The work in which we have a common interest is great; and efficient, willing, burden-bearing laborers are few indeed. God will give you strength, my brother, if you will move forward and wait upon Him. He will give my husband and myself strength in our united labor, if we do all to His glory, according to our ability and strength to labor. You should be located where you would have a more favorable opportunity to exercise your gift according to the ability that God has given you. You should lean your whole weight upon God and give Him an opportunity to teach, lead, and impress you. You feel a deep interest in the work and cause of God, and you should look to Him for light and guidance. He will give you light. But, as an ambassador of Christ, you are required to be faithful, to correct wrong in meekness and love, and your efforts will not prove unavailing. (3T 16.1) MC VC

Since my husband has recovered from his feebleness, we have labored earnestly. We have not consulted our own ease or pleasure. We have traveled and labored in camp meetings, and overtaxed our strength, so that it has brought upon us debility, without the advantages of rest. During the year 1870 we attended twelve camp meetings. In a number of these meetings, the burden of labor rested almost wholly upon us. We traveled from Minnesota to Maine, and to Missouri and Kansas. (3T 16.2) MC VC

My husband and I united our efforts to improve the Health Reformer [Now called Good Health.] and make it an interesting and profitable journal, one that would be desired, not only by our people, but by all classes. This was a severe tax upon him. He also made very important improvements in the Review and the Instructor. He accomplished the work which should have been shared by three men. And while all this labor fell upon him in the publishing branch of the work, the business departments at the Health Institute and the Publishing Association required the labor of two men to relieve them of financial embarrassment. (3T 16.3) MC VC

Unfaithful men who had been entrusted with the work at the office and at the Institute, had, through selfishness and a lack of consecration, placed matters in the worst possible condition. There was unsettled business that had to be attended to. My husband stepped into the gap and worked with all his energies. He was wearing. We could see that he was in danger; but we could not see how he could stop, unless the work in the office should cease. Almost every day some new perplexity would arise, some new difficulty caused by the unfaithfulness of the men who had taken charge of the work. His brain was taxed to the utmost. But the worst perplexities are now over, and the work is moving on prosperously. (3T 17.1) MC VC

At the General Conference my husband pleaded to be released from the burdens upon him; but, notwithstanding his pleading, the burden of editing the Review and the Reformer was placed upon him, with encouragement that men who would take burdens and responsibilities would be encouraged to settle at Battle Creek. But as yet no help has come to lift from him the burdens of the financial work at the office. (3T 17.2) MC VC

My husband is fast wearing. We have attended the four Western camp meetings, and our brethren are urging us to attend the Eastern meetings. But we dare not take additional burdens upon us. When we came from the labor of the Western camp meetings in July, 1871, we found a large amount of business that had been left to accumulate in my husband’s absence. We have seen no opportunity for rest yet. My husband must be released from the burdens upon him. There are too many that use his brain instead of using their own. In view of the light which God has been pleased to give us, we plead for you, my brethren, to release my husband. I am not willing to venture the consequences of his going forward and laboring as he has done. He served you faithfully and unselfishly for years, and finally fell under the pressure of the burdens placed upon him. Then his brethren, in whom he had confided, left him. They let him drop into my hands, and forsook him. For nearly two years I was his nurse, his attendant, his physician. I do not wish to pass through the experience a second time. Brethren, will you lift the burdens from us, and allow us to preserve our strength as God would have us, that the cause at large may be benefited by the efforts we may make in His strength? Or will you leave us to become debilitated so that we will become useless to the cause? (3T 17.3) MC VC