exist until the close of time. The leaven of dissatisfaction and malice will spread so easily that frequently the whole lump is leavened.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 17)
The servants of God become discouraged and disheartened as they see their energies crippled, their useful labor nearly, if not quite, destroyed. The record is borne to heaven of that sinner who [had] done the wrong and upon him will rest the consequences of his own wicked course. While angels weep and Satan laughs, the deceived sinner may be feeling that he is the one aggrieved. Satan blinds his eyes to himself that he may lead on to his own ruin and also through him work the ruin of many. When the servants of God have been fully convinced that their hard labor must be in vain unless Brother Howard should come into a different position, and have labored especially for him, that he might not block up their way but clear the King’s highway, a division of feeling would take place and some who professed the truth and were as honest as the angels before they were disaffected by Satan, have been deceived and played themselves into the hands of the enemy by giving their influence to the one who made angels weep, and Satan and his angels rejoice by sympathizing with the ones who in their blindness see the necessity for such close, earnest, personal labor. They had so little sense and burden of the work themselves, they could not see that the cause of God demanded the very work done in order to clear the King’s highway.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 18)
They were all burdened and dissatisfied because one man’s pride was hurt, his unsanctified feelings touched; but they had seen the precious cause of truth languishing and burdened, the servants of God discouraged and disheartened in their labor. But this was not of as much consequence in their estimation as the feelings of one unconsecrated man. The precious cause may suffer, but this fails to arouse their zeal to correct the evil. Their sorrow is not for God’s cause, but for the one who has brought all the evil. How inconsistent! These inexperienced ones do not see as God seeth, neither as He has made His servants to see and feel. God has laid on His servants burdens which they cannot be excused from bearing.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 19)
Brother Howard, you have been doing a work that God does not approve; yet take whatever course you will, there are some who are ever ready to be found on the wrong side, ever are drawn to Satan’s side in a case of emergency, when the weight of every one should be on the side of right, on the side of God irrespective of the feelings of any one. These unwise ones will begin to pity and sympathize with Brother Howard and they will decide that he has been dealt hard with and has been hurt. Had these souls a true sense of the exalted character of the work and felt its sacredness, how different would be their views and their actions. They would not dare to withstand the influence of the servants God has sent to help the people. Such do not resist the men, but God. They murmured not against the men but against the Lord who had sent them and who was working through them. They are fighting not against the men but God. They are meddling with things too high for them to understand or appreciate, unless they are themselves cleansed and sanctified. They have not a correct knowledge of what they are warring against or what work they are doing in their sympathy with those whom God is displeased with, and sent by His servants a special reproof to correct their errors.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 20)
Brother Howard, it was sufficient for you to be found once overcome by the adversary of souls in separating your interest and sympathy from the servants of God. And could you have felt the sin, the wrong of the course you had pursued, you would have been so guarded that Satan could not so easily use you as his agent to accomplish his design a second time. But you have felt before as you now feel, that too much has been expected of you and your wrongs have been magnified which have caused you to be discouraged and hindered you from accomplishing what you might in the cause of God. This is all false reasoning. You weaken your own hands. Your course brings the frown of God upon you and makes you weak, without courage or energy. If you would make thorough work, turn your eyes to yourself and be willing and anxious to see your defects, you would repent and reform. If you would consider what you might be and the work you have the ability to do, if you had the disposition; and then in the fear of God in His strength lay hold resolutely of the work, you would have rejoicing in yourself. Your courage would be good. You have no one to blame but L. M. Howard for your present, discouraged condition. You have neglected to take the burdens you might. You do not have confidence and faith in God. You move by impulse. You have followed feeling. You would preach when you felt to, and pray when you felt to, and when you chose you let both praying and preaching alone. You felt no special responsibility or burden of the cause of God, yet you claim to have been for years a representative of Jesus Christ.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 21)
You have furthered the interest of Satan and strengthen the hand of the wicked by your course. You have brought discouragement upon God’s servants and also upon His people. You have hindered the advancement of the work of God, time and again. After Satan has gained his object and through you suspicion, distrust, jealousy and unbelief has been sown and taken root and there is appearance of a bountiful harvest, then comes the crisis where positions must be taken distinctly somewhere on the side of the servants of God and against you, or in favor of you and against them. Then you are obliged to yield up your unreasonable, wicked prejudice or rebel against the work of God. You have not dared to venture to fully break away from the truth and from God’s people. Facts were before you that unless you were willfully blind, you could see your course was censurable and blameworthy and you have made some concessions. You have had brokenness of spirit but the work has never been deep.
(2LtMs, Lt 11, 1870, 22)
Lt 12, 1870
White, W. C. Fairfield, Maine September 6, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 11MR 108. Dear Son Willie:
Here we are at Aunt Mary’s. We were riding to the depot to take the cars for Richmond when a man with white hairs came running all out of breath calling, “James! James!”
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 1)
We saw it was Mr. Tenny, your father’s sister Lizzie’s husband. He had come purposely to see us. We had Brethren Waggoner and Cornell go on and leave an appointment for us tomorrow night. Adelaide Savage, your father’s niece, also came upon the campground to see us. We felt that we could not go right away without seeing them a short time. We had not seen them for six years. We therefore tarried over today. Our meeting closed this morning. We tarried at the depot. There were quite a number waiting for the cars, sitting upon the ground. After they left, we rode home with Mary and Addie Savage.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 2)
Elder Howard is backing down. He got up and made a confession but we felt that he had no sense of his course. I wrote that evening how I viewed his case and read it to the people. The Lord helped me speak with power, but Howard just balked and said he should go no farther; so you see his confession was not genuine.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 3)
Our meeting has closed and we hope the Lord will take charge of the matter and keep His people.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 4)
We have heard from Mother nothing new. She is about as usual. We shall return to Michigan next week if Willie is able. We have just received the letter from Lucinda that Willie is improving. How thankful I am for this, Willie. Many prayers have been offered for you in the congregation of the saints. The Lord has heard prayers that have been offered. We hope, Willie, that you will come up from this sickness in better health than you have had for some time. And more, that you will come up with the peace of God abiding in your heart. God has given you tokens of good and may His blessing abide upon you. We hope you will appreciate the favors of God and consecrate yourself wholly to Him. Let your heart be drawn out after God. Make Him [your] trust. Love the Lord, for He first loved you.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 5)
My dear boy, we trust you will yet be a blessing to others. Oh, Willie, I do want that you should glorify God in your life. This world, this life, is of but little account; the better life, the better world, live for this, my precious boy, and you will never regret it. No, never. I can never express the love I feel for you, my boy, yet I had rather bury you, as much as I love you rather than to have you forget God. Heaven, heaven, nothing is sure but heaven. Pray to your heavenly Father for strength and health of body and mind.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 6)
All are talking around me, your aunts, uncles and cousins. Please receive this from Mother at this time.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 7)
In love and deep interest.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 8)
Your Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 12, 1870, 9)
Lt 13, 1870
White, W. C. Clyde, Ohio [Campground] September 23, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 2Bio 293-294. My very dear Son Willie:
We received your second letter yesterday, stating you had not been quite as well. As soon as we arrived at the campground at Charlotte, I was unable to sit up. Was very sick. Father prayed for me and I remained upon the ground. At first decided to go to Battle Creek for treatment, not at the Institute, but at my own home; but I did not leave the ground.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 1)
Friday I felt anxious about you. It seemed to me that all was not well with you. I felt that you were not doing as well. I spoke to Father. Said I, “I think that they will not be cautious in regard to Willie’s diet. I have no fears if they will only be particular in regard to his eating. But here is my greatest fear—that they will allow a boy with a voracious appetite to judge for himself how much to eat and the quality of the food.” I wrote Tuesday morning, for I felt I could forbear no longer. My dear boy, sickness is prevailing and we need to be very cautious in regard to diet.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 2)
Poor Brother Aldrich is dead. His fever came on less violently than yours and progressed about as yours, but they did not grapple with the fever as persistently as we did in your case. We feel very anxious for you. Your future health will be determined upon how you come up while you are recovering from the debilitating effects of the fever. Now is your battle. Now is the most critical period with you of your life. An invalid confined in bed, suffering under disease, is more easily managed than an invalid recovering with returning appetite, yet his system not strong enough to bear taxation. We will pray for you.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 3)
I left my bed to come on the cars to this place. I have been very sick since we left you. The morning we left was very raw and chilly. We left you on Sunday morning. I was very cold nearly all the way. My having a cold made me more susceptible to the cold. I then tried to arouse to speak to Oneida twice. Spent one night at home. No rest. Then away the next morning to camp meeting, sick all day, the next day a high fever. Friday commenced to labor. Spoke once at the stand, and one hour under the large tent on health and dress reform. Spoke twice Sabbath, and three times, Sunday. Was especially helped of God. All this time my head and jaws were so sore I could scarcely endure it.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 4)
Monday a sore broke in my head. Wednesday, another broke which is still discharging thick blood and corrupt matter. This is a new experience for me. I feel that the Lord will help me. I was not dressed Wednesday and but a short time Thursday in the morning, until I dressed to start on the cars. When we entered the cars at Battle Creek, the atmosphere was thick and polluted. I could not bear it. I was so weak I fainted. When we arrived at Jackson, it was a State Fair and such a crowd I never saw before. They were determined to crowd upon the platform. Your father rushed up with me on his arm. He put his shoulder against men and women, crying out, “Make way for a sick woman. Clear the track for a sick woman.” He rushed through the crowd, took me [to] one side, found me a seat. Adelia Van Horn by my side, he went for Brother Palmers team, but we could not leave for one hour. The crowd was so dense and trains loaded, on the platform, on the steps, on the wood train, on the top, and the cars numbered about sixteen at a train.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 5)
I will say, Mother fails, but is a great deal of care. Her mind fails also.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 6)
I would say to you all, much love. We hope you will have wisdom and strength and courage in the Lord. Do not leave Rosetta when you come west. Have her come along. We think, Lucinda, we shall employ Brother and Sister Graves to take care of our parents and we go into the twin cottages with our family. What do you think of this, Lucinda? We want to see you. We miss you very much indeed and often suffer for your presence and care.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 7)
Much love to you, my Willie.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 8)
Your Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 13, 1870, 9)
Lt 14, 1870
White, W. C. Clyde, Ohio September 27, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 3MR 130-131. My dear Son Willie:
I have left Father sleeping in bed to get a chance to write a line to you this morning before daylight.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 1)
Our camp meeting is closed. We had a profitable meeting. The Word seemed to affect hearts and the people of God seemed to settle deeper and deeper into the work. I was strengthened to speak Friday evening with freedom. Father spoke Sabbath morning; I in the afternoon with perfect freedom. Father spoke in the evening.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 2)
Sunday, Father spoke in the forenoon with freedom to a large gathering for Ohio. He was clear, his voice relieved of hoarseness since the Charlotte camp meeting.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 3)
In the afternoon we had a large concourse of people. I again was blessed with freedom, for which I thank God. After I ceased speaking, many came to us to know when we would speak again. We told them, “Monday afternoon.” They had come, they said, six miles to hear me speak and arrived just as I was closing. But [a] man of influence, a hotel keeper in the village, was desirous I should speak in the large, commodious Methodist church Monday evening. He had obtained the consent of the Methodist minister and the trustees. The way was open and I dared not say No. So we changed the appointment. I spoke in the forenoon,—the closing meeting upon the ground. Then Brother Van Horn went three miles and baptized, I think, twelve. I was too weary to go. I lay down in the open air. The tent house was being packed and [I] obtained a little rest. We did not get packed and off the ground till after dark. We then went to the Methodist house, a beautifully constructed building. I spoke about one hour with freedom to a crowded house; about five hundred present. The notice had been given out in all the meetinghouses in the place. I never had a better hearing. No Adventist has been able heretofore to get into the house. We hoped this effort might remove prejudice and open the way for some people, at least, to hear further in regard to our faith.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 4)
We received your letter last night which relieved our anxiety some. We pray for you and trust you in the hands of an all wise and merciful God and believe He will preserve you.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 5)
We are both worn yet. We, neither of us, felt free to have our work close just here. We have [therefore] appointed another camp meeting in Indiana after we rest over one week and then the week following to Kansas. So, you see, there [is] work still ahead for the poor pilgrims. God will sustain us if we are in the way of duty.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 6)
The camp meeting in Indiana, we thought necessary. You know they have done and said everything to get us to Indiana, but we have disappointed them and have never yet visited the State. Kansas sent in her plea, her entreaties, and signed a long list of names of petitioners. We decided not to go, but have repealed the decision after carefully reviewing the matter again. Our appointment will appear in the next Review. On our return from Kansas, shall make a tarry at Iowa, a short time, if the providence of God permits.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 7)
In regard to our campground in Ohio, I wish you could have seen it. It was a beautiful ground of grand, old beeches, maples and oaks, horse chestnuts and many other trees, so high and lofty, towering towards the heavens. You could scarcely see the tops of the trees. I picked up the most wonderful, large acorns I ever saw. They are a perfect sight in size. I gathered some as a curiosity. I also gathered a few buckeyes, horse chestnuts.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 8)
Well, when do you propose to come home to Battle Creek? James says you will want to leave next Monday, take Brother Littlejohn with you and get [to] Battle Creek in season for him to go with us to Indiana. So you see how the matter stands. Bring Rosetta with you. Don’t come without her. Love to all.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 9)
In much haste,
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 10)
Your Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 14, 1870, 11)
Lt 15, 1870
White, W. C. La Cross, Indiana October 6, 1870 Previously unpublished. My dear Son Willie:
All that gives this place its name is the railroads that cross each other here. One house stands alone for depot and an apology of a hotel. We arrived at this place last night between eight and nine o’clock. We must be content to remain here until eleven o’clock today, then pass on to Tipton, Indiana. This is a strange route, so many changes, and to go a small distance on different roads, but we hope we will get upon the ground today.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 1)
We were relieved when you did not come. Our arrangements were to have you come with Brother and Sister Abbey and Lucinda and any that might accompany them, and go on with us as far as Michigan city; then we leave you and you all pass on to Irwin. When our work in Kansas was concluded, we should tarry at Washington a week or more just as we could leave our parents. But we have feared we could not spend that time in Washington on account of our parents being so feeble. Grandpa has shaken terribly with ague for three days and he is not himself when fever comes on.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 2)
We were glad you remained. We were also pleased to see Rosetta because we thought it would be best for her to come. She is with us and is at this moment writing.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 3)
There is much sickness at Battle Creek. After we decided we could not spend more than a week at Iowa, we thought it would not be best for Lucinda and you to go on, and we then decided to have you, Rosetta, Lucinda and Loi go to Greenville with our horses and carriage and visit at Wright, as Edson is very anxious to see you. But it was a relief to leave you where you are till we return from Kansas. If you and Brother Abbey’s people come on in our absence, we want them to go to our house and be at home as long as they choose to stay.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 4)
My health is quite good for me. The Lord has strengthened and blessed me greatly of late. I walked out by faith, attended the camp meetings at the different places. After the meetings were all over, I was surprised to feel come to me unexpectedly a strength and courage I had not had for months. I felt my body as it were renewed, and I [felt] better than I had before the camp meetings commenced; so you see the Lord has not forsaken me. I feel very grateful for His love and mercy to me. I will praise Him as long as I live.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 5)
I hear from Edson occasionally. He is doing well as could be expected. He has been sick, so has Emma, but both are well now.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 6)
We hope, Willie, that you will be prospered of the Lord. I am not surprised that you had the ague. I rather expected it. You did not come up from the fever as clear from the disease as I hoped you would. The ague will perhaps finish the work, clearing your system. We pray for you often and we feel very anxious that you should fully recover your health; but we have trusted your case in the hands of God. He will not leave you nor forsake you if you do not forsake Him. Do not forget that it is God that has spared your life and do, my dear son, dedicate yourself to God as you have never yet done. The Lord will help you and bless all your efforts. Watch and pray. Be cheerful, be happy and grateful, but do not be careless in your words and actions. You are the Lord's child. Seek to serve Him and set a good example to others.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 7)
Last Sabbath I spoke to the people in Battle Creek in the afternoon. I had some freedom. I spoke at the Health Institute Tuesday afternoon with good liberty. We miss Lucinda and Willie, very much, but we are satisfied it is as well as it is for you to be where you are. Take good care of your health, Willie. Have Brother Abbey buy a good pair of boots and a warm pair of soft slippers, if you desire. We will settle all the bills when we see him. Get all you need. Do not go uncomfortable.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 8)
Much love to all the family.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 9)
Your Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 15, 1870, 10)
Lt 16, 1870
White, W. C. Pleasanton, Kansas October 17, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Son Willie:
We expected to receive a letter from you at Indiana, but none came. We thought surely one would be waiting us at Pleasanton, but we were disappointed. No letter again. We are rather anxious and much disappointed. We hope still to find a letter in the office today.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 1)
I have just written Edson and Rosetta. Rosetta wrote us that Grandfather had been very sick and had a fever. This made us feel bad. We hope he will not be very much worse, but we cannot tell how it may be with him, he is so old.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 2)
Our meeting in Indiana was a profitable one and very necessary for the people. The outsiders were much impressed. A solemnity seemed to pervade minds. We were very free in bearing our testimony to the people. The Lord blessed the brethren and sisters.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 3)
Tuesday we left the campground. In the depot we met two Methodist women,—one had been brought up a Quaker, but had joined the Methodists. They seemed so glad to have had the privilege of hearing me speak on Sunday. They said that they had felt that women who had the cause of God at heart could exert a great influence if they would give themselves to the work of preaching Jesus. Some, they said, were opposed and much prejudiced against women talking. They came to hear me and they prayed that God would let His Spirit rest upon me, and said they, “Our expectations were more than realized. The impression made upon the people was great.” They said the houses of worship would any of them be opened to me if I would speak to the people. I was glad to see that a favorable impression had been made. I see hearts everywhere are susceptible to the influences of the truth. Calls come in from every quarter for help. Can’t you come or send some one, is the cry. Albert Lane has done a good work. He was ordained at Indiana. Sands is doing something, yet not as much.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 4)
October 18, 1870
The mail has just come, stating Father is better, also Mother. So we decided to stay two Sabbaths more at least. We go to Missouri tomorrow or next day, staying over two Sabbaths. The calls are so urgent we hardly know what to do, or where to go. May the Lord direct us is our prayer.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 5)
You may stay, dear Willie, to Brother Abbey’s till you hear from us again. We do not see that we can spend time to [go to] Iowa just now. But we will write again when I can get time to talk with Father about the matter. Will write tomorrow or next day. Do be careful, Willie, of your health. You had better not overeat or overdo. Trust in God. We rejoice that we are as well as we are and as cheerful. We hope you will prosper in the Lord and your health will improve.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 6)
Much love to all. Excuse haste.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 7)
Your Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 16, 1870, 8)
Lt 16a, 1870
White, J. E.; White, Emma Pleasanton, Kansas October 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 6MR 301, 315. [To Edson and Emma:] [First page is missing. Similar to Lt 16, 1870.]
... left Michigan, for the first camp meeting of the season. This is the work of God,—a miracle of His mercy. I praise Him for this evidence of His love and care for me.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 1)
We had a profitable meeting at Tipton, Indiana. We had freedom in bearing our testimony, and the people heard the word gladly. Elder E. L. [Lane] has done a good work in that State. He is liked everywhere, and is meeting with excellent success. God bless the young men who are laboring for their Master. Elder L[ane] has not had an encouraging or an easy time. He has suffered privations and hardships, yet he has no disposition to complain. Would that one hundred such men could start out in humility to work for the Lord.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 2)
Tuesday afternoon [October 11] we left the encampment at Tipton. At the depot we were accosted by two ladies, members of the Methodist church, who had come for the purpose of speaking with me. One had been brought up a Friend, and still retained her “thee” and “thou.” Both seemed to have had an experience in the things of religion. They were much pleased with my discourse Sunday afternoon. They, with other Christian women in the place, believed that woman can exert a powerful influence by public labor in the cause of God; but a large class, including the ministers of the several denominations, held that she was entirely out of her place in the desk.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 3)
On learning that I was to speak at the campground, both parties determined to go and hear me, agreeing that if I proved myself able to expound the Scriptures to the edification of my hearers, the ministers should cease their opposition to woman’s speaking, and, on the other hand, if my remarks failed to be edifying, the ladies would accept the ministers’ views upon the point.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 4)
These two ladies came to the meeting feeling that much was at stake. Said they, “We prayed earnestly that God would give you freedom and the power of His grace; and our expectations were more than realized. God helped you to speak. Such an impression was made on this community as was never known before. You have told us truths of which many were ignorant. All will have matter for serious thought. Prejudice against woman’s speaking is gone. If the people had known that you would speak to the public, any of the churches in the place would gladly have opened their doors to you.” These Christian women then urged us to stay and speak again, but we told them it was impossible. They also invited us to come to the Methodist camp meeting next year, promising us a good hearing. They then bade me Godspeed, and we parted.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 5)
Soon the cars started, and we were on our way to Indianapolis, where we spent the night. The next morning we started for St. Louis, and at that place took a sleeping-car for Kansas City. Just opposite us, in this car, sat a fine-looking man who, as we afterward learned, was an infidel. In the course of conversation he remarked that he believed the Bible record a lie, and that if God had caused all the misery we see in the world, because of Adam and Eve’s transgression, He was not a God of mercy and goodness; and he further stated his belief that we are merely creatures of circumstance, not being in the least accountable for the evils that have befallen our race. This remark not being addressed to myself, I made no reply, but they awakened these thoughts:
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 6)
In one sense we are the creatures of circumstance. We have brought suffering upon ourselves through our own unwillingness to submit to God’s requirements. If God’s people, when they came out of Egypt, would have obeyed the specific directions given them from Heaven, they would have been preserved from disease. But depraved appetite was strong, and this they would indulge at the expense of health, and even of life itself. Thus it has ever been, from that day to the present: a continual departure from God’s wise arrangements, the indulgence of appetite and sinful desires, has brought misery and disease of every type.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 7)
We slept well through the night, and awoke in the morning refreshed and invigorated. The skeptic was looking blue. He told us the day before that he had left the use of coffee, because it injured him; but he now acknowledged that he drank a cup of the beverage before retiring, and it so excited his nerves that he could not sleep. He had passed a most miserable night. Truly, here was a “creature of circumstance!” God had not brought this suffering upon him; he had indulged appetite at the expense of health and comfort.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 8)
In the car were children who had been stuffed with chicken, pie and cake, and then were crying with pain; they were afflicted with colic. “Creatures of circumstance!” There were pale-faced children with colds and coughs, their limbs half-naked or covered with only a thin flannel stocking, “Creatures of circumstance!” There were tobacco-users, sallow, consumptive,—“Creatures of circumstance!” One lady who had eaten a hearty supper was so uncomfortable that she dared not sit down or go to rest. “Creatures of circumstance!” How much of the misery which we see can be traced directly to the cause—wrong habits which have brought their sure result!
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 9)
When we entered the waiting-room at the depot at Kansas City, we found it crowded with emigrants of the lower class, who were so filthy in their persons and clothing as to be absolutely repulsive. The huge box stove was heated to redness, and every window was tightly closed. The sickening sensation which we experienced in that atmosphere was absolutely overpowering. We could not endure it. It was a cold morning, but we took our hand baggage, climbed a hill some distance from the depot and there, seated on a ledge of rock beneath a tall oak tree, with the frost lying on the ground around us, we ate our cold lunch. Refreshed by our walk in the keen morning air, we returned to the depot and were soon on our way to Pleasanton, [Kansas].
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 10)
And now you will wish to hear something about the meetings here. We have had excellent freedom. The people are hungry for the Word of God. Some were one week coming in their large covered wagons. One man traveled in this way 300 miles; he spent ten days in making the journey, and did not reach the campground till the last day of the meeting. Delegates came from Missouri, begging for help in their State. Such entreaties I never heard before.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 11)
At our meetings the people sat with streaming eyes, devouring every word. The Lord gave me a sweet blessing last Sabbath afternoon. His love filled my heart. The congregation was deeply affected, and many came forward for prayers.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 12)
We see very much to do everywhere. If God will give us strength, we will cheerfully follow in the path of duty. The Macedonian cry is heard from all directions. Oh, how we want to answer all these calls; but this is impossible. Sometimes these things cause me great anxiety; then I reflect that the cause is the Lord’s, the work is His, and He will carry it forward in His own time and way.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 13)
But I know that much responsibility rests upon the followers of Christ. They can be workers, if they will consecrate themselves wholly to God. I entreat the Lord to impart to me new strength daily to speak the words of life to those who are ready to perish.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 14)
My dear children, you should feel it a religious duty to preserve your health, that you may glorify your Maker by perfect service. Let all your habits be correct. You should be governed by principle in this matter. Sickness is prevailing everywhere, and it is now specially important to proper attention to all the laws of health. In all that we do, our object should be, not the gratification of pride or of appetite, but the glory God.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 15)
Emma, guard against wearing your dresses too tight. Give all the vital organs full room to work without obstruction. I trust that you will both be governed by fixed principles and never violate your conscience.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 16)
Live for the glory of God. Be tender, kind, and courteous to each other. The happiness of your life will consist in making God your trust, and in seeking to make each other happy. Practice self-control. It is so easy to speak thoughtlessly, words that grieve and wound. Do not venture to trifle with each other’s feelings. Practice patience, encourage love, discipline yourselves to guard every word and action, and study how you can be a blessing to each other.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 17)
Love is a delicate plant; rude blasts frequently bruise it if they do not uproot it entirely.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 18)
Never make a third person your confidante. Your private life is sacred; keep the barriers high, that no one may presume to intrude into the sacred circle. Be calm and tranquil, patient, forbearing, and forgiving.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 19)
A word more: do not speak a word in jest that will injure or reflect upon each other. Never recount the mistakes, or errors, or faults of each other in the presence of a third person, or in company, be the circle ever so select. Live for God and for each other.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 20)
May the best of Heaven’s blessings rest upon you, my much-loved children. We pray for you every day.
(2LtMs, Lt 16a, 1870, 21)
Lt 17, 1870
White, W. C. Hamilton, Missouri October 24, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in VSS 398-399; 2Bio 294. My very dear Willie:
Notwithstanding thousands of miles separate us, yet be assured you are not forgotten by your father and mother. You are remembered in our prayers and we think of you in your feebleness every day. We pray that the Lord would grant you the precious boon of health.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 1)
I was obliged to leave this commenced letter here to go out three miles to visit a family who had [been] afflicted in the loss of a child fourteen years old.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 2)
We rode one mile and a half when our horses we were driving became sloughed. The mud was stiff. They could not, while attached to the wagon, free themselves. Your father walked out upon the tongue of the wagon, separated the horses from the wagon and they were with a great effort, able to extricate themselves from the stiff mire. There we sat in the center of a mud slough. Father walked as far as he could out on the wagon, and then stepped lightly as possible over the mud to the more firm ground. I had to follow his example and we climbed over the fence and walked on the unbroken prairie soil for some distance till the mud was passed.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 3)
We walked the mile and a half back. We were very weary. We left the horses tied to the fence and the wagon in the mud. We told the donor of the team where his horses were, and with strong ropes he has gone to see if he can get them home.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 4)
We came to this place last Thursday. You will see an account of our meetings in Kansas in the Review. As we entered the depot from the cars, a gentleman inquired of your Father if his name was White. He stated that he had lost a daughter, and it was his wife’s wish that he should conduct or preach the sermon the next day at one o’clock. They lived three miles out in the country. The Methodist meetinghouse was opened for them and your Father had freedom in speaking to the people. Friday evening a hall was obtained, and I spoke to quite a goodly number with freedom. The people here have been much prejudiced. The hall was crowded. Many went away because there was no room.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 5)
Evening after the Sabbath, I spoke again to a large number. Sunday the Methodist church was opened. Father spoke in the forenoon and I spoke in the afternoon upon the life, sufferings, and resurrection of Christ. An appointment was given out for the evening for me to speak at the hall upon the health question. Long before the hour, the hall was full to overflowing and a number stood in the street, unable to get into the hall. We crowded our passage through, but fears were expressed that the floor might give away. Men who knew assured them there was not the least danger.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 6)
Persons proposed going to the Methodist house which was open for their reception and more convenient and better ventilated. They stated that quite a number were already there. One cries out, “Divide the preachers.” Your Father made answer, he would not venture to try the experiment, fearing he would not get his share of hearers. Finally a general move was made to the meetinghouse, which was crowded and extra seats prepared. I had a very respectful, attentive congregation. I spoke one hour and a half, with freedom. The meeting closed well. We have another appointment out tonight. May the Lord go with us and aid us in our labor is our prayer. We must have help from God or all our efforts will be of no avail.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 7)
We leave here, preferably on the morrow, to go twenty miles by private conveyance to Civil Bend to commence meetings under our own canvas, if the weather will admit. This place is one of special interest, inasmuch as it is a nest of Snookites. The people are about equally divided—about as many went off through Snook’s influence as the number who are in union with the body of Sabbathkeepers. The meetings we have held in this Western country have been of the greatest importance when we see how hard it is for the people to get out to meetings at a distance, and yet the efforts they make to get to meeting. I think how little many prize the privileges they have of hearing the truth and meeting with each other for religious worship.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 8)
About twelve left this place to attend the camp meeting in Kansas. They were one week in going and one week in returning over the muddy roads; one week upon the campground, making three weeks, and yet their united testimony was decided they were paid, richly paid, for all this toil and expense.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 9)
The West must have more attention than it has had heretofore. There are noble men and women, West. They need courage that their light may be continually kept shining that others, by seeing their good works, may in these Western prairies glorify God.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 10)
Dear Willie, I never saw before me so much to be done. Our testimony is telling on the people west. I have better health than I have had for months. Your father is quite well, and of good courage. Willie, it may be best for you not to take baths for a time. Let nature rest a while; but guard yourself in regard to taking cold. And do not forget the obligations you owe to God for sparing your life.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 11)
We received a letter from Rosetta that she was well and as happy as the day was long. I am glad she is happy.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 12)
Much love to the family, especially dear Lucinda, who has been so faithful to us.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 13)
From your affectionate Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 17, 1870, 14)
Lt 18, 1870
White, J. E.; White, Emma Battle Creek, Michigan November 9, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 2Bio 294; 3MR 296; 9MR 383. Dear children, Edson and Emma:
Home again, and very thankful are we to be here. We left Missouri Monday at one o’clock. We took sleeping cars at Quincy. We had a nice state room shut up to ourselves. The conductor on the sleeping car was a Battle Creek man. He lived here fourteen years ago. Father and the gentleman had a long chat. He was inclined to favor us and [we] were glad to be favored. This conductor of the sleeping car goes all the way from Chicago to Colorado. It takes him just one week to perform the trip to and from Colorado.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 1)
We met a gentleman in the car from the Rocky Mountains. He had lived there ten years. There was an aged lady in the cars. Said she had not had anything to eat that day. Said her custom was to dress in a warm room, have a hot cup of tea or coffee as soon as she was up. She had to stay in a cold room in [the] depot, had no hot drink or anything to eat. I had the remnants of camp meeting living which was bread and apples and a few sugar cakes. Gave her this. The Rocky Mountain stranger gave her butter made at the Rocky Mountains to put on her bread. He then cut a nice piece of cheese made at the Rocky Mountains and handed me to give her and she had a very good breakfast. He then showed me a pear, very large, three times as large as any pear I have ever seen. This was the fruit of the Rocky Mountains.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 2)
I designed writing you at Hamilton, but was unable. I spoke five times in Hamilton. We started to visit an afflicted family who had lost a child fourteen years old. Father preached the funeral sermon in the Methodist meetinghouse. We were provided a double wagon and horses by Brother McCollester. We rode finely for two miles when we tried to cross a mud slough. When in the center of roads of mud, the horses were stuck (stalled is the Western phrase). The mud was up to the horses bellies. They could go no farther. They were struggling until they lay flat in the mud. We were puzzled to know what to do. Father walked out on the pole of the wagon and unfastened the horses from the wagon and separated them from each other and then used the whip and they, after making a terrible effort, struggled to terra firma, leaving us in the wagon in a sea of mud.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 3)
Father decided to venture out on the pole and ran lightly over the stiffest parts of the mud. The stiff mud bore him up. He tried to get a board for me to walk on over the mud. I had no rubbers. The board refused to come off the oak posts. I decided to follow your father’s example. I ran out on the pole and his hand met mine and I got safe to terra firma. We left the wagon and horses and walked back to Hamilton, two miles. This wearied me so much I was unfitted for writing or doing anything. It was very warm. I became much heated. My head felt so tired. I had an appointment that night. After speaking I found my strength was gone. I could not sleep much that night and for several days was so prostrated I could not write. My head was light and confused. You would have received a letter from me had it not been for this long walk.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 4)
We rode over the prairies about twenty miles to Civil Bend. We remained among the brethren there two weeks. Never were people more eager to hear preaching than in this place. Most of the people adopt horseback riding. They came from five to six miles through mud and rain. Women came on horseback with their children in their arms. Many have mules, others ponies. Lumber wagons came loaded with people. Evening meetings, people came for miles around. The schoolhouse could not hold the people. Many went away for they could [not] even get a foothold in the house. We finally repaired to a large union meetinghouse. We held meetings under tent as long as we could, having two stoves to warm it. Then we went to [a] private house, then schoolhouse, then large meeting house at not the most central but the only place of sufficient dimensions to accommodate the people. We both had perfect liberty. We held seventeen meetings in the place. The people were much helped and exceedingly grateful for that help. But this will all appear in [the] Review, so I need not spend any time giving particulars.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 5)
We went to Missouri to help the people, not to stand off and ask them to come to us that we might help them. We endeavored to meet them where they were. They were in poor houses. In their only parlor was frequently from two to three beds. They had no apples this year; therefore were destitute of fruit. We had hard eating, hard sleeping and hard riding in lumber wagons, but we made the best of it all. We did not show that we were the least inconvenienced. We met the people where they were and won their hearts by so doing. There were two parties divided about equally, both parties possessed moral worth. Snook had, previous to his going into Universalism, visited Missouri and blacked your father and myself, making us before the public as mean, dishonest and wicked as he could until I was regarded as a very witch. I was called “old Mother White” and was despised and hated most thoroughly. Here a division took place in the body of Seventh-day Adventists and has continued for years. Our coming in among them, speaking to them, told wonderfully upon them. They were never so astonished as when they saw that we were not old and haggard, but looking like decent, respectable people. Suffice it to say, in the providence of God a union was formed between these two bodies and we left them very happy. Confessions were made of their prejudice against us and the great change in their feelings. This union was all we could effect at that time, for the people had stood where they could not be helped. Neither party had any influence to bring souls to the truth for they would say, “Get first united yourselves. We will wait to see how you come out and etc.” The meetings in Missouri were very important and accomplished more than we had feared at first.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 6)
Our next camp meetings commence in Missouri and Kansas. Our tents are left there. We hope for a good work to be accomplished there for unbelievers.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 7)
While in Chicago depot, a young man introduced himself to me as Mr. Morse, who had opened a commercial college in Battle Creek, an acquaintance of yours. He talked freely. His health is poor. His throat is diseased. I tried to prescribe for him wet bandages and compress for lungs. He thinks of going to Missouri or Kansas for his health. I felt strong sympathy and pity for the young man. He has failed. He said he spent a little fortune in preparing [to] get printing done in notices and etc. His capital was gone and his income far below expenses. He decided if anything could be made it must be by striking right in and doing what you can on a small, economical scale and thus work up slowly and surely. We bid him goodbye, feeling sad, for his capital of voice for teaching penmanship is gone. He can talk but little and he will never recover.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 8)
We found our parents better than we feared. Father has been very sick, but is fast mending. He is even now better than before his sickness. He seems cheerful and happy. Mother is slowly failing. She seems to have peace of mind and is, we think, prepared for her last change. Dear Mother, we shall do all we can for her, for she will not need our help long. We have given Grandfather the large bedroom below and moved Mother into the parlor. We devote the parlor and parlor bedroom for them. This leaves us limited room.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 9)
We found Brother Smith had gone to Rochester, Brother Gage sick with fever not from work in the office, but his and her restless uneasy temperament. They have taken a strange course in our absence. He has done but little in the office, but they both, also Charlie, went to Chicago to please themselves. Immediately Brother Gage came down sick. He is now better. How it may turn with him, we cannot say. He went out in the wet and damp to go to Chicago and he had to wait for the train until near morning. We are puzzled to know what these things mean. He is not to be [word missing]. He is unfaithful in his business. We think that she is the great trouble. She leads him and is unfitting him for usefulness, as Harriett, by her unconsecrated course, has disqualified Brother Smith for the work that he might accomplish.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 10)
How important that we consecrate ourselves without reserve to God and wait the guidance of His Holy Spirit. The Lord will help us when we most need help if we make Him our trust. I feel constant gratitude of heart as I have a sense of His manifold good and tender mercy to us, so unworthy. He deserves our heart’s best and holiest affections. We should manifest the basest ingratitude if we doubt His care and love.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 11)
We have just met Brother Salisbury. He says Nettie is doing first-rate.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 12)
Well, Edson, do not make too great exertions at once to get everything. Get along with as little as possible and try to make your payments if possible. This will be for your interest. If Father sees you anxious to make your payments and not be careless in this direction, he will feel encouraged to help you and make it as easy for you as possible; but do not injure your health to do this. Your capital of strength is more valuable than any amount of property. Move cautiously. Make God your counselor. “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”Matthew 6:33. It is safe to put your trust in God and keep His fear ever before you.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 13)
Father has been troubled with dreams in regard to your becoming involved for a team and he had to pay, for you could not discharge the debt. All I would say is, Be careful. Move cautiously. Do not be in a hurry about anything. Keep clear of debt. Hire as little as possible. This hiring a little here and there, little driblets constantly going out for jobs done, will keep you embarrassed all the time. Take good care of what you have already and lay out as little work as possible. Do what you can do and depend not on hired help. Show good generalship and you will accomplish more than in big calculations, employing others to work out your plans. Plan only what [you] yourself can do. Your profits will not meet your expectations and like Mr. Morse, you will make a failure in large preparations and failure in your expectations.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 14)
May you be guided aright is our prayer. Willie we expect today. He may not come. We shall be held here for a time, for there is no one to depend on.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 15)
In much love to yourselves and Brother and Sister McDearmon,
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 16)
From your mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 18, 1870, 17)
Lt 19, 1870
White, J. E.; White, Emma Battle Creek, Michigan November 27, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 4MR 38-39. Dear children, Edson and Emma:
Another year of my life has closed. Today I enter upon my forty-fourth year. Oh, what has been the record of the past year? I see much to be grateful for. Many and abundant have been the blessings I have received from my Saviour. I feel glad that I have had opportunities to do some little good for our Saviour who has done so much for me. But I see many errors in my past year’s life to correct. I long to be more like my Redeemer. I resolve to be more humble, more watchful, more faithful, and reflect more perfectly the image of my Redeemer.
(2LtMs, Lt 19, 1870, 1)
We see a great work to do and but few engaged in doing this work. We want to labor as never before in the cause of God.
(2LtMs, Lt 19, 1870, 2)
Your father has been afflicted with cold and cough. His lungs were congested. We labored for him, giving him thorough treatment. He could not cease labor for even a day; therefore we had to work at considerable disadvantage. But he is improving for which we feel to thank God.
(2LtMs, Lt 19, 1870, 3)
Dear children, we received the letter from Edson in due time. We were glad to learn of his prosperity. We feel thankful he has kept as free from debt as he has.
(2LtMs, Lt 19, 1870, 4)
We did not see Brother McPherson, or Brother Root. I was sick. We would gladly come and see you if we could, but there is so much to be done here and Brother Gage sick, and Brother Uriah away, that there is no chance for us to leave. Willie came home last Tuesday. He has not recovered but he is now gaining. Driving around out doors seems to agree with him. [Letter ends here.]
(2LtMs, Lt 19, 1870, 5)
I think I promised to write in regard to Father and Mother White. They are now as comfortable as could be expected of them. Father has been very sick with fever. He had congestive chills. If he had been left to have had one more, he would have died. For two weeks he has had to be lifted like a child to sit up long enough to have his bed made, but he is now much better. James took him to ride today. Mother, poor Mother, is so helpless. Her mind is gradually failing as her bodily strength decreases. We have given up our large parlor and parlor bedroom to them. Father has the bedroom; Mother the parlor.
(2LtMs, Lt 20, 1870, 1)
When we pray, Mother seems to enjoy it and responds heartily. Her heart seems to be at ease. We sometimes think that they will not remain through the winter. We shall do all for their comfort that we can. I tell the members of my family that they have two to cook for and to care for. These aged children must be first. Their wishes must be consulted in everything. The rest of us must come secondary. Our parents must not be neglected in any case.
(2LtMs, Lt 20, 1870, 2)
Father is very cheerful. His mind is clear as it ever has been. When he rode out today, I think he appeared disappointed to find that he had so little strength. We thought that he was stronger until the matter was tested.
(2LtMs, Lt 20, 1870, 3)
We think that the work and toil of life has ended with Father and Mother. We love these aged pilgrims. They are going down to the grave, ripening up for the glorious resurrection morning when mortality will be swallowed up of life. The Life Giver will break the fetters of the tomb and call forth the captives to immortal life.
(2LtMs, Lt 20, 1870, 4)
In much love, I remain,
(2LtMs, Lt 20, 1870, 5)
Yours affectionately.
(2LtMs, Lt 20, 1870, 6)
P.S. My husband would write if he had time. Two of our editors are sick and he has to fill their places. He has the work of three men upon him.
(2LtMs, Lt 20, 1870, 7)
Lt 21, 1870
White, J. E.; White, Emma Battle Creek, Michigan December 2, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Children:
I have but a few moments and will improve them. Father has been nearly sick with congestion of the lungs. He is better now. We thought that we should have to leave everything and go away with him.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 1)
Robert and Mary Sawyer were here. We thought we would go to Greenville, but there is no one here to take Father’s place. A change is to take place in the papers,—Review to be enlarged, the Instructor enlarged, and it is an important time. Father decided to remain and trust in God for strength.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 2)
Brother Gage is yet very low. His case is very doubtful; unless the Lord hears prayer in his behalf, he must go down. His course has been a singular one. He left the work here when he was much needed—Uriah down sick, your father absent and Charlie, Brother and Sister Gage went to Chicago.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 3)
He sat up at the depot a cold, rainy night, until two in the morning, waiting for the cars. He tramped around Chicago all day in the rain and all of two days, I think, and took the two o’clock train back in the morning; was deprived of two nights rest all for the sake of their own gratification. Charlie has asked, Why Brother and Sister Gage left. “To accompany me” was the answer. Well, “Why did you go Charlie?”“Because I wanted to see the place. I never had been to any large place like Chicago.” God did not sustain Brother Gage in his pleasure trip. Fever came upon him in a few days, and he has been sick about six weeks. It does not pay to chase after pleasure.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 4)
Now the reflection from the family falls upon the office. He worked so hard he became sick. His own imprudent course has brought around the sure result.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 5)
Those in Battle Creek who have had so many warnings and so much light, yet have not heeded it, God will come near unto them in judgment.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 6)
Yesterday I went into the house Brother Gage occupies and talked with Sister Gage and her Mother in regard to these things. I told her that now she had an opportunity to see how important [it is] to have a little surplus means laid by for such an occasion. They have not a cent to rely upon but are dependent upon his brethren, or will have to run in debt. This is what comes of pleasure-seeking and extravagance.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 7)
I told Sister Gage if they had twenty dollars per month they would use every dollar the same as if they had only eight or twelve. Brother Gage has twelve dollars a week. With economy and the present low prices he could have a snug little sum laid by, but no, they have nothing and Brother Gage has had two relapses, worrying in regard to how his family was to be provided for. We feel sad that the Jones family are as trivial and so little to be relied upon. We hope, Edson, you will make God your guide.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 8)
We expect to come and see you before many weeks. We did not want to go to Greenville till we could come and make you a visit. As soon as it will do to leave, we shall do so. Father has thought if he could get another horse, he might let you have old John to keep if you would pledge yourself to use him real well. He is a very profitable horse, with the best of care. What do you think about it?
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 9)
Write us as often as once a week, [even] if it is but a few lines.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 10)
I have written in great haste.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 11)
Your Mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 12)
P.S. I commenced a letter a week ago but wanted to decide whether we should come to see you now or wait a few weeks.
(2LtMs, Lt 21, 1870, 13)
Lt 22, 1870
White, J. E.; White, Emma Battle Creek, Michigan December 16, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 3MR 296-297. Dear Children, Edson and Emma:
We greatly desire to see you and visit with you and shall do so, we think, as soon as your Father can be spared to leave matters here at Battle Creek. Your Father has all the burdens he can stand up under at the present time. I sometime fear the results of such constant, long, continued labors upon his part; but what can be done? There is no one qualified to take his place. If he leaves to be gone a few days, there are many things [that] go wrong and then he is much perplexed.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 1)
We hope that better times will come soon. Yet, how and when we fail to see. Father was obliged to go to Detroit Tuesday. I accompanied. We tarried at Jackson over night. Arose at two a.m., took the cars at four for Detroit. Your Father tramped over the city upon urgent business of a most perplexing nature all day until five o’clock, then we took the cars and returned to Jackson. We retired at ten p.m. The next day returned home. We had an appointment at Convis Sabbath and first-day. Sunday, a funeral discourse was to be preached, but [when] we came to Battle Creek we found that there had been two deaths in our absence. Shield’s wife and Sister Bruce Graham had died. Father went to the house Shield’s occupied and prayed with them. The family went on the cars for the east the same day. Father attended the funeral of Bruce Graham’s wife [on] Sabbath. Had to send Uriah and Brother Bell to Convis to have meetings with them in our place.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 2)
We are amid the dying and the dead. I have just received a letter from your Aunt Lizzie. She states Samuel McCann is very bad off; has been bleeding at the lungs again. Mary, Sister Harriett’s eldest living daughter, has had three bleeding turns. Lizzie states it is very sickly. Typhoid fever rages to a fearful extent.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 3)
Our lives are not secure. We are in danger every moment. When we feel comparatively safe, our lives may be in danger. Our only safety is in living the life of the righteous that our last end may be like His. I fear, children, you do not have that interest in religious things that you should. What can I say to reach your hearts? I fear, Edson, that your little farm possesses greater attractions to you than the Christian life. Heavenly things are neglected for temporal. It is not safe to have the mind all engrossed with the things of this life. This is a poor world at the best, deprived of the blessing of God, and there is nothing but disappointment and sorrow for us. Jesus and His love can sweeten all our afflictions and reconcile us to all our disappointments.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 4)
Dear children, I hope you will not think you can get along and prosper without the blessing of God. Watchfulness, untiring watchfulness and earnest prayer, is our only safety. “For in such an hour as you think not, the Son of man cometh.” [Matthew 24:44.] There is no safety only in seeking a moral fitness for the kingdom of heaven.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 5)
My very dear children, be not content to live in a backslidden state destitute of the Spirit of God. The Light of life you need every moment. You cannot afford to live for your own selfish interest. God has claims upon you, my dear children, that you cannot be released from [even] if you desire it. You must both render an account to God for every day of your life. Your daily life record is passing up to God. What does it bear? Does it tell of unsanctified desires, unfulfilled duties, unfaithfulness, slighting the mercies Jesus freely presents for our acceptance; or will it tell of self-denial and persevering effort to separate from sin and iniquity that we may perfect holiness in the fear of God? What, children, I ask you, does the recording angel testify of you? The heavenly artist is faithfully daguerreotyping your life for you to meet again. Live not merely for the present, I beg of you. Let not selfish interest shut out your Saviour from your minds and hearts. If you have neglected heavenly things, if you have been swallowed up in worldly cares, if your conversation has been mainly upon the interest you have in this life, repent of this without delay and heed the words of Christ, who died to save you, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”Matthew 6:33.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 6)
With Christ as your Friend, you are rich, have you ever so limited a possession. Without Jesus, you would be poor indeed [even] if you were worth thousands. Precious Jesus, lovely Saviour. Give to God your hearts’ best and holiest affections. Will you both pledge yourselves before God to serve Him whatever may be your condition or circumstances as far as this life is concerned? You will obey and honor God.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 7)
I fear, Edson, that you are all taken up with your little place and your business and your work hurries you, and Jesus and His salvation is neglected. You cannot, my dear son, afford to lose heaven for the things of this inconstant life. Jesus invites you two children, Edson and Emma, to come to Him just as you are and surrender all to God. Take time to meditate, time to pray, and don’t forget God as soon as you rise from your knees. Watch unto prayer. Be in earnest, be persevering. Begin your married life just right. Help one another to greater consecration. You can both have the presence and love of God daily.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 8)
Edson, when perplexed or crossed in your wishes or ways, you show it. You are inclined to speak short and quick, even harsh and disrespectful. Do not ever allow this even for once in your family. Be kind, be courteous, be tender, be affectionate, respect the feelings of one another every time. Do not be betrayed even once in indulging in a perverse, irritable temper. If you do, you will soon lose respect for one another. Above all things, do not banter one another even in jest. The intention may be innocent, but words in jest [and] joking wound and destroy the confidence in each other. Speak what you mean to each other distinctly, plainly, affectionately, and you will save many hours of trouble. Let your love and interest for one another be with sincerity and unwearied.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 9)
Edson, you may be troubled in the field and become irritated. Don’t carry that trouble over the threshold of the door, not for even once. It may cost you an effort to efface all traces of irritation, and wear a smile, but do it, my son, do it, by all means. You will be repaid fourfold, for the spirit you manifest, be it sunshine or shadow, will be reflected back upon you again. If you both make God your trust and go to Him in humility, He will help you and render you the aid you desire. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” [Matthew 7:7.]
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 10)
May God help you to both strive for the victory over self. This lesson you have yet to learn, Edson, or you will not be happy. We hope there will be mutual forbearance on the part of both. God help you to bear with the errors and mistakes of each other. You have not an experience, but we have. Be tender. Again I would say to each other, be courteous, be pitiful; do not leave a wound to rankle in the heart. If a hasty word is spoken take it [back] by confession as soon as possible, and heal the wound and keep in the sunshine, and you will not only be happy yourselves, but be a blessing to others.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 11)
My dear children, I must close. Write me not merely about worldly things. I would prize a little history of your religious exercises and your advancement in the divine life, or of your trials. I cannot bear to read letter after letter without the least reference to Christ.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 12)
Write me, Emma, all about how you get along. Both of you write.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 13)
Edson, Aunt Lizzie is very anxious to have yours and Emma’s picture taken together. Please send to E. V. Bangs, West Gorham, Maine. Also send one to Harriett McCann.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 14)
Your mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 22, 1870, 15)
Lt 23, 1870
Rogers, Brother and Sister Battle Creek, Michigan November 25, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in OHC 318. Dear Brother and Sister Rogers:
We are anxious to hear of your prosperity. We often think of you and feel the deepest interest in your welfare, and pray that God may bless and prosper you. How is Sister Rogers? Is she gaining? Is she strong? Have you moved into your new house yet? But that which we feel the deepest interest in is your spiritual condition. Are you growing in spirituality? Is there harmony with brethren? Do you realize the blessing of God in your meetings?
(2LtMs, Lt 23, 1870, 1)
Please write and answer me these questions. We hope our labor will not be in vain in the Lord. Without the accompanying blessing of God but little can be accomplished. We hope you will wait on God, and seek wisdom from above. “Without me,” says Christ, “ye can do nothing.” [John 15:5.]
(2LtMs, Lt 23, 1870, 2)
We need not expect all sunshine in this world. Clouds and storms will cluster about us, and we must be prepared to keep our eyes directed where we saw the light last. Its rays may be hidden but they still live, still shine beyond the cloud. It is our work to wait, to watch, to pray and [to] believe. We shall prize the light of the sun more highly after the clouds disappear. We shall see the salvation of God if we trust in God in the darkness as well as in the light. We must educate our souls to believe and not hesitate to bear our weight upon the promises of God. We are not safe unless we are continually growing in grace and the knowledge of the truth. Unless we abound in the love of God more and more, we lose what we have already attained. The moment we become stationary we are losing the love of God out of our hearts.
(2LtMs, Lt 23, 1870, 3)
We have much to do—Brother Smith away at Rochester, N.Y., to recover his health; Brother Gage still sick with fever, confined to his bed; Sister Van Horn, our secretary, just coming up from fever—we see so much to do! We cry to the Lord for help. He does help us and we will praise Him. My husband has three men’s work to do. He has been suffering severely with cold and cough. I have given him treatment for several days. He will, we think, recover without a severe illness. We have had no rest since we left you, yet we believe the Lord will sustain us in doing the work that no one seems able to perform.
(2LtMs, Lt 23, 1870, 4)
Our dear Willie was returned to us in safety last Tuesday and we were very, very glad to see him. He is improving, but not strong.
(2LtMs, Lt 23, 1870, 5)
We hope you are doing well. Much love to yourself, your wife and children. Remember me to your father and mother and brothers. We think of the pleasant interview we had with them. We do not forget them. We want them to prosper in God. May the light and love of God be with them and abide upon them is our prayer.
(2LtMs, Lt 23, 1870, 6)
In haste.
(2LtMs, Lt 23, 1870, 7)
Lt 24, 1870
White, J. E.; White, Emma Camp Meeting Ground, Clyde, Ohio September 1870 This letter is published in entirety in 20MR 331-334. Dear Children, Edson and Emma:
I have spoken to a large and attentive audience. Young and old were perfectly quiet and respectfully attentive. I had great liberty in speaking, for which I am grateful to God.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 1)
I intended to write you from Battle Creek, but this was not possible, for I was very sick—sores gathering and breaking in my head. I have discharged much blood from my head, for my brain has been congested and fevered. I did not dress myself Wednesday or Thursday, only as I prepared to ride and after I had returned took my bed again, until I dressed to take the cars for Jackson. The air in the cars was oppressive. I soon fainted, but the Lord mercifully restored me so that when we arrived at Jackson I could, with your father’s assistance, walk from the cars through a dense crowd to the depot.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 2)
It was State Fair time at Jackson and a mass of people rushed on to the platform to get on board as soon as the cars stopped. Your father took his arm about me, then put his shoulder against men and women with considerable force crying, “Make way for a sick woman.” We got through alive. We had to wait one hour for the train to pass and the crowds of people to get on the many trains before we could attempt to get anywhere. Then Father left me in care of Adelia and he went to Brother Palmer’s for a carriage. After they came we could not get to the carriage for quite a length of time.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 3)
I never beheld such a scene as this before—men and women rushing frantically this way and that, crowding one another and treading upon one another. I thought of the day when the wrath of God, unmixed with mercy, shall fall upon the heads of the wicked. The general confusion, the imprecations, the fear expressed in countenances, the pale faces, the weary, distressed looks, the angry looks and oaths, reminded us of a day far more exciting, which will be general. I thought, Shall we be then among the peaceful and holy who have made God and heaven our trust, or shall we be among the fearful, terror-stricken, hopeless, despairing ones? You, my dear children, with us, may be among that number who shall calmly lean upon an Arm that is mighty to save to the utmost, an Arm we have sought after and relied upon when the evil day was not upon us.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 4)
That night at Brother Palmer’s I awoke in the greatest pain. My side and shoulder pained me so much that large drops of sweat stood on my breast and stomach. Your father took me in his arms and cried unto God in my behalf. I united with him as well as I could amid my pain. I soon experienced relief and slept. It has not troubled me since. Friday evening, although very weak, I spoke to the people with much freedom upon the sacred trust committed to the Christian and his high privilege to be fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 5)
The cause seemed to be low, but the Lord has made His Word fruitful in this place. The people are settling into the work. Sabbath I spoke once to the people. Sunday we had a large concourse of people. Father spoke in the forenoon with freedom to an attentive audience upon the reasons of our faith. In the afternoon I spoke to a still larger audience with perfect freedom. There was perfect quiet among old and young and I was pleased to see some deeply affected among the unbelievers.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 6)
After I ceased speaking ladies and gentlemen came to the tent saying they did not get here till I was about done and wished to know if I would speak upon the ground again. We told them I would speak Monday afternoon. But after this a hotelkeeper in the village made a request for me to speak in the Methodist church Monday evening. He obtained the consent of ministers and trustees. All were unanimous and urgent. I assented. So I spoke this morning, Monday, then in the evening in the Methodist church. No Adventist has been able to get a hearing heretofore in that church. My prayer is that this effort may tell to the glory of God in the advancement of His truth.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 7)
The Lord has hitherto sustained us and I believe He will still go with us. We shall, after one week of rest, attend another camp meeting in Indiana and then go directly to Kansas. These two meetings will close the camp meetings for this season. This is the tenth camp meeting we have attended. Two more before us.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 8)
Dear children, we feel an interest for you. We hope you will not neglect your spiritual interest. “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip (marginal reading: or run out as leaking vessels), for if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”Hebrews 2:1, 2. It is not necessary for you to oppose the truth and rail out against it to bring upon you condemnation. But if you even neglect this great salvation, if you appear indifferent to it, you show that your heart is at variance with the truth and with the holy principles of religion and holiness. Do you make your eternal interest your first consideration? If not, you show manifest neglect of this great salvation.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 9)
It is not merely the profane swearer, the murderer, the adulterer, the liar, the deceiver, who must feel the wrath of God because of disobedience and neglect of this great salvation, first spoken by Christ and afterwards confirmed by His disciples. Those who have enlightened minds and consciences and who have a full knowledge of the truth and the requirements of God, yet continue to live in a state of indifference and spiritual sloth, are virtually neglecting this great salvation and cannot expect to escape the penalty of this neglect. The example to others is such that they hinder them and sanction in them the same neglect they are guilty of themselves. My dear children, I am desirous that you should know Christ by an experimental knowledge of Him yourselves. You should obtain an experience for yourselves and be His earnest, faithful servants, manifesting perseverance and zeal and energy in the work and cause of God. Seek to exemplify Christ in your lives. Seek to adorn your profession. Take an exalted position in divine things, seeking to perfect Christian character.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 10)
You, my children, have given your hearts to one another unitedly; give them wholly, unreservedly to God. In your married life, seek to elevate one another, not to come down to common, cheap talk and actions. Show the high and elevating principles of your holy faith in your everyday conversations and in the most private walks of life. Be ever careful and tender of the feelings of one another. Do not, either of you, for even the first time, allow a playful bantering, joking, censuring of one another. These things are dangerous. They wound. The wound may be concealed; nevertheless, the wound exists and peace is being sacrificed and happiness endangered when it could be easily preserved.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 11)
Edson, my son, guard yourself and in no case manifest the least disposition savoring of a dictatorial, overbearing spirit. It will pay to watch your words before speaking. This is easier than to take them back or efface their impression afterward. Brother Winslow has made his married life very bitter by a dictatorial, ordering spirit, savoring of the arbitrary. He has made his wife’s family much trouble by the set will savoring of perverseness. Edson, shun all this. Ever speak kindly; do not throw into the tones of your voice that which will be taken by others as irritability. Modulate even the tones of your voice. Let only love, gentleness, and mildness be expressed in your countenance, and in your voice. Make it a business to shed rays of sunlight, but never leave a cloud. Emma will be all to you you can desire if you are watchful, and give her no occasion to feel distressed and troubled and [to] doubt the genuineness of your love. [You] yourselves can make your happiness or lose it. You can, by seeking to conform your life to the Word of God, be true, noble, elevated, and smooth the pathway of life for each other.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 12)
Edson, you, my dear boy, have to educate yourself in practicing self-control. God help you, my much-loved son, to see the force of my advice and counsel to you. Be careful every day of your words and acts. Yield to each other. Yield your judgment sometimes, Edson. Do not be persistent even if your course appears just right to yourself. You must be yielding, forbearing, kind, tenderhearted, pitiful, courteous, ever keeping fresh the little courtesies of life, the tender acts, the tender, cheerful, encouraging words. And may the best of heavens blessings rest upon you both, my dear children, is the prayer of your mother.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 13)
I now go to the stand to speak for the last time upon the ground.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 14)
One lady, has just bid me goodbye who walked eight miles from Freemont to hear me speak. I have just ceased speaking. Had great freedom.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 15)
This is a most beautiful grove of beech, maple, and oak, horse chestnuts, and many other grand old trees. I have just picked up a quart of the largest acorns I ever saw.
(2LtMs, Lt 24, 1870, 16)
Lt 25, 1870
Butler, G. I. Refiled as Lt 49, 1875.
Lt 26, 1870
King, Seneca Refiled as Lt 18, 1868.
Lt 27, 1870
Alchin, Br. Refiled as Lt 22, 1867.
Lt 28, 1870
Ministers in Minnesota Refiled as Lt 14, 1863.
Lt 29, 1870
Case of Br. Mackey Refiled as Ms 2, 1862.
Lt 30, 1870
Lay, Brother and Sister Battle Creek, Michigan February 13, 1870 Portions of this letter are published in 5MR 394-397. See 4T 94-104. Dear Brother [Doctor] and Sister Lay:
I have written to Lizzie in regard to some things. As her case was presented before me, you were also. Some things were shown me in reference to yourselves and your children. I have been shown that you have erred in the management of your children.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 1)
You received ideas at Dansville from Dr. Jackson which you have spoken of before the others and before your children, which will not bear to be carried out. From Dr. Jackson’s standpoint they may not appear as objectionable and dangerous, but when viewed from a Christian standpoint they are positively dangerous. The instruction he has given in regard to shunning physical labor has proved a great injury to many. The do-nothing system is a dangerous theory. The necessity of amusements, as he teaches and enjoins upon his patients, in order to occupy the time and engage the mind, is made a substitute for useful, healthful exercise, and physical labor.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 2)
Amusements excite the brain more than useful employment. Physical exercise and labor have a more happy influence upon the mind and strengthen the muscles, improve the circulation, and give the invalid the satisfaction of knowing his own power of endurance; whereas, if he is restricted from healthful exercise and physical labor, his attention is called to himself and he is in constant danger of thinking himself worse off than he really is, and of having established with him a diseased imagination, which causes him to have continual fear that he is overdoing, overexercising, and overtaxing his power of endurance. At the same time, if he should engage in well-directed labor, using his strength and not abusing it, he would find that this physical exercise would prove a more powerful and effective agent in his recovery of health than even the water treatment he is receiving.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 3)
The inactivity of the mental and physical powers, so far as useful labor is concerned, is that which keeps the invalid in a condition of feebleness that he feels powerless to rise above. It also gives these invalids a greater opportunity to indulge in impure imagination and self-abuse, which indulgence has brought many of them where they are in feebleness. They are told they have expended too much vitality, have labored too hard, when in nine cases out of ten, the labor they performed was the only redeeming thing in their life, and saved them from utter ruin. While their mind was thus engaged, they could not have as favorable an opportunity to debase their own bodies and complete the work of destruction for themselves. To have such cease all labor of brain and muscle is to give them an ample opportunity to be led captive by the temptations of Satan.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 4)
Dr. Jackson has recommended the sexes associating together. He has instructed them to mingle together, stating that this was necessary for their health. Such teaching has done and is doing great injury to inexperienced youth and children, and is a great satisfaction to men and women of suspicious morals, a class whose passions have never been controlled, and for this reason they are suffering from mental and physical disorders. These are instructed from a health standpoint to be in the company of the other sex, which opens a door of temptation before them. Passion rouses like a lion in some of these and every consideration is overborne, everything elevated is sacrificed to lustful passion.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 5)
This is an age when corruption is teaming everywhere. Were the minds and bodies of men and women in a healthful condition, were the animal passions subject to the higher powers of the mind, it might be comparatively safe to teach that boys and girls, and youth of still more mature age, could be benefited by being much in each other’s society, the boys with the girls, the girls with the boys. If the minds of the youth of this age were pure, innocent, and uncorrupted, the girls might have a softening influence upon the boys, and the boys with their stronger, firmer natures, might have a tendency to ennoble the girls.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 6)
But it is a fact, a painful fact, that there is not one girl out of one hundred who is pure-minded, and there is not one boy out of one hundred whose morals are untainted. Many that are older have gone to such lengths in self-abuse they are polluted soul and body, and rottenness has entered the body and marrow of the bones. This is the stamp of a large class who pass around among men and women as polite gentlemen and beautiful ladies. It is not the time to recommend as beneficial to health the mingling of the sexes by being as much as possible in each other’s society. The curse of this corrupt age is the absence of modesty and true virtue. Females invite the attention of the other sex. Dr. Lay, you have advanced ideas in the lecture room that will not bear to be carried out. The young have heard you and your remarks have had as great an influence upon your own children as upon others. All these ideas had better been left at Dansville.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 7)
Overwork for the young is injurious to their growing frames, but inactivity and delicate idleness is sowing the seeds of disease and bringing sure decay to thousands. Where there is in reality one hundred who have broken down their constitutions purely by overwork, idleness, an inactive life, and overeating bring to the grave one thousand, while overworking purely causes the death of but a few. Why the youth have so little strength of bone, of brain, and of muscle is because they do so little in the line of physical, useful labor. Ezekiel 16:49, 50.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 8)
There are but few of the youth of this degenerate age who can even endure the study necessary to obtain an education in the common branches. Why is this? Why do the children complain of dizziness, headache, nose bleed, palpitation, and a sense of lassitude and general weakness? Shall this be attributed mainly to their studies? Fond and indulgent parents will sympathize with their children because they fancy the lessons are too great a tax and that the close application of the mind to study is ruining the health of their children. It is not advisable to crowd the minds of the young with too many and too difficult studies. But, parents, have you looked no deeper than the mere idea suggested by your children? Have you given ready credence to the cause they assigned as the reason for their indisposition? It becomes you, parents and guardians, to look deeper into the cause than this. In ninety-nine cases out of one hundred the cause searched out and revealed to you would open your understanding to see that it was not the taxation of study alone that was doing the work of injury to your children, but that their own wrong habits were sapping the brain, and robbing the entire body of vital energy. The nervous system was becoming shattered by being often excited and thus laying the foundation for premature and certain decay. Self-abuse is killing thousands and tens of thousands.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 9)
Useful labor in all the mysteries of housework will be beneficial to your girls. Useful mental labor for those who are qualified to engage in it, mingled with physical out-of-door exercise, will not break the constitution or injure the health of growing boys. For some, out-of-door employment is more favorable to their constitutions and health. Children should be taught to labor. Industry is the greatest blessing for men, women, and children that they can have.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 10)
You have erred in the education of your children. You have been too indulgent. You have favored them and excused them from labor because they were not strong until labor with some of them is positively distasteful. Inactivity and the lack of well regulated labor have been felt by your children. This has given them time and opportunity to do those things which are violating the laws of their being and keeping them in a state of feebleness and disease.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 11)
Dear brother, you have petted and praised your children too much. You have been blind to the power the enemy was having over your children. Household labor, even to weariness, would not have hurt your children one-fiftieth part as much as their wrong habits have done. Many dangers they would have escaped had they been instructed at an earlier period and disciplined to useful labor. They would not have had a disposition created for change, and so strong a desire to go in society. They would have escaped many temptations to vanity and to engage in unprofitable amusements and injurious reading, and talking chit-chat and nonsense. Their time would have passed more to their satisfaction and without so great temptation to seek the society of boys, and have their minds engrossed to the injury of mental and physical health.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 12)
Your daughter is a proud, independent girl. She is stubborn, headstrong, and unsubmissive. Her ideas are so perverted and her senses so blunted and benumbed [that] she is in a great degree lacking in a sense of propriety and true delicate modesty. She is vain of her person, and it is her highest ambition to make herself attractive. She views herself with great complacency. She, in short, worships herself. Her vanity and affectation has its influence upon a class of minds like her own that are altogether lighter than vanity, while sensible youth and close observers are disgusted. She makes herself the subject of remarks by her vain, foolish course. Her parents have been asleep. You have made this child a pet. You have flattered and indulged her vanity.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 13)
Dear brother, you have made a sad mistake in standing before the patients in the parlor, as you have frequently done, and exalted yourself and your wife before others as if jealous that all would not estimate you as highly as you deserved, or as you estimated yourself. Your own children have learned lessons from these remarks that have given shape to their characters. They have regarded themselves as superior to other children. You will now find it not an easy matter to correct the impressions that your own words and actions have made. They have thought that as your children they must receive special attention, for they were superior to children in general. They have been puffed up, proud, and self-conceited.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 14)
You have felt anxious lest the people should not give you the respect your position required. This has shown a vein of weakness in you which has hindered your spiritual advancement, for it has separated you from God. It has also led to a jealousy of others, fearing that they would supplant you or not place the right estimate upon your position.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 15)
You also exalted your wife. You sought to make her stand before those with whom you associated as a superior woman, possessing superior powers. You were like a blind man. You gave her credit for qualifications she did not possess. With you both your moral worth is estimated not by position but by your works, your acts, your deeds. These can never be hid. These can be seen. These will place you upon the right elevation before those for whom you labor. If your interest is manifested for them, if your labor is devoted to them, they know it. You will have their confidence and love. But talk will never make them see that they have made unreasonable demands upon your time or strength, or that they have taxed you and exhausted your vitality, when they know that they have not had your labor, your care, and special attention.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 16)
Those for whom you labor will have confidence and love for those who manifest an interest for them, and who seek—regardless of self—to improve their condition. If you are the one who does this work which must be done, which cannot be left undone, which the patients pay their money to have done, then you need not by talking seek to gain esteem and respect. You will as surely have it as you do the work.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 17)
Brother Lay, you have been in this position where God could not bless you. All your actions have said, I and my family are of more consequence than the whole Institute together. You have not been free from selfishness in this respect, and you have not had the blessings which God gives His unselfish workman. Your interest has been divided. You have had such a special care for you and yours that the Lord has had no room especially to work and care for you. Your course in this respect has disqualified you for your position.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 18)
I saw one year ago that you had felt competent to manage an institute yourself. Were it yours, and were you the one that should be especially benefited or injured by the losses and gains, you would see it your duty to have an especial care that losses should not be incurred and that patients who were there upon charity should not drain the institution of means. You would investigate, you would not have them remain a week longer than it was positively necessary. You would see many places and ways you could exert your influence to save means and keep up the prosperity of the institution. But it was to you another thing, seeing it was not yours. You were employed, and then what? The zeal and interest and ability which you think you possess to carry on a large enterprise does not appear.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 19)
The invalids expect patient attention. I was shown you frequently turning away from invalids who were in need of your counsel and advice. You were presented before me as apparently indifferent, seeming rather impatient, while scarcely listening to what they were saying, which was to them of great importance. You seemed to be in a great hurry, putting them off till some future time, when a very few appropriate words spoken in sympathy and encouragement would quiet a thousand fears and give, in the place of disquietude and distress, peace and assurance. You appeared to dread to speak with the afflicted, to dread to come in contact with them, as though fearful of being contaminated; you feared to enter into their feelings and held yourself aloof, when you should have manifested ease and familiarity, and not be so distant and unapproachable. They look to you as a child to a father, and have a right to expect and receive the attention from you they do not obtain. Me and mine comes in between you and the labor your position requires to have done. Invalids and helpers may need your advice frequently, but they feel an unwillingness to go to you and be free to speak with you.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 20)
You have sought to maintain too much dignity. In the effort you have not attained the object, but have lost the confidence and love that you might have gained had you been unassuming, possessing meekness and humbleness of mind. True devotion and consecration to God will find for you a place in the hearts of all, and clothe you with a dignity not put on, but which will be natural and inspire respect and confidence.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 21)
The life of Christ must be your pattern, to do good in every spot and place. In caring for others, God will care for you. The Majesty of heaven did not avoid weariness. He traveled on foot from place to place to benefit the suffering and needy. He was wearied with His journey and sat upon the well to rest.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 22)
Although you may “possess all knowledge,” may understand the human system and trace disease to its cause, and even if you had the tongues of men and angels, there are yet qualifications necessary or all the former will be of no special account. [1 Corinthians 13:1, 2.] You must have power from God, which will only be realized by those who make God their trust and consecrate themselves with devotion to the work He has given them to do. Christ must be in your knowledge. His wisdom must be seen instead of yours. Then will you understand how to be a light in the rooms of the sick.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 23)
You lack freedom of spirit, power, and faith. Why is this faith so feeble? For want of exercise it cannot be vigorous and healthful. You cannot carry the faith and peace and hope of Christ to others without experiencing the same yourself. Your efforts will not be as successful for those who are sick in heart and body, and they will not be gaining in physical and spiritual strength if you do not carry Jesus with you in your visits. His words and works you want to accompany you. Then you will feel that those whom you have blessed will bless you in return. They shine brightest who feel most their own weakness and darkness, for such make Christ their righteousness. Your strength all comes from your union with Christ. Be not weary in well doing.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 24)
You have not felt your whole dependence upon God and your inefficiency and weakness and foolishness without His especial wisdom, grace, and power. You have too much worrying and fearing and doubting. You have worked too much in your own strength and labored too hard to preserve your dignity. In God can you prosper. In humility and lowliness of mind will you find great peace and especial strength. The Majesty of heaven has invited all that feel weary and heavy laden, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.... Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” [Matthew 11:28, 29.] Why the burden seems so heavy, and the yoke so galling at times, is because you have got above the meekness and lowliness possessed by our divine Lord. You are too anxious to be somebody. In Christ you will find all the qualifications which would make your work, your burdens, very light. You should cease to try to save self, to exalt self, to honor self, but let self be hid in Jesus, and learn of the One who has invited you, “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to your soul.”
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 25)
I saw that the Health Institution could never prosper while there were those in responsible positions closely connected with it who possessed more interest for themselves than for the prosperity of the institution. God wants unselfish men and women who will look after the interest of the institutions, having a general interest in, and oversight over, every department, saving expense, caring for the littles, seeing that things do not decay or losses be incurred which might be avoided—in short, those who will be just as careful of expending means as they would if it were their own, themselves to be the losers if not judiciously managed.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 26)
There has been with you, Dr. Lay, too much of a feeling that, this and that is not my business. Everything that is connected with the prosperity of the institution is your business. If things come under your observation that you cannot attend to because called in another direction, call the attention of someone who will give the thing or matter immediate attention. If this work is too great for you, someone must take your place who can care for these things, or everything will go to ruin. It is supreme selfishness that has brought embarrassments upon the Institute.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 27)
Frequently in your parlor talks you have charged the patients and helpers with bringing burdens and cares upon you, when at that very time I saw that you were doing not more than half the duty resting upon you as a physician, in attending to the cases of the sick who needed your presence and your care. The patients knew they had not the care they should have, while they were away from their homes upon expense to obtain the care and help they could not get at home. These things have hurt you and have grieved the Spirit of God. You have had burdens to bear, but in many instances they were those brought upon you by your perplexities and trouble in your own family, which you sought to lay upon the patients and helpers. They did not belong upon them and they knew it. It is expected that you will become weary and often perplexed in your business, yet God lives and can make that which is trying and wearisome light and easy if you only look to Him and believe He will do it. He is our source of strength.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 28)
All this scolding spirit in the parlor is displeasing to God. It is true you have a heavy burden at home. There is not one there to stay up your hands, but your family requires help of you rather than to help you. For this cause it may be your duty to occupy another position rather than the one of being a physician in the Institute. The place is an important one and requires clear intellect, strength of brain, nerve, and muscle. Had you no burdens outside the Institute, you could bear up much better and not lose your strength and courage. It is a duty you have to care for your family and preserve your health. But it is not at all necessary for your family to be helpless as they are and lie with such weight upon you. They can help you if they will. If the work is too taxing for you to devote the time and attention that is actually necessary for the good of the patients, then you should seek to place yourself in a position where you can do justice to your family and justice to the place you are called to fill. Devotion to the work is required, not less than has been, but in a greater degree; earnest, persevering devotion is needed. Nothing short of this will make the Institution prosperous. It must, in order to be a living thing, have living, devoted, disinterested workers to conduct it.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 29)
Sister Lay has not been the help to you she might have been. Her attention has been devoted more to herself. She has not seen the necessity of arousing her dormant energies, and being helpful to encourage and strengthen you or bless her children with her sanctified influence. If she had set herself to the task, feeling that it was a duty God enjoined upon her to be helpful to you, helping you bear your burdens and drawing in even cords with you, and you unitedly taking hold to discipline your children, the order of things would be changed. But Sister Lay has given up to her feelings. She has cherished gloomy sadness which has brought a cloud into the dwelling rather than sunshine. She has not encouraged hopeful, cheerful, happy feelings. All this is the result of selfishness, she requiring attention and sympathy from her husband and children, and yet not feeling the responsibility she is under before God of taking her mind from herself and laboring for the happiness and good of her husband and her children.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 30)
She should encourage a social turn of mind that she can interest and make her children happy. She has given way to impatience and has censured her children, which has only had a tendency to confirm them in an evil way and sever the cords of love and affection which should bind parents and children’s hearts together. She has not felt the necessity of self-control, but has been too ready to indulge in some things and censure in others. She has censured her husband before the children, which weakens the discipline of both. She has had trials. She has felt gloomy. She has been discouraged, but has charged this discouragement to others, which is not just. The reason is to be found more in herself. She deceives herself in thinking others are to blame.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 31)
Sister Lay, you have failed to make your home what you might have made it. It is in your power to make your home more cheerful. Come out of that cold, stiff reserve. Soften your feelings. Give more love rather than exact it. Give cheerfulness and sunshine. You can do this if you will. Encourage humility. When your children have come to you with complaints, you have decided against others. Especially in the case of Lizzie, your feelings have been stirred to censure others. You have not silenced her, but have rather indirectly encouraged her by blaming others. Her own course has caused sorrow and many remarks to be made. She has not been dealt with as strictly and severely as her case demanded either at home or abroad. She is in the broad road to ruin.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 32)
Awake, my dear brother and sister, to your family needs, for Satan is seeking to control your children. Lizzie’s influence has been poison to the youth she has associated with, and poison to your other children, especially Inis. She has had a great influence over this child. Do not be blind. Be awake. Take hold of the work unitedly, calmly, unexcitedly, prayerfully, and in faith. Set your house in order, and God will bless your efforts.
(2LtMs, Lt 30, 1870, 33)
Lt 31, 1870
NA NP 1870 This letter is published in entirety in 20MR 12-13.
[First part missing.] ... of God, because we suffer the consequences of our own lack of wisdom. Yet in this case we should not feel that we are excusable to murmur and cherish a spirit of unreconciliation and repining because of things we cannot help. We magnify our trials by conversing upon them. We may aggravate them by suffering ourselves to become irritated because we are made to suffer these things, But there is safety in possessing cheerfulness and encouraging a patient, meek and lowly spirit and committing our ways unto the Lord. Let us turn our minds to the goodness and mercy of God and see all the good we can see in our present surroundings and then the evils will not be as keenly realized.
(2LtMs, Lt 31, 1870, 1)
Here in this world is the Christian to suffer. Here is our place of trial, of warfare, of fitting up for the better world than this. Our heaven, if we are truly Christ’s followers, is not here. We are preparing for that home where no sadness, affliction, or sorrow can ever come. We should not shrink at trials or inconvenience. Think of Jesus, of the trials, the mockings, the derision, and the agonizing suffering He endured to save the fallen race. Can we ask for greater evidences of His love for us? He for our sakes became poor that we through His poverty might be made rich. He was the Majesty of heaven, yet He left His glory, His riches, His high command, and consented to a life of humiliation and suffering and to an ignominious death that He might exalt the fallen sons and daughters of Adam to His own right hand. Christ is our example, our safe pattern. We are safe only when our lives exemplify the life of Christ. Shall we faint at the few trials we may endure for His dear name’s sake? Shall we feel our lot hard? No indeed, dear sister. Look up to the Author of your salvation. Consider Him lest ye be weary and faint in your mind.
(2LtMs, Lt 31, 1870, 2)
Says the apostle Paul, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”2 Corinthians 4:17, 18.
(2LtMs, Lt 31, 1870, 3)
May the Lord strengthen and bless you, my sister, and lead you into all truth is my prayer.
(2LtMs, Lt 31, 1870, 4)
Lt 32, 1870
White, W. C.; Hall, Lucinda Skowhegan, Maine September 5, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Lucinda and Willie:
We are just relieved from much anxiety. We have received the dispatch that Willie continues to improve. We are grateful for this. We had sent several miles for letters evening after the Sabbath, but were so very much disappointed to receive nothing.
(2LtMs, Lt 32, 1870, 1)
I have tried to labor as best I could. I feel relieved in regard to my depression, but convinced it is not my duty to attend these large gatherings. My health is some better. Our meetings have been important and interesting. Your report will now decide me to go to Richmond and hold a few meetings there. Perhaps we may not return till Thursday. We shall expect a letter from you tonight. The people in Richmond are so persistent for me to bear my testimony there that they will not bear a refusal.
(2LtMs, Lt 32, 1870, 2)
My dear Willie, I have not worried much about you, although I could not prevent feeling anxious. We felt that God would take charge of you. We feel anxious to hear more particulars. We hope you will continue to improve and get about, strong, prepared to go next week to Michigan.
(2LtMs, Lt 32, 1870, 3)
I feel very weary and cannot write much. I have been reined up to bear a very plain testimony to Brother Howard yesterday and today. He broke today and confessed. Brother Stratton broke all to pieces this morning and came out clear and decided. We still hope to see more decided work with Brother Howard. Mr. Chase, Mary’s husband, came forward for prayers, confessed himself one of the greatest backsliders and begged for prayers. Many have come forward today. The work seems to be moving. May the Lord carry it forward is our prayer. I have not the strength I desire, and suffer pain continually. But I do see and feel the greatness of the work, and its importance.
(2LtMs, Lt 32, 1870, 4)
No rest can I see this side of the close of probation. But if God will give strength to sustain, we labor cheerfully, gladly.
(2LtMs, Lt 32, 1870, 5)
I will write further when I get a letter from you.
(2LtMs, Lt 32, 1870, 6)
In great haste and much love.
(2LtMs, Lt 32, 1870, 7)
Mother.
Lt 33, 1870
Hall, Lucinda Battle Creek, Michigan April 7, 1870 Previously unpublished. Dear Sister Lucinda [Hall],
We received a letter from you yesterday. Glad to find your father’s family as well as they are. We received a letter directed to you. Evening after Sabbath we opened it and found relief in regard to anxiety for your sister Lillie.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 1)
We have regretted [that] you moved in so great haste. We do not censure you. Do not think thus. But we do fear that you all have too little faith and trust in God in regard to your friends. If afflicted, the dark side only appears, and there is great distrust and fear where there is no need to be. I have seen this all along and have thought to speak with you in regard to the matter.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 2)
I fear that there is rather an idolatrous affection with your parents for their children, especially Lillie. I look upon matters perhaps in a very different light than many do. I do not, I cannot, look upon death as the greatest evil that can come. There are worse, far worse, things than death which every parent and youth are exposed to, and which faith and firm religious principle will need to be possessed, in order to avoid the danger.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 3)
It is not safe to work and plan too much, thinking to avoid or lessen evils. The Lord has His own ways and purposes to carry out, and however much we may plan, fear, or seek to avoid, His providences will be carried out. Thus I have regarded matters which have led me to entrust home and children to God and His angels, and whether present or absent feel a calm reliance upon God that He knows what is for our best good and will not willingly grieve or afflict the children of men.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 4)
I think, Lucinda, you let feeling control you in regard to the letter you received from home. You kept reading over and over the letter which presented your sister in an almost dying condition until your feelings, your sympathies, were all awake—painfully, vividly awake. You wept a great deal and were wholly unfitted to view matters calmly and rationally. You dwelt upon the matter, suffering your imagination to present before you a sad picture, and you lost your faith, your reason, and your judgment. All were overborne by your strong, deep, sympathetic feelings.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 5)
It was the same that led you to mourn and weep and refuse to be comforted after the death of William. You did not feel it a duty resting upon you to cease to talk and think of this affliction and place your mind upon the pleasant view of the case, regarding and magnifying the Lord for His deep mercy in fitting up the precious jewel for the heavenly casket. You nourished grief until your health was being sacrificed to this unreasonable mourning. I too have lost loved ones—a noble son [and] a sweet babe under the most aggravating disease and suffering. I have lost a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, and a Sister Anna and Nathaniel, as dear as my own brother and sister; [also] Sister Clara, dear as it is possible for a sister to be. I know what affliction and death are. I have therefore an experience in these things. I can speak understandingly.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 6)
Lucinda, you are a person of very sensitive nature, quick to feel, and therefore you need to be guarded upon this point lest your powers are swayed in a wrong direction through feeling.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 7)
By over anxiety your Mother, especially, may lose many precious blessings she might see and prize if it were not for her fears and seeing evils magnified. I think there is danger of seeking to avert sickness and the very means used through anxiety to prevent sickness weakens the efforts of nature, [so] she has not power to stand up against even [worse] ailments. When difficulty and danger is apparent then is the time to face the difficulty with resolution. But this constant terror and fear of calamity and sickness and danger is a worse evil than the distressing reality, for it prevents God from doing anything for us, for [when] we do so much ourselves He has no opportunity to work in our behalf. He leaves us to work out that [which] we were afraid to trust in His hands but chose to do ourselves.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 8)
I believe that God will have a special care for us all if we will only trust Him. Walk by faith, not by sight. The affections, we must not think it our privilege to be guided or controlled by. We must have a control of the affections and feelings and sympathies. Practical duties will lead to a proper direction of the affections.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 9)
But I will stop. It is difficult to get my idea upon paper. I have a few things more to say. I fear, Lucinda, too heavy a burden has rested upon you. Your heart has borne the burdens of two families. Our position in connection with the work has brought upon you great and varied burdens. When we were oppressed, you have been also. When we were free, you have rejoiced with us. At the same time your tender, deep feeling heart has felt the same for your father's family at home. Nearly every pulsation at home has affected you and caused either joy or sadness, just as the pulse might beat. I think we have not realized that you were getting over-burdened. Things which we ought to do and could do very well ourselves, we have looked to you to do for us. It is the duty of all and each to bear their share of the burden and responsibility and let you free for a while, leaving you to bear only the burdens you ought to bear. I feel thus in regard to the members of our house. I think it should be thus with the members of your father's family. You have been a great blessing to us and I know you have to your father's family, but I hope we shall none of us lose our share of the blessing by not bearing our share of our own and others' burdens.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 10)
I will now close. I am today able to write a little for the first time since you left. We expected to leave for Iowa ere this but we thought it might not be in the providence of God for us to go now. Nathan is an invalid; also Venelia. Ira is as good a boy as can be expected at his age, yet he is so active and nervous he is a tax. We do not think [that] now [that] you are at home it is our duty to spend much time in our home at Iowa. We do not wish to be where our minds, worn out as they are, shall have to be anxious and troubled for others. We need those who can hold us up instead of us them. We thought if you were with us, of course we should immediately go to Iowa. Our force in Emma, if we thought best to have her go or Laura [?], is not that which we can depend on to plan and arrange and get things together for the camp meetings. They have no experience in the work. We shall calculate to spend two or perhaps three weeks before the camp meeting in our Iowa home. We shall leave here for Greenville in a few days [and] remain there till we are ready to go to Iowa.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 11)
We miss you but we have no desire to call you back. Stay just as long as you feel it to be your duty. We have no duties to make for you. We all have a place, a fitting place, where God would have us somewhere. Seek counsel of God, and move as He would have you, and we shall not have one murmuring thought. If your duty is with your parents and sisters and brother, may the Lord bless and prosper you is our sincere prayer. If it is the will of God for you to be with us and share our perplexing lot, may you have strength to cheerfully bear this cross. The Lord has appointed us all and each our work. Each has a work to do for the Master. In this work we shall be sustained, cheered, and strengthened that we may do our work faithfully so that when the Master comes He may say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” [Matthew 25:23.]
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 12)
I shall not trouble you with any account of sickness and trials. You have enough where you are without bearing the burdens and sorrows of two families. We get along very well. Addie will go to father’s today. Edson has left for Wright. He left with good feelings. His father and he parted cheerfully, and with mutual good feelings and love.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 13)
Much love to your entire family. I have with Emma’s help finished Edson’s vest. We have made Willie pants. I cut him out a coat. It is now being made by Sister Strong [?]. We take hold of Willie’s coat and vest today. All is as cheerful as could be expected considering the sad condition of things. May the Lord encourage and bless you, my dear sister, is my prayer.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 14)
Ellen G. White
If no one was in the house at Iowa, I should not hesitate to go at once. As it is, it looks forbidding. I will send you the letters Venelia has written to you enclosed in letters to us.
(2LtMs, Lt 33, 1870, 15)