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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
and charge us with boasting of our own works. The reason of this is
that their own lives have been so free from wearing care, want, and
self-sacrifice that they know not how to sympathize with us, and the
contrast is not agreeable to their feelings. To have presented before
them the experience of others which is in such wide contrast with their
own course does not make their labors appear in so favorable a light
as they would have them.
When we commenced this work we were both in feeble health. My
husband was a dyspeptic; yet three times a day, in faith, we made our
supplications to God for strength. My husband went into the hayfield
with his scythe, and, in the strength that God gave him in answer to
our earnest prayers, he there earned, by mowing, means with which to
purchase us neat, plain clothing and to pay our fare to a distant state to
present the truth to our brethren.
We have a right to refer to the past, as did the apostle Paul. “And
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when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no
man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from
Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being
burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself. As the truth of
Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of
Achaia.” In referring to our past experience, we are carrying out the
exhortation of the apostle to the Hebrews: “But call to remembrance
the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great
fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by
reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions
of them that were so used.”
Our lives are interwoven with the cause of God. We have no sepa-
rate interest aside from this work. And when we see the advancement
that the cause has made from a very small beginning, coming up slowly
yet surely to strength and prosperity; as we see the success of the cause
in which we have toiled, and suffered, and nearly sacrificed our lives,
who shall prevent or forbid our boasting in God? Our experience in
this cause is valuable to us. We have invested everything in it.
Moses was the meekest man that lived; yet, because of the mur-
murings of the children of Israel, he was repeatedly compelled to bring
up their course of sin after leaving Egypt and to vindicate his course
as their leader. Just before leaving Israel, when he was about to die, he
rehearsed before them their course of rebellion and murmuring since