Chapter 22—A Sanitarium Superintendent
[
This man, an ordained minister, had been a widower for about
five years when these letters were written. The occasional blanks are
reproduced as they appear in the file copies of the letters in the White
Estate vault
.]
Equal Guilt of Two Persons—In the night season I saw you in the
company of the matron of the institution. As far as your attentions to
each other were concerned, you might have been man and wife. Your
conduct toward each other was wrong in the sight of God, and my heart
was grieved by the condition of things. I asked, “Who hath bewitched
you, that ye should not obey the truth?” God is displeased. You have
grieved his holy spirit. Sister n will never again be what she once was.
Both of you are guilty before God.—
Letter 30, 1887
(Written June 11,
1887).
Ministers Not Above Suspicion and Temptation—Elder M has
been very imprudent with Mrs. or Sister N, and I have handled this
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familiarity with decision in the fear of God, under a great burden. He
stated that it was his privilege for the superintendent to ride with the
matron; and he told me, quite aggrieved, that the church members had
much talk of his always taking Sister N to the meeting; and when the
matter came up in the camp meeting at Oakland in the presence of
about twenty, he justified himself that he had, he said, been spoken to
in regard to Sister N riding with him and her husband not being with
them, but he knew that this was no moral wrong, and therefore he went
on just the same.
I just arose and told him plainly he was not a Bible Christian; that
the Word of the Lord was positive, abstaining from the very appearance
of evil and to give no action [or] reproach to fall upon the cause of God.
But, knowing that much talk was being made over his close association
with another man’s wife, he had not sought in his own course of action
to cut off the reproach, but justified his course. Had he seen another
man taking the same liberties with his wife when she was living, he
would have felt indignant. Had he seen any of the men connected with
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