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Chapter 58—Stirring Up Opposition
Dear Sister T,
I have been shown that there has been a fault in your religious
life. You have possessed too much of a combative spirit. While it
is your privilege to think and act for yourself, you have carried the
matter too far. You have had more independence than humility. You
have pursued a course to irritate rather than to pacify. It has been
necessary for you to possess firmness in order to stand in defense of
the truth; yet you have frequently erred in not possessing that meek
and quiet spirit which God esteems of great price. In your family
you have met with opposition and a manifest disrelish of the truth,
but you have failed to meet these trials in the best manner. You have
talked too much and been too positive. You have mingled too little
love and tenderness with your efforts for your family, especially for
your husband. You are in danger of carrying points to extremes,
overdoing the matter, and hurting instead of healing. Wherever you
can yield your judgment and not sacrifice the principles of truth,
it is best for you to do so, even if you think you are right. You
have a responsibility, an identity, which cannot be merged in your
husband. Yet there is a bond which makes you one, and in many
things, if you were more yielding, it would be far better for your
husband, your children, and yourself. You are too exacting. You do
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not seek to win those who differ with you. You are quick to discern
when you have the advantage, and you make the most of it. If you
possessed more forbearance mingled with sweet love, and if you
should for Christ’s sake pass over many things without taking them
up and pressing them home, thus creating uncomfortable feelings,
the influence would be better, more saving. You need love, tender
pity, and affection.
You see the truth, and then you mark out how this one and that
one should practice it; and if they fail to come up to the mark you set,
you feel to draw off from them. You cannot fellowship them, and
love dies out of your heart for them, when in reality they are just as
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