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Chapter 11—A Violated Conscience
Dear Brother N,
I feel compelled by a sense of duty to address you a few lines. I
have been shown some things in regard to your case which I dare
not withhold. I was shown that Satan took advantage of you because
your wife did not embrace the truth. You were thrown into the
society of a corrupt woman, one whose steps take hold on hell. She
professed great sympathy for you because of the opposition you
received from your wife. Like the serpent in Eden, she made her
manners fascinating. She cast the impression on your mind that you
were an abused man; that your wife did not appreciate your feelings
and reciprocate your affections; that a mistake had been made in
your marriage relation; until you imagined the marriage vows of
lifelong constancy to her whom you had taken as your wife, to be
as galling chains. You went for sympathy to this apparent angel
in speech. You poured into her ears that which should have been
entrusted alone to your wife whom you had vowed to love, honor,
and cherish as long as you both should live. You forgot to watch and
pray always lest you should
enter into
temptation. Your soul was
marred by a crime. You stamped your life record in heaven with a
fearful blot. Yet deep humiliation and repentance before God will
be acceptable to Him. The blood of Christ can avail to wash these
sins away.
You have fallen, terribly fallen. Satan lured you on into his
net, and then left you to disentangle yourself as best you could.
You have been harassed and perplexed, and fearfully tempted. A
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guilty conscience troubles you. You distrust yourself and imagine
that everyone else distrusts you. You are jealous of yourself and
imagine that jealousy exists in other hearts toward you. You have
not confidence in yourself and imagine that your brethren have not
confidence in you. Satan often presents the past before you and
tells you that it is of no use for you to try to live out the truth, the
way is too strait for you. You have been overcome; now Satan takes
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