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Chapter 12—Warnings and Reproofs
Dear Brother O,
I was shown that you were enshrouded in darkness, which was
not relieved by rays of light from Jesus. You did not seem sensible
of your danger, but were in a state of listless indifference, unfeeling
and unconcerned. I inquired the cause of this much-to-be-dreaded
condition, and was pointed back for years, and shown that you
had not, since you embraced the truth, been sanctified through it.
You have gratified your appetite and your lustful passions to the
destruction of your own spirituality. I was shown that God had given
light through the gifts placed in the church, which would instruct,
counsel, guide, reprove, and warn. These testimonies which you
have professed to believe were from God, you have not regarded to
live them out. To disregard light is to reject it. The rejection of light
leaves men captives bound about by chains of darkness and unbelief.
I was shown that you have increased your family without re-
alizing the responsibility you were bringing upon yourself. It has
been impossible for you to do justice to your companion or to your
children. Your first wife ought not to have died, but you brought
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upon her cares and burdens which ended in the sacrifice of her life.
Your present wife has a hard lot; her vitality is nearly exhausted. By
increasing your family so rapidly, you have been kept in a state of
poverty, and the mother, engaged in rearing the young members of
the family, has not had a fair chance for her life. She has nursed her
children under the most unfavorable circumstances, when heated
over the cookstove. She could not instruct them as she should, nor
regulate their habits of eating and working. The result of eating
food not the most healthful, and otherwise violating the laws which
God has established in our being, has brought disease and premature
death upon your elder children. Disease has been transmitted to your
offspring, and the free use of flesh meats has increased the difficulty.
The eating of pork has aroused and strengthened a most deadly hu-
mor which was in the system. Your offspring are robbed of vitality
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