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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
up the people of God, for they are asleep in their sins. But few have
sympathized with us, while many have sympathized with the wrong
and with those who have been reproved. These things crushed us, and
we felt that we had no testimony to bear in the church. We knew not
in whom to confide. As all these things forced themselves upon us,
hope died within us. We retired to rest about midnight, but I could not
sleep. A severe pain was in my heart; I could find no relief and fainted
a number of times.
My husband sent for Brethren Amadon, Kellogg, and C. Smith.
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Their fervent prayers were heard, relief came, and I was taken off in
vision. Then I was shown that we had a work to do, that we must still
bear our testimony, straight and pointed. Individuals were presented
before me who had shunned the pointed testimony. I saw the influence
of their teachings upon God’s people.
The condition of the people in-----was also presented before me.
They have the theory of truth, but are not sanctified through it. I saw
that when the messengers enter a new place, their labor is worse than
lost unless they bear a plain, pointed testimony. They should keep
up the distinction between the church of Christ, and formal, dead
professors. There was a failure in this respect in-----. Elder N was
fearful of offending, fearful lest the peculiarities of our faith should
appear; the standard was lowered to meet the people. It should have
been urged upon them that we possess truths of vital importance, and
that their eternal interest depended upon the decision they there made;
that in order to be sanctified through the truth, their idols would have
to be given up, their sins be confessed, and they bring forth fruit meet
for repentance.
Those who engage in the solemn work of bearing the third angel’s
message must move out decidedly, and in the Spirit and power of
God fearlessly preach the truth and let it cut. They should elevate
the standard of truth and urge the people to come up to it. It has
too frequently been lowered to meet the people in their condition of
darkness and sin. It is the pointed testimony that will bring them up
to decide. A peaceful testimony will not do this. The people have the
privilege of listening to this kind of teaching from popular pulpits; but
those servants to whom God has entrusted the solemn, fearful message
which is to bring out and fit up a people for the coming of Christ should
bear a plain, pointed testimony. Our truth is as much more solemn than
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