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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
have the praise and esteem of men. If you could purchase heaven
by a great sacrifice for those to whom you choose to be liberal, you
would certainly obtain it. You do not object to being put to the
greatest inconvenience to advantage others, if in so doing you can
exalt yourself. In these things you tithe mint and rue, while you
neglect the weightier matters, justice and the love of God.
You are not just in your family. You have a work to do there.
Make your wife comfortable and happy first; then consider the
condition of your children. Provide them with comfortable food and
clothing. Then if you can, without limiting your wife and children,
help those who most need help, and bestow your favors where they
will be appreciated; it will be praiseworthy for you to be liberal.
But your first and most sacred duty is to your family. They should
not be robbed for others to be favored. Let your benevolence, your
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liberality, be seen in your own family. Give them tangible proofs of
your affection, interest, care, and love. This has much to do with
your happiness. Cease finding fault and scolding your wife, for this
only makes it much harder for you and makes a hell for her.
Angels of God will not abide in your family until there is a
different order of things. It is not your means that is wanted. Yet
when reproved you have thought it was your means that the church
wanted. You are deceived here. You have been too liberal with your
means, for the very reason that you have thought this was to obtain
salvation for you and buy you a position in the church. No, indeed! it
is you that is wanted, not the little means you possess. If you would
be transformed by the renewing of your mind and be converted, deal
truly with your own soul. It is all that the church require. You have
deceived yourself. If any man seemeth to be religious, and bridleth
not his tongue, that man’s religion is vain. Treat your family in a
manner that Heaven can approve, and so that peace may be in your
dwelling. There needs to be everything done for your family. Your
children have had your bad example before them; you have blamed,
and censured, and manifested a passionate spirit at home, while you
would, at the same time, address the throne of grace, attend meeting,
and bear testimony in favor of the truth. These exhibitions have led
your children to despise you and the truth you profess. They have no
confidence in your Christianity. They believe you to be a hypocrite,
and it is true that you are a sadly deceived man. You can no more