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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets.”
The above was written at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, October 4, 1867.
I could not find time to finish the testimony and copy it, so laid it
by, and did not have time to finish it until I returned from the East to
Greenville, Michigan, when I took it in hand, January 30, 1868.
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Dear Brother and Sister D: You should have had this long ago, but
our labors have been so hard that I could not possibly get the time to
write. Every place that we visited brought before my mind much that
I had been shown of individual cases, and I have written in meeting,
even while my husband was preaching.
The vision was given me about two years ago. The enemy has
hindered me in every way he could to keep souls from having the light
which God had given me for them. First, my husband’s case was so
perplexing, so distressing, that I could not write. Then the discour-
agements brought upon me by my brethren kept me in a condition of
sadness and distress, unfitting me for labor of any description. When
we started to travel last summer, I commenced to write, but we have
traveled from place to place so rapidly that all we could do was to
attend the meetings. There was much work to be done. I practice rising
at four o’clock in the morning, to take hold of my writing. Yet constant,
exciting labor in meeting so taxes the brain that I am unprepared for
writing, my head is so weary.
I regret that you could not have had this before, but even now may
God make it a blessing to you, is my sincere prayer. You, my dear
brother, may have seen these things and corrected them ere this. I
hope so, at least. You and also your wife have our sympathy and
prayers. We have an interest for her as well as for yourself. Her soul is
precious. We beseech her in Christ’s stead to seek for a meek and quiet
spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price. An angel pointed
me to Sister D and repeated these words: “Whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think
on these things.” Here is the healthful train of thought for the mind to
follow. When it would go in a different channel, bring it back. Control
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the mind. Educate it to dwell only on those things which bring peace
and love.