Basic HTML Version
14
Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
person who brought the cloth to me, of one woman in particular, for
whom he had told me to cut a garment. I stated that she would not
prize the garment, and that it would be a loss of time and material to
present it to her. She was very poor, of inferior intellect, and untidy
in her habits, and would soon soil it.
The person replied: “Cut out the garments. That is your duty.
The loss is not yours, but mine. God sees not as man sees. He lays
out the work that He would have done, and you do not know which
will prosper, this or that. It will be found that many such poor souls
will go into the kingdom, while others, who are favored with all the
blessings of life, having good intellects and pleasant surroundings,
giving them all the advantages of improvement, will be left out. It
will be seen that these poor souls have lived up to the feeble light
which they had, and have improved by the limited means within
their reach, and lived much more acceptably than some others who
have enjoyed full light and ample means for improvement.”
I then held up my hands, calloused as they were with long use
of the shears, and stated that I could but shrink at the thought of
pursuing this kind of labor. The person again repeated:
“Cut out the garments. Your release has not yet come.”
With feelings of great weariness I arose to engage in the work.
Before me lay new, polished shears, which I commenced using.
At once my feelings of weariness and discouragement left me; the
shears seemed to cut with hardly an effort on my part, and I cut out
[12]
garment after garment with comparative ease.
With the encouragement which this dream gave me, I at once
decided to accompany my husband and Brother Andrews to Gratiot,
Saginaw, and Tuscola Counties, and trust in the Lord to give me
strength to labor. So, on the 7th of February, we left home, and rode
fifty-five miles to our appointment at Alma. Here I labored as usual,
with a comfortable degree of freedom and strength. The friends
in Gratiot County seemed interested to hear, but many of them
are far behind on the health reform and in the work of preparation
generally. There seemed to be among this people a want of the
order and efficiency necessary to prosperity in the work and spirit of
the message. Brother Andrews, however, visited them three weeks
later and enjoyed a good season with them. I will not pass over a
matter of encouragement to me, that a very pointed testimony which