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Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce
Will you have others follow your example? Will you wish them to
pass over the ground you have traveled, and feel that they have done
no great wrong? Without repentance and conversion, you are a ruined
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man.
I hear you [Elder H] are taking treatment at the sanitarium, acting
as chaplain, speaking in the Tabernacle. Now, this does not look right
for you to take such positions, until you have done all in your power
to correct past evils.
Self-righteousness and Inward Corruption—I have felt, for
your sake, restrained from opening the matter of Mrs. S’s infidelity to
her husband, but I fear I have neglected my duty. If we had dealt with
this matter as if it had been the case of a lay member of the church, I
believe God would have then sent you repentance that needed not to
be repented of.
Our pity, our love, to save you from reproach, has hurt you. My
heart is so sad and agonized at times for you, I can only weep. I say,
“Must he be lost? Must he, after suffering for the truth’s sake, after
standing in its defense until he is old and gray-headed, become an
idolater, as did Solomon? Will he, for the love of a woman, trample
down the law of God and look about him as much as to say, I do no
sin; I am all right?”
Need of Heart Change, Not Change of Location—Will we be
clear to let such things be concealed and sins hidden, with no real
evidence of repentance or reform? Your leaving California does not
give you a new heart. You are out of sight of the infatuating influence
of your “adorable charmer,” but this does not change the affections or
impulses of the heart. Elder W might have finished his course with joy
had it not been for sensual practices, but he was led away of his own
lusts and enticed. The days and years which might have been his very
best were his worst.
We see in the character of Solomon intellectual greatness combined
with moral degradation. He might have gone forward from strength
to strength, but instead of this he went backward from weakness to
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weakness. After a life of promise, his history was one of deterioration.
The Very Brink of the Precipice—My brother, my heart yearns
toward you for Christ’s sake. You have been attempting what other
ministers have attempted—to harmonize light with darkness, Christ
with Belial, purity with impurity, good with evil. The result will be