Chapter 10—Withholding Reproof
About this time I was subjected to a severe trial. If the Spirit of
God rested upon anyone in meeting, and he glorified God by praising
Him, some raised the cry of mesmerism; and if it pleased the Lord
to give me a vision in meeting, some would say that it was the effect
of excitement and mesmerism. Grieved and desponding, I often went
alone to some retired place to pour out my soul before Him who invites
the weary and heavy-laden to come and find rest. As my faith claimed
the promises, Jesus would seem very near. The sweet light of heaven
would shine around me, and I would seem to be encircled by the arms
of my Saviour, and would there be taken off in vision. But when I
would relate what God had revealed to me alone, where no earthly
influence could affect me, I was grieved and astonished to hear some
intimate that those who lived nearest to God were most liable to be
deceived by Satan.
According to this teaching, our only safety from delusion would be
to remain at a distance from God, in a backslidden state. Oh, thought
I, has it come to this, that those who honestly go to God alone to plead
His promises, and to claim His salvation, are to be charged with being
under the foul influence of mesmerism? Do we ask our kind Father in
heaven for bread, only to receive a stone or a scorpion? These things
wounded my spirit, and wrung my soul with keen anguish, well nigh
to despair. Many would have me believe that there was no Holy Spirit,
and that all the exercises that holy men of God experienced were only
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the effect of mesmerism or the deception of Satan.
Some had taken extreme views of certain texts of scripture, refrain-
ing wholly from labor, and rejecting all those who would not receive
their ideas on this and other points pertaining to religious duty. God
revealed these errors to me in vision, and sent me to instruct His erring
children; but many of them wholly rejected the message, and charged
me with conforming to the world. On the other hand, the nominal
Adventists charged me with fanaticism, and I was falsely represented
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