240
Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
would break down our testimony, I saw are not fighting against us, but
against God, who has laid upon us the burden of a work that He has
not given to others. Those who question and quibble, and think it a
virtue to doubt, and who would discourage; those who have been the
means of making our work hard and of weakening our faith, hope, and
courage have been the ones to surmise evil, to insinuate suspicious
charges, and to watch with jealousy for occasion against us. They take
it for granted that because we have human weaknesses it is a positive
evidence that we are wrong and that they are right. If they can find a
semblance of anything that they can use to injure us they do it with
a spirit of triumph and are ready to denounce our work of reproving
wrong and condemning sin as a harsh, dictatorial spirit.
But while we do not accept their version of our case as the reason
for our afflictions, while we maintain that God has appointed us to
a more trying work than He has others, we acknowledge with hu-
[261]
mility of soul and with repentance that our faith and courage have
been severely tried and that we have sometimes failed to trust wholly
in Him who has appointed us our work. When we gather courage
again, after sore disappointment and trials, we deeply regret that we
ever distrusted God, gave way to human weaknesses, and permitted
discouragement to cloud our faith and lessen our confidence in God. I
have been shown that God’s ancient servants suffered disappointments
and discouragements as well as we poor mortals. We were in good
company; nevertheless this did not excuse us.
As my husband has stood by my side to sustain me in my work
and has borne a plain testimony in unison with the work of the Spirit
of God, many have felt that it was he personally who was injuring
them, when it was the Lord who laid upon him the burden and who
was, through His servant, reproving them and seeking to bring them
where they would repent of their wrongs and have the favor of God.
Those whom God has chosen for an important work have ever been
received with distrust and suspicion. Anciently, when Elijah was sent
with a message from God to the people, they did not heed the warning.
They thought him unnecessarily severe. They even thought that he
must have lost his senses because he denounced them, the favored
people of God, as sinners and their crimes as so aggravated that the
judgments of God would awaken against them. Satan and his host
have ever been arrayed against those who bear the message of warning