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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
ministered unto you, as step by step they led you up the rugged
pathway. You were pressed by poverty, but this was the least of
the difficulties with which you had to contend. When N exercised
his power to abuse and harm you, you felt that the cup you had to
drink was bitter indeed; and when he degraded himself to pursue a
course of iniquity, and you were outraged and insulted in your own
house, he made a gulf between himself and you which could never
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be passed. Then in your sore distress and perplexity the Lord raised
you up friends. He did not leave you alone; but His strength was
imparted, and you could say: “The Lord is my helper.”
Through all your trials, which have never been fully revealed to
others, you have had a never-failing Friend, who has said: “I am
with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” While upon the
earth, He was ever touched with human woe. Although He is now
ascended to His Father, and is adored by angels who quickly obey
His commands, His heart, which loved, pitied, and sympathized,
knows no change. It remains a heart of unchangeable tenderness
still. That same Jesus was acquainted with all your trials, and did
not leave you alone to struggle with temptations, battle with evil,
and be finally crushed with burdens and sorrow. Through His angels
He whispered to you: “‘Fear not, for I am with thee.’ ‘I am He
that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.’
I know your sorrows; I have endured them. I am acquainted with
your struggles; I have experienced them. I know your temptations;
I have encountered them. I have seen your tears; I also have wept.
Your earthly hopes are crushed; but let the eye of faith be uplifted
and penetrate the veil, and there anchor your hopes. The everlasting
assurance shall be yours that you have a Friend that sticketh closer
than a brother.”
O my dear sister, if you could only see, as I have seen, the ways
and works of God manifested all through your perplexities and trials
in the former part of your experience, when pressed by the hand of
poverty, you could never forget Him, but your love would increase,
and your zeal to promote His glory be untiring.
In consequence of your afflictions and peculiar trials, your health
failed. The friends of the cause of God were but few, and many
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of them were poor; and you could see but little to hope for on the
right hand or on the left. You looked upon your children and your