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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
to them is greater than her devotion to God. The father has neglected
his duty. The result of their wrong course is revealed in their children.
As I spoke to the church I tried to impress upon parents their
solemn obligation to the children, because I knew the state of these
youth and what tendencies had made them what they are. But the word
was not received. I know what burdens I bore in the last of my labors
among you. I would never have thus tasked my strength to the utmost
had I not seen your peril. I longed to arouse you to humble your hearts
before God, to return to Him with penitence and faith.
Yet now when I send you a testimony of warning and reproof,
many of you declare it to be merely the opinion of Sister White. You
have thereby insulted the Spirit of God. You know how the Lord has
manifested Himself through the spirit of prophecy. Past, present, and
future have passed before me. I have been shown faces that I had
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never seen, and years afterward I knew them when I saw them. I have
been aroused from my sleep with a vivid sense of subjects previously
presented to my mind; and I have written, at midnight, letters that have
gone across the continent and, arriving at a crisis, have saved great
disaster to the cause of God. This has been my work for many years.
A power has impelled me to reprove and rebuke wrongs that I had not
thought of. Is this work of the last thirty-six years from above or from
beneath?
Suppose—some would make it appear, incorrectly however—that
I was influenced to write as I did by letters received from members of
the church. How was it with the apostle Paul? The news he received
through the household of Chloe concerning the condition of the church
at Corinth was what caused him to write his first epistle to that church.
Private letters had come to him stating the facts as they existed, and
in his answer he laid down general principles which if heeded would
correct the existing evils. With great tenderness and wisdom he exhorts
them to all speak the same things, that there be no divisions among
them.
Paul was an inspired apostle, yet the Lord did not reveal to him at
all times just the condition of His people. Those who were interested
in the prosperity of the church, and saw evils creeping in, presented the
matter before him, and from the light which he had previously received
he was prepared to judge of the true character of these developments.
Because the Lord had not given him a new revelation for that special