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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
you have not exercised your authority as a father, as a priest of the
household, to command and have your words as law in your family.
Your own, and also your wife’s, mistaken fondness for your children
has led you to neglect the solemn obligation devolving upon you as
parents.
A double obligation rested upon you, Brother B, as a minister
of God, to rule well your own house and bring your children into
subjection. But you have been pleased with their aptness and have
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excused their faults. Sin in them did not appear very sinful. You have
displeased God and nearly ruined your children by your neglect of
duty, and you have continued this neglect after the Lord had reproved
and counseled you. The injury done to the cause of God by your
influence as a family in the different places where you have lived
has been greater than the good that you have accomplished. You
have been blinded and deceived by Satan in regard to your family.
You and your wife have made your children your equals. They
have done about as they pleased. This has been a sad drawback to
you in your work as a minister of Christ, and the neglect of your
duty to bring your children into subjection has led to a still greater
evil, which threatens to destroy your usefulness. You have been
apparently serving the cause of God, while you have been serving
yourself more. The cause of God has languished; but you have
been earnestly figuring and planning how to advantage yourself, and
souls have been lost through your neglect of duty. Had you, during
your ministry, occupied a position to build up this work, had you
set an example by serving the cause of God irrespective of your
own interest, and become worn through your devotion to it, your
course would be more excusable, though even then it would not be
approved of God. But when your deficiencies have been so apparent
in some things, and the cause of God has suffered greatly because of
the example you have given by your neglect of duty in your family,
it is grievous in the sight of God for you to be professedly serving
the cause, yet making your own selfish interests prominent.
In your labors you have frequently aroused an interest, and at the
very point when you could work to the best advantage have allowed
home interests to draw you away from the work of God. In many
cases you have not perseveringly continued your efforts until you
were satisfied that all had decided for or against the truth. It is not
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