Publishing Personal Testimonies
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worn upon my courage and health ten times more than all the toil of
writing the testimonies.
And all this has been suffered by me, and my brethren and sisters
generally have known nothing about it. They have had no just idea
of the amount of wearing labor of this kind which I have had to per-
form, nor of the burdens and sufferings unjustly thrown upon me. I
have given some personal communications in several numbers of my
testimonies, and in some cases persons have been offended because I
did not publish all such communications. On account of their number
this would be hardly possible, and it would be improper from the fact
that some of them relate to sins which need not, and should not, be
made public.
But I have finally decided that many of these personal testimonies
should be published, as they all contain more or less reproof and
instruction which apply to hundreds or thousands of others in similar
condition. These should have the light which God has seen fit to give
which meets their cases. It is a wrong to shut it away from them by
sending it to one person or to one place, where it is kept as a light
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under a bushel. My convictions of duty on this point have been greatly
strengthened by the following dream:
A grove of evergreens was presented before me. Several, including
myself, were laboring among them. I was bidden to closely inspect the
trees and see if they were in a flourishing condition. I observed that
some were being bent and deformed by the wind, and needed to be
supported by stakes. I was carefully removing the dirt from the feeble
and dying trees to ascertain the cause of their condition. I discovered
worms at the roots of some. Others had not been watered properly
and were dying from drought. The roots of others had been crowded
together to their injury. My work was to explain to the workmen the
different reasons why these trees did not prosper. This was necessary
from the fact that trees in other grounds were liable to be affected as
these had been, and the cause of their not flourishing and how they
should be cultivated and treated must be made known.
In this testimony I speak freely of the case of Sister Hannah More,
not from a willingness to grieve the Battle Creek church, but from a
sense of duty. I love that church notwithstanding their faults. I know
of no church that in acts of benevolence and general duty do so well. I
present the frightful facts in this case to arouse our people everywhere