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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
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The following is the second testimony, written in May, 1867, and
addressed to the young who were laboring in the office:
Dear Young Friends who are employed in the office of publication
at Battle Creek: A burden is resting upon me in regard to you. I have
been repeatedly shown that all who are connected with the work of
God in publishing the present truth to be scattered to every part of the
field should be Christians, not only in name, but in deed and in truth.
Their object should not be merely to work for wages, but all engaged
in this great and solemn work should feel that their interest is in the
work, and that it is a part of them. Their motives and influence in
connecting themselves with this great and solemn work must bear the
test of the judgment. None should be allowed to become connected
with the office of publication who manifest selfishness and pride.
I was shown that lightness and folly, joking and laughing, should
not be indulged by the workers in the office. Those engaged in the
solemn work of preparing truth to go to every part of the field should
realize that their deportment has its influence. If they are careless,
jesting, joking, and laughing while reading and preparing solemn truth
for publication, they show that their hearts are not in the work or
sanctified through the truth. They do not discern sacred things, but
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handle truth that is to test character, truth which is of heavenly origin,
as a common tale, as a story, merely to come before the mind and be
readily effaced.
While in Rochester I saw that we had everything to fear in regard
to the office from a health standpoint; that not one connected with
it realized the necessity of thorough ventilation. Their rooms were
overheated, and the atmosphere was poisoned by impurities resulting
from exhalations from the lungs, and other causes. It is impossible for
their minds to be in a healthy condition so as to be rightly impressed
by the pure and holy truths with which they have so much to do, unless
they place the proper value upon the pure, vitalizing air of heaven.
I was shown that if those who are so closely connected with re-
vealed truth give no special evidence in their lives that they are made
better by the truth which is kept so constantly before them, if their lives
do not testify to the fact that they are loving the truth and its sacred
requirements more and more fervently, they are growing harder, and