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Chapter 56—Importance of Self-Government
Dear Brother P,
I have several times attempted to write to you, but have as often
been hindered. I will delay no longer. I have felt for a few days past
especially anxious in regard to you. Last June some things were
shown me in regard to you. I was carried back in the past and shown
your unsettled, roving life. You were without God. Yours has been
a hard, reckless life. Yet I saw that God had in mercy spared your
life many times when it seemed that no human power or wisdom
could preserve it. You now stand a miracle of mercy. When your
life has been in imminent peril, Christ, your Advocate, has pleaded
in your behalf: “Father, spare his life a little longer. He has been an
unfruitful tree, which has cumbered the ground; yet cut it not down.
I will patiently wait a little longer, and see if it will not bear fruit. I
will impress his heart with the truth. I will convict him of sin.”
I was shown that the Lord opened the way for you to obey and
serve Him. Your steps were directed West, where your surroundings
would be more favorable to a growth in grace, and where it would be
less difficult for you to form a character for heaven. You came into
our family and were received into our hearts. This was all ordered of
the Lord. You had not the experience which was necessary in order
to live a life that God would approve. You were situated where in
a few short months you could obtain more light and a more correct
knowledge of present truth than you could have obtained in years if
you had remained East.
Our compassionate High Priest was acquainted with your weak-
ness and your errors and did not leave you in your inexperience to
battle with the great foe amid unfavorable surroundings. Had you re-
mained in-----you would not have retained the truth. The opposition
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you would have received would have raised your combativeness, and
you would have dishonored the truth by a hasty spirit; and then, as
obstacles arose in your Christian journey, you would have become
discouraged and yielded the truth. You have much to be thankful
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