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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 4b
were accountable to God for their strength. They should be diligent
in business and fervent in spirit; they should not leave those that have
possessions to do all the sacrificing. I saw that they could sacrifice,
and that it was their duty to do so as well as those that have property.
But often those individuals that have no possessions do not realize that
they can deny themselves in many ways; can lay out less upon their
bodies and to gratify their appetite, and find much to spare the cause
and lay up in Heaven a treasure.
I saw it was even so, “From even unto even shall ye celebrate your
Sabbath.” Said the angel, “Take the word of God, read it, understand,
and ye cannot err. Read carefully, and ye shall there find what even is,
and when it is.” I asked the angel if the frown of God had been upon
his people for commencing the Sabbath as they have. I was directed
back to the first rise of the Sabbath. I followed the people of God up
to this time, and did not see that God was displeased, or frowned upon
them. I inquired why it had been thus, that at this late day we must
[4]
change the time of commencing the Sabbath. Said the angel, “Ye shall
understand, but not yet, not yet.” Said the angel, “If light comes, and
that light is set aside, or rejected, then comes condemnation and the
frown of God; but before the light comes there is no sin, for there is
no light for them to reject.” I saw that it was in the minds of some that
the Lord had shown that the Sabbath commenced at six o’clock, when
I had only seen that it commenced at “even,” and it was inferred that
even was at six. I saw the servants of God must draw together, press
together.
I was then shown the case of Stephenson and Hall of Wisconsin;
that they were convicted while we were at Wisconsin in June, 1854,
that the visions were of God; but they examined them and compared
them with the Age to Come, and because the visions did not agree with
their views of the Age to Come, they sacrificed the visions for the Age
to Come. And while on their journey East, last spring, they were both
wrong and designing. They have stumbled over the Age to Come, and
they are ready to take any course to injure the Review, and its friends
must be awake and do what they can to save the children of God from
deception. They are uniting with a lying and corrupt people. They
have had evidence of this; and while they were professing sympathy
and union with my husband, they (especially Stephenson) were biting
like an adder behind his back. And while their words were smooth