To a Young Minister and His Wife
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lead you to take, you will be willing to be counseled. It is because
of the few responsibilities you have borne that you do not understand
why Brother White should feel more deeply than you. There is just
this difference between you and him in this matter. He has invested
thirty of the best years of his life to the cause of God, while you have
had but few years of experience and have had comparatively nothing
of the hardships to meet that he has had.
After those who led out in this work have labored hard to prepare
the truth and bring the work up ready to your hand, you embrace it and
go out to labor, presenting the precious arguments which others, with
inexpressible anxiety, have searched out for you. While you are amply
provided for in point of means, your weekly wages sure, leaving you no
reason for care or anxiety in this direction, these pioneers of the cause
suffered deprivations of every kind. They had no assurance of anything.
They were dependent upon God and upon the few truehearted ones
who received their labors. While you have sympathizing brethren to
sustain you and fully appreciate your labors, the first laborers in this
work had but very few to stand by them. All could be counted in a few
minutes. We knew what it was to go hungry for want of food and to
suffer with cold for the want of suitable clothing. We have traveled all
night by private conveyance to visit the brethren, because we had no
means with which to defray the expenses of hotel fare. We traveled
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miles on foot, time and again, because we had no money to hire a
carriage. Oh, how precious was the truth to us! how valuable souls
purchased by the blood of Christ!
We have no complaints to make of our sufferings in those days
of close want and perplexity, which made the exercise of faith neces-
sary. They were the happiest days of our lives. There we learned the
simplicity of faith. There, while in affliction we tested and proved the
Lord. He was our consolation. He was to us like the shadow of a great
rock in a weary land. It is unfortunate for you, my brother, and for our
young ministers generally, that you and they have not had a similar
experience in privation, in trial, and in need; for such an experience
would be worth to you more than houses or lands, gold or silver.
When we refer to our past experience of excessive labor and want,
and of laboring with our hands to support ourselves and to publish
the truth at the very commencement of the work, some of our young
preachers of but few years’ experience in the work seem to be annoyed