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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
felt jealous for their children, and if reports of supposed slights have
been brought to them by their children, they have felt interested and
aroused at once, and have sympathized with them, and stood directly
in the way of their spiritual good.
You and your sister P have had a great amount of pride, which
will be as stubble in the day of God. Self-love and self-pride, pride
of dress and appearance, have prevailed. Selfishness has kept you
from good. You both must have a thorough conversion, a thorough
renewing of the mind, a thorough transformation, or you will have
no part in the kingdom of God. Your appearance, your good looks,
your dress, will not bring you into favor with God. It is moral worth
that the great I AM notices. There is no real beauty of person or of
character out of Christ, no real perfection of manners or deportment
without the sanctifying graces of the spirit of humility, sympathy,
and true holiness.
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I have been shown that souls will be lost through your influence
and example. You have had light and privileges, and for them you
will have to render an account. You are not naturally religious or
devotional, but have to make special effort to keep your minds upon
religious things. Self is prominent with you. Your self-esteem is very
large; but remember that Heaven looks at moral worth, and estimates
the character as precious and valuable by the inward adorning, the
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of
great price. Costly array, outward adorning, personal attractions, all
sink into insignificance in comparison with this valuable attainment,
a meek and quiet spirit. Your love for your own enjoyment and
gratification, your lack of consecration and of devotion, have been
detrimental to many. Those who were backslidden you could not
benefit, for your lives were like the worldlings’ in general.
Those who visit-----carry away the impression made by you and
other of the youth who do not enjoy experimental religion, that there
is no reality in religion. Pride is strengthened in them; love of show,
love of lightness and of pleasure are increased, and sacred things
are not discerned. They receive the impression that they have been
too conscientious, too particular. For if those who live right at the
center of the great work are influenced so little by the solemn truths
so often presented, why should they be so particular? Why should