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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
exalted, and then, as you felt sufficient in your own strength, the
Lord removed His strength from you.
You have been interested in music. This has given incautious,
unwise women opportunity, and they have confided their troubles to
you. This has gratified your pride, but it has been a snare to you. It
has opened a door for the suggestions of Satan. You have not done
as you should. You had no right to hear in families that which has
been spoken to you. These communications have corrupted your
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mind, increased your self-esteem, and led to evil thoughts. You have
permitted yourself to be a confessor to some sentimental women
who desired sympathy and wished to lean upon others. Had they
possessed sound judgment and stood self-reliant, having an aim
in life, loving to do others good, they would not have been in a
condition where they needed to come to anyone for sympathy.
You know not the deceptions of the human heart. You know not
the devices of Satan. Some who have drawn largely upon your sym-
pathy have a sickly, diseased imagination, are lovesick, sentimental,
ever eager to create a sensation and make a great ado. Some are
dissatisfied with their married life. There is not enough romance in it.
Novel reading has perverted all the good sense they ever had. They
live in an imaginary world. Their imagination creates a husband for
themselves such as exists only in romances found in novels. They
talk of unrequited love. They are never contented or happy, because
their imagination pictures to them a life that is unreal. When they
face the reality, come down to the simplicity of real life, and take up
life’s burdens in their families, as is woman’s lot, then they will find
contentment and happiness.
You have cherished thoughts that were not right. These thoughts
have borne fruit. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh.” Your words are not always chaste, pure, and elevated.
“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.” Guile is
too often found in your mouth—low expressions that proceed from
a heart cherishing corrupt thoughts and evil desires.
For some time your feet have been turned from the path of recti-
tude and purity. You know that your course has been displeasing to
God, that you are transgressing His holy law; you know that these
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things cannot be hid. God will not permit His people to be deceived
in your case. Your great sin is in enlisting the sympathies of those