Conflicts and Victory
559
has given can be traced only from memory and from what has been
receipted in the Review. The fact that we are worth so little, appearing
at this time when my husband has been represented as wealthy and
still grasping for more, has been a matter of rejoicing to us, as it is the
best refutation of the false charges which threatened our influence and
Christian character.
Our property may go, and we will still rejoice in God if it be used
for the advancement of His cause. We have cheerfully spent the best of
our days, the best of our strength, and have nearly worn out in the same
cause, and feel the infirmities of premature age, and yet we will rejoice.
But when our professed brethren attack our character and influence
by representing us as wealthy, worldly, and grasping for more, it is
then that we feel keenly. Let us enjoy the character and influence we
have dearly earned during the past twenty years, with even poverty
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and a slight hold on health and this mortal life, and we will rejoice and
cheerfully give to the cause the little there is left of us.
The investigation was a thorough one and resulted in freeing us
from the charges brought against us, and restoring feelings of per-
fect union. Hearty and heart-rending confessions of the cruel course
pursued toward us here have been made, and the signal blessing of
God has come upon us all. Backsliders have been reclaimed, sinners
have been converted, and forty-four have been buried in baptism, my
husband baptizing sixteen, and Brethren Andrews and Loughborough,
twenty-eight. We are encouraged, yet much worn. My husband and
myself have had the burden of the work, which has been very laborious
and exciting. How we have, in our feeble state, gone through with the
investigation, with the feelings of nearly all against us, endured the
preaching, the exhortations, and the late evening meetings, and at the
same time prepared this work, my husband working with me, copying
and preparing it for the printers, and reading proof, God only knows.
Yet we have passed through it and hope in God that He will sustain us
in our future labors.
We now believe that much in the foregoing dreams was given to
illustrate our trials arising from wrongs existing at Battle Creek, our
labors in clearing ourselves from cruel charges, and also our labors,
with the blessing of God, in setting things right. If this view of the
dreams be correct, may we not hope, from other portions of them not
yet fulfilled, that our future will be more favorable than the past?