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Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce
Should you come to England you will certainly find work enough
to do, and God is merciful; He pities our weakness; He forgives our
transgressions; and, if we will only live humble and penitent, if we
will cease from evil and do well, the Lord will approve. May the Lord
teach you and work for you.
I wish that there were many more men who would give themselves
to the missionary work in England. That kingdom has but few workers.
We want missionaries whom God can work with and bless. We want
men who will feel the burden of souls, men who will work as Christ
worked, zealously, disinterestedly, to save sinners and enlighten those
in darkness. I write this short letter to you, thinking it is as well as
more that might be written. Your sister in Christ.—
Letter 41, 1886
.
[204]
Impure Thoughts and Imaginings [
Written to an unrepentant
minister.
]—Elder Z, I have much distress of soul for you. I fear, yes,
greatly fear, you will never enter into the kingdom of God. I have
much pain at heart as I consider your case, standing in the light of
the delegated servant of Jesus Christ, yet so clouded with defilement
that holy angels cannot come near you. It is no new thing that your
thoughts are corrupted by impure desires and imaginings. You have
not dismissed unlawful desires and lustful thoughts. When you met
me in Healdsburg and told me that you had gained the victory, you
told me a falsehood, for you knew this was not the truth.
The Fly in the Spider’s Web—Your past life had been presented
before me as one who had no internal strength to resist evil if it put on
an inviting aspect. You have obtained the confidence of women in you
as a man of piety and righteousness, then you have taken advantage of
this confidence to take liberties with them—kissing them, and going
just as far with them in seductive, lustful practices as they would allow
you to go, not only with Sister X but with others. And I am pained to
the heart when I consider that you have tainted and polluted more than
one or two or three or four with your insinuations and your fawning
and caressing which have led souls to dissipation and vice. And you a
watchman, you a shepherd! ...
You have made evil and lustful practices appear harmless, and
some have been led away with their own lust and enticed because they
had not moral courage to rebuke you, a minister, for your iniquitous
practices. There have been not a few who have sacrificed conscience,
peace of mind, and the favor of God, because a man whom the people