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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
of the church; but it has not had its designed effect, for their own
companions needed all the straight testimony that had been borne, and
the reproof came back upon themselves with great weight. They let
their companions affect them and drag them down, prejudicing their
minds, and their usefulness and influence are lost; they feel desponding
and disheartened, and realize not the true source of the injury. It is
close at home.
These sisters are closely connected with the work of God if He
has called their husbands to preach the present truth. These servants,
if truly called of God, will feel the importance of the truth. They are
standing between the living and the dead, and must watch for souls
as they that must give an account. Solemn is their calling, and their
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companions can be a great blessing or a great curse to them. They
can cheer them when desponding, comfort them when cast down, and
encourage them to look up and trust fully in God when their faith
fails. Or they can take an opposite course, look upon the dark side,
think they have a hard time, exercise no faith in God, talk their trials
and unbelief to their companions, indulge a complaining, murmuring
spirit, and be a dead weight and even a curse to them.
I saw that the wives of the ministers should help their husbands
in their labors and be exact and careful what influence they exert, for
they are watched, and more is expected of them than of others. Their
dress should be an example. Their lives and conversation should be an
example, savoring of life rather than of death. I saw that they should
take a humble, meek, yet exalted stand, not having their conversation
upon things that do not tend to direct the mind heavenward. The great
inquiry should be: “How can I save my own soul, and be the means
of saving others?” I saw that no half-hearted work in this matter is
accepted of God. He wants the whole heart and interest, or He will
have none. Their influence tells, decidedly, unmistakably, in favor of
the truth or against it. They gather with Jesus, or scatter abroad. An
unsanctified wife is the greatest curse that a minister can have. Those
servants of God that have been and are still so unhappily situated as
to have this withering influence at home, should double their prayers
and their watchfulness, take a firm, decided stand, and let not this
darkness press them down. They should cleave closer to God, be firm
and decided, rule well their own house, and live so that they can have
the approbation of God and the watchcare of the angels. But if they