Honored Minister
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in teaching the commandments of God he was breaking them, that he
was giving attentions to Sister S which should be bestowed only upon
his wife. I wrote very pointedly to him.
He admitted my statements, said he had prayed over the matter
and felt that his course was wrong, but did not say he would cease this
thing forever. He says,
“Your strong condemnation of me is only just. That I know, and
feel the difficulty with me was this: it was so hard for me to realize
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the sinfulness of my course. My reason, my judgment, the testimony
and the Scriptures, all combined to teach me that it was wrong. Yet it
had such a hold of me that I failed to realize it as I should. I could not
bring myself to feel the extent of my wrong, and gradually it proved
a snare to me. But I had been making it a subject of special prayer
some time before I received your last letter, that God would enable me
to see it in its proper light and to feel over it as I should; and I have
reason to believe that my prayer was answered.
“If I know anything of the blessing of grace, I know that I was
blessed in the effort. I greatly needed this blessing to enable me to
do the work aright, which was put upon me here. It was expressed of
all that I was helped of heaven to write the report on the matter of the
arrest of our people for working on the Sunday and other important
writings which it fell to me to do. But I am painfully conscious of my
weakness and that my only safety is in constant watchfulness such as I
did not exercise before. I see now that it is a question of life and death
with me and shall strive to act accordingly.”—
Letter 73, 1886
.
Workings of an Unsanctified Heart—Dear Brother Butler. [
This
letter was sent to Elder George I. Butler, the General Conference
president, but Ellen White also directly addresses Elder H, the guilty
minister
]I am troubled in regard to Elder H. He writes me nothing,
and I feel deeply pained on his account. It seems sometimes to me that
the Lord is testing us to see whether we will deal faithfully in regard
to sin in one of our honored men. The time is close at hand when the
General Conference will have to decide the points whether or not to
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renew his credentials.
If the Conference does this, they will be saying virtually, “We have
confidence in you as a man whom God recognizes as His messenger;
one to whom He has entrusted the sacred responsibilities of caring for
the sheep of the Lord’s pasture; one who will be in all things a faithful