Chapter 28—Church Trials
The following view was given at Ulysses, Pennsylvania, July 6,
1857. It relates to things as they have existed in-----and other places in
New York.
There have been so many church trials among the brethren in
the State of New York, that God has not had the least to do with,
that the church have lost their strength, and they know not how to
regain it. Love for one another has disappeared, and a faultfinding,
accusing spirit has prevailed. It has been considered a virtue to hunt up
everything about one another that looked wrong, and make it appear
fully as bad as it really was. The bowels of compassion that yearn
in love and pity toward brethren, have not existed. The religion of
some has consisted in faultfinding, picking at everything bearing the
appearance of wrong, until the noble feelings of the soul are withered.
The mind should be elevated to dwell upon eternal scenes, heaven, its
treasures, its glories, and should take sweet and holy satisfaction in the
truths of the Bible. It should love to feed upon the precious promises
that God’s word affords, draw comfort from them, and be lifted above
trifles to weighty, eternal things.
But, oh, how differently has the mind been employed! Picking at
straws! Church meetings, as they have been held, have been a living
curse to many in New York. These manufactured trials have given full
liberty to evil surmising. Jealousy has been fed. Hatred has existed,
but they knew it not. A wrong idea has been in the minds of some,
to reprove without love, hold others to their idea of what is right, and
spare not, but bear down with crushing weight.
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I saw that many in New York have had so much care for their
brethren, to keep them straight, that they have neglected their own
hearts. They are so fearful that their brethren will not be zealous and
repent, that they forget that they have wrongs that must be righted.
With their own hearts unsanctified, they try to right their brethren.
Now the only way the brethren and sisters in New York can rise is
for each to attend to his own individual case, and set his own heart in
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