Chapter 24—A Medical Doctor
Wrong Ideas About the Marriage Relation—Dr. Q, your mind
has not been healthfully exercised at all times, since you came to the
Health Retreat. Your ideas in regard to the marriage relation have been
erroneous. Nothing but the violation of the marriage bed can either
break or annul the marriage vow. We are living in perilous times, when
there is no assurance in anything, save in firm, unwavering faith in
Jesus Christ. There is no heart that may not be estranged from God
through the devices of Satan, if one does not watch unto prayer.
Your health would have been in a far better condition had your
mind been at peace and rest; but it became confused and unbalanced,
and you reasoned incorrectly in regard to the matter of divorce. Your
views cannot be sustained on the ground from which you reason. Men
are not at liberty to make a standard of law for themselves to avoid
God’s law, and please their own inclination. They must come to God’s
great moral standard of righteousness.
If the wife is an unbeliever and an opposer, the husband cannot, in
view of the law of God, put her away on this ground alone. In order
to be in harmony with the law of Jehovah, he must abide with her,
unless she chooses of herself to depart. He may suffer opposition and
be oppressed and annoyed in many ways; he will find his comfort
and his strength and support from God, who is able to give grace for
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every emergency. He should be a man of pure mind, of truly decided,
firm principles, and God will give him wisdom in regard to the course
which he should pursue. Impulse will not control his reason, but reason
will hold the lines of control in her firm hand, that lust shall be held
under bit and bridle.
Marriage as Firm as the Sabbath—Men who are placed in im-
portant positions, as those at the Health Retreat, are made the special
objects of Satan’s attacks. They are brought necessarily into the society
of men and women. Some of these have a coarse, passionate, sensual
nature, who when under temptation would do anything, regardless of
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