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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
She is a child of God and a woman of fine capabilities and good
taste, one who has a humble opinion of herself at best. And you have
so long dictated to her and discouraged her independent thought that it
has had an influence to make her shut herself within herself and fail to
develop the noble womanhood that is hers by right. While consulting
with your wife upon matters that affect her interests equally with your
own, you well know that if she expresses an opinion contrary to yours,
a feeling of injury rises in your heart, and self takes possession of
you and excludes that feeling of deference that you should naturally
cherish toward the companion of your life.
The very same spirit that you exercise at home will be manifested
more or less in your church relationship. Your determined will, your
rigid opinions, will be urged and made a ruling power as far as possible.
This will never do; you must feel the necessity of occasionally yielding
your judgment to that of others, and not persist in your way to a degree
that often approaches stubbornness. If you wish for the daily blessing
of God you should modulate your imperious disposition and make it
correspond to the divine Pattern.
You frequently grieve your wife unconsciously to yourself because
you do not guard your words and acts with that tenderness that you
should. You thus lessen her love for you and foster a coldness that is
creeping into your home unawares.
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If you will think less of yourself and more of the treasures in your
household, giving due consideration to the members of your family
and allowing them a proper exercise of their individual judgment, you
will bring a blessing upon yourself and them, and will increase the
respect they feel for you.
You have been inclined to look with a sort of contempt upon your
brethren who were faulty, and who, because of their natural tempera-
ment, found it hard to overcome the evils that beset them. But Jesus
pities them; He loves them and bears with their infirmities even as
He does with yours. You do wrong to exalt yourself above those who
are not so strong as you are. You do wrong to shut yourself up in a
self-righteous spirit, thanking God that you are not like other men, but,
that your faith and zeal exceed those of the poor, feeble ones striving
to do right under discouragements and darkness.
Angels from a pure and holy heaven come to this polluted world
to sympathize with the weakest, the most helpless and needy, while