Earlier text: SELF-DECEIVED YOUTH.

LETTER TO AN ORPHAN BOY.

DEAR FRIEND: In the last vision given me, I saw that you had faults to correct. It is necessary for you to see these before you will make the required effort to correct them. You have much to learn before you can form a good, Christian character, which God can approve. From your childhood you have been a wayward boy, disposed to have your own way and to follow your own mind. You have not loved to yield your wishes and will to those who have had the care of you. This is the experience you must obtain.

Your danger is increased by the spirit of independence and self-confidence—connected, as of course it must be, with inexperience—which young men of your age are apt to assume when they have not their308 own dear parents to watch over them, and stir the tender chords of affection in the soul. You feel that it is time for you to think and act for yourself. “I am a young man, and no longer a child. I am capable of discriminating between right and wrong. I have rights, and I will stand for them. I am capable of forming my own plans of action. Who has authority to interfere with me?” These have been some of your thoughts, and you are encouraged in them by youth who are about your age.

You feel that you may assert your liberty, and act like a man. These feelings and thoughts lead to wrong action. You have not a submissive spirit. Wise is that young man and highly blest, who feels it to be his duty, if he has parents, to look up to them, and if he has not, who regards his guardian, or those with whom he lives, as counselors, as comforters, and in some respects as his rulers, and who allows the restraints of his home to abide upon him. Independence of one kind is praiseworthy. To desire to bear your own weight, and not to eat the bread of dependence, is right. It is a noble, generous ambition that dictates the wish to be self-supporting. Industrious habits and frugality are necessary.

You have been placed in unfavorable circumstances for the development of a good Christian character; but you are now placed where you may build up a reputation, or blast it. The latter we do not believe you will do. But you are not secure from temptation. In one single hour you may take a course which will afterwards cost you bitter tears of repentance. By yielding to temptation, you may estrange hearts from you, lose the respect and esteem you have been acquiring from those around you, and also stain your Christian character. You have the lesson of submission to learn. You consider it beneath you to do duties about the house—chores and little errands. You have a positive dislike to these309 little requirements; but you should cultivate a love for these very things to which you are so averse. Until you do this, you will not be acceptable help anywhere. When engaged in these necessary small things, you are doing more real service than when engaged in large business and in laborious work.

I have a case now in mind, of one who was presented before me in vision, who neglected these little things, and could not interest himself in small duties, seeking to lighten the work of those indoors; it was too small business. He now has a family, but he still possesses the same unwillingness to engage in these small yet important duties. The result is, great care rests upon his wife. She has to do many things, or they will be left undone; and the amount of care which comes upon her because of her husband’s lack, is breaking her constitution. He cannot now overcome this evil as easily as he could in his youth. He neglects the little duties, and fails to keep everything up tidy and nice, therefore cannot make a successful farmer. “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much.”

Naaman the Syrian consulted the prophet of God as to how he could be cured of a loathsome disease, the leprosy. He was bid to go and bathe in Jordan seven times. Why did he not immediately follow the directions of Elisha, the prophet of God? Why did he refuse to do as the prophet commanded? He went to his servants, murmuring. In his mortification and disappointment, he became passionate, and in a rage refused to follow the humble course marked out by the prophet of God. “I thought,” said he, “He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.”310 His servant said, “My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather, then, when he saith to thee, Wash [merely], and be clean?” Yes, this great man considered it beneath his dignity to go to the humble river Jordan, and wash. The rivers he mentioned and desired were beautified by surrounding trees and groves, and idols were placed in these groves. Many flocked to these rivers to worship their idol gods, therefore it would have cost him no humility. But it was following the specified directions of the prophet which would humble his proud and lofty spirit. Willing obedience would bring the desired result. He washed, and was made whole.

Your case is similar in some respects to Naaman’s. You do not consider that in order to perfect a Christian character you must condescend to be faithful in the littles. Although the things you are called to do may be of small account in your eyes, yet they are duties which you will have to do just as long as you live. A neglect of these things will make a great deficiency in your character. You, my dear boy, should educate yourself to faithfulness in small things. You cannot please God unless you do this. You cannot gain love and affection unless you do just as you are bid, with willingness and pleasure. If you wish those with whom you live to love you, you must show love and respect for them.

It is your duty to do all in your power to lighten the cares of the sister with whom you live. You see her, pale and feeble, cooking for a large family. Every extra job she has to perform wears upon her and lessens her vitality. She has no young hands and feet to perform little errands. They received you into their family, as they told you and us at the time, expressly to do these things. Now if you neglect to do the very things they think will help them most, and choose to follow your will in an independent course of your own choosing, you must311 lose your place, and they must have one that will do the very things you consider too small for you to do. You are now doing larger and heavier work than your strength will admit. You love to do the work of a man. You have a set will of your own which must be given up. You must die to self, crucify self, gain the victory over self. You cannot be a true follower of Christ unless you take hold of this work resolutely.

I saw that you do not naturally possess reverence and respect for those older than yourself. You should be faithful in the little errands and duties you are required to perform, and not go murmuringly about them as though they were a drug. You cannot see how unpleasant and unlovely you make yourself. You cannot thus be happy yourself, nor make those around you happy. You should bear in mind that God requires of you, as his servant, to be faithful, patient, kind, affectionate, obedient, and respectful. You cannot attain to Christian perfection unless you possess perfect control of your own spirit. You allow feelings to arise in your heart which are sinful, which are a great injury to you, and which tend to encourage a hard, defiant spirit, unlike the spirit of Christ, whose life you are commanded to imitate.

My dear boy, commence anew, determined, by God’s help, to follow the things which are true, lovely, and of good report. Let the fear of God, united with love and affection for all around you, be seen in all your actions. Be faithful and thorough; rid yourself of everything like slackness. Have a place for everything, and put everything in its place. Be accommodating, kind, cheerful, and agreeable. Then you can win your way into the hearts of those with whom you associate. One thing ever bear in mind: No young man can be possessed of a right spirit who does not respect women, and seek to lighten their cares. It is the worst sign that can be found in a312 young man to consider it beneath him to lighten the labor of women. Such a man is marked. No woman would commit the keeping of her life to such a man; for he will never make a tender, careful, considerate husband.

The boy is the type of the man. I entreat of you to face right about. Do everything that needs to be done in the shape of small duties, disagreeable though they may be. Then you will have the approval of those around you, and, what is to be more highly prized, you will have the approval of God. You cannot be a Christian unless you are a faithful servant in that which is least. If you pray, and strive to do your best to perform every duty, God will bless and help you. When Jesus comes to take his faithful ones to himself, do you wish to have him say to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”? Do you desire to have all imperfections removed from your character, that you may be found without fault before the throne of God? If so, you have a work to do for yourself which no one else can do for you. You have an individual responsibility before God. You can walk in the light, and daily receive strength from God to overcome every imperfection, and finally be among the faithful, true, and holy in the kingdom of God. Yield not to temptation. Satan will annoy you and seek to control your mind, that he may lead you into sin. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”

Remember that the eye of God is ever upon you. When you answer disrespectfully, God sees and hears you. The time is coming when all shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body. You will have a part to act in the Judgment. Jesus will either receive or reject you. Flee to him for strength and grace. He desires to help you, to be the guide of your youth, and to so strengthen you that you can bless others with your influence. God loves you,313 and will save you if you come in his appointed way; but if you rebel, and choose your own course, it will be to your eternal loss. Pray much; for prayer is one of the most essential duties. Without it you cannot maintain a Christian walk. It elevates, strengthens, and ennobles; it is the soul talking with God.

Do not think you can cease your efforts or vigilance for a moment; you cannot. Study God’s word diligently, that you may not be ignorant of Satan’s devices, and that you may learn the way of salvation more perfectly. Your will must be submerged in God’s will. Seek not your own pleasure, but that of those around you; and in so doing you can but be happy. Come to Jesus with all your needs and wants, and in simple confidence crave his blessing. Trust in God, and seek to move from principle, strengthened and ennobled by high resolves and a determination of purpose found only in God.

You should not be easily provoked. Let not your heart become selfish; but let it expand with love. You have a work to do, which you must not neglect. Endure hardship as a good soldier. Jesus is acquainted with every conflict, every trial, and every pang of anguish. He will help you; for he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet he sinned not. Go to him, dear boy, with your burdens. Take no one into your confidence, and tell no one your difficulties, but ourselves. Make Jesus your burden-bearer, and seek a more thorough experience in religious things. God help and bless you, is my sincere prayer.

My tenderest sympathies are aroused for orphans. You indeed have no home. The grave has taken your father and your mother, and the home of your childhood others inhabit. You cannot have as distinct recollections of your godly father as of your mother. You remember that you sometimes grieved her. You had not learned submission; you have yet314 but partially learned the lesson. But the prayers of your parents, that you may be among those who love and fear God, have found a lodgment in Heaven.

Oh, this is a cold and selfish world! Your relatives, who should have loved and befriended you for your parents’ sake if not for your own, have shut themselves up in their selfishness, and have no special interest for you. But God will be nearer and dearer to you than any of your earthly relatives can be. He will be your friend, and will never leave you. He is a father to the fatherless. His friendship will prove sweet peace to you, and will help you to bear your great loss with fortitude. Seek to make God your father, and you will never want a friend. You will be exposed to trials, yet be steadfast, and strive to adorn your profession. You will need grace to stand, but God’s pitying eye is upon you. Pray much and earnestly, believing that God will help you. Guard against irritability and petulance, and a spirit of tantalizing. Forbearance is a virtue which you need to encourage. Seek for piety of heart. Be a consistent Christian. Possess a love of purity and humble simplicity; and let these be interwoven with your life.

By educating yourself to fear God, and to love all around you, yours can be a useful, happy life, and your example can be such as to lead others to choose the humble path of holiness. Have moral courage at all times to do right, and to honor your Redeemer. I implore you, dear boy, to seek true holiness.

THE UNRULY MEMBER.

DEAR SISTER S: Some things have been shown me in reference to yourself. You have not a sense of your true state. You need a deep and thorough work of grace in your heart. You need to set your heart and your house in order. Your example in315 your family is not worthy of imitation. You come up to a low standard, but fail to reach the standard elevated by our divine Lord. You love to visit and talk, and you say many things unbecoming a Christian. Your statements are exaggerated, and frequently come far from the truth. Your words and acts will judge you in the last day. By them you will be justified, or by them condemned. Your education has not been of an ennobling character; therefore there is the greatest necessity of your now training and educating yourself to purity of thought and action. Train your thoughts so that it will be easy for them to dwell upon pure and holy things. Cultivate a love for spirituality and true godliness.

Your conversation is often of a low order. You are deceiving your own soul, and this delusion will prove fatal unless you arouse to see yourself as you are, and turn unto God with true humbleness of mind. You are inclined to be deceptive. Your son has not an experimental knowledge of God, or of the sacred claims of truth. He is flattered by his parents that he is a Christian, but he is a most miserable representative of Sabbath-keeping Christians. God forbid that we acknowledge such as being Christlike. You do not discipline your boy. He is self-willed and bigoted. He has but very little sense of true courtesy, or even common politeness. He is rough and uncultivated, unloving and unlovable. You represent to others that he is a Christian, and by so doing you disgrace the cause of Christ. This boy is in a fair way of becoming an educated hypocrite. He has no control over himself, yet you flatter him that he is a Christian.

The work of reform must commence with you. You should become chaste in conversation, and a keeper at home, loving home duties, loving your husband and child. You should study to economize your time so as not to overtax your strength. The light burden of home duties which you have to perform316 you can bear without over-taxation, if you exercise perseverance and proper diligence. But you have a work to do to control the tongue. It is a little member, and boasteth great things; but it needs the bridle of grace and the bit of self-control, to keep it from running at random. Your conversation is of a low order, and you indulge in much cheap talk. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”

May the Lord convict you of these things as you read these lines. I entreat of you to put on the meek dignity of a wife and mother. There is a responsibility resting upon the father. Your efforts should be united to control your son, who is fast traveling the road to perdition. You should earnestly seek for the inward adorning, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. With patience, grace, and sweet humility, you can teach your poor, deceived boy the first principles of Christianity, and true politeness, or Christian courtesy. You are frequently hasty and boisterous. Oh, how important that you see the work to be done for you, before it shall be forever too late! Now Jesus invites you to come to him, and to learn of him, for he is meek and lowly of heart. The promise he has given you is sure, that you will find rest in him. You have a great work to do. Deceive not your own souls, but examine yourselves as in the light of eternity. It is impossible for you to be saved as you are.

Sister S, your husband might be of some use in the church if your influence was what it ought to be. But your example and influence disqualify him to exert a sanctifying influence in the church. Home influences more than counteract his efforts for good. You are wholly unqualified to be the wife of an elder of the church. God calls upon you to reform. Your husband has a work to do to set his heart and house317 in order. When he is converted, then can he strengthen his brethren.

As a family, you need to be sanctified through the truth. Dear sister, will you see the work to be done for you, and take hold of it without delay, that your influence may be saving? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on THESE things.”

There are enough profitable subjects upon which to meditate and converse. The conversation of the Christian should be in Heaven, whence we look for the Saviour. Meditation upon heavenly things is profitable, and will ever be accompanied with the peace and comfort of the Holy Spirit. Our calling is holy, our profession exalted. God is purifying unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. He is sitting as a refiner and purifier of silver. When the dross and tin are removed, then his image will be perfectly reflected in us. Then the prayer of Christ for his disciples will be answered in us, “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” When the truth has a sanctifying influence upon our hearts and lives, we can render to God acceptable service, and can glorify him upon the earth, being partakers of the divine nature, and having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Oh, how many will be found unready when the Master shall come to reckon with his servants! Many have meager ideas of what constitutes a Christian. Self-righteousness will then be of no avail.318 Only those can stand the test who shall be found having on the righteousness of Christ, who are imbued with his spirit, and walk even as he walked, in purity of heart and life. The conversation must be holy, and then the words will be seasoned with grace.

May the Lord help you as a family to get right, to be elevated in life, and in all your acts to honor your profession.

COMFORT IN AFFLICTION.

DEAR SISTER T: I have learned of your affliction, and hasten to pen a few lines. My dear sister, I have the very best of evidence that the Lord loves you. In the last view given me, I was shown your case among others. I saw that you had been affected in the past with the course of error which others had pursued; but while strictly conscientious, and ever anxious to know the right, you were extremely sensitive, and viewed your case worse than it was.

You have been afflicted with disease for quite a length of time. You are a nervous dyspeptic. The brain is closely connected with the stomach, and its power has so often been called to aid the weakened digestive organs that it is in its turn weakened, depressed, congested. While in this state, your mind is gloomy, naturally dwelling upon the dark side, imagining that the frown of God is upon you. You have thought that your life has been useless, that it has been filled with errors and wrong moves. Dear sister, your diseased state of health leads you to this despondency and discouragement. God has not left you; his love is yet toward you. I saw that you should trust in him as a child trusts itself in the arms of its mother. God is merciful and kind, and full of tender pity and compassion. He has not turned his face from you.

You are extremely sensitive. You feel deeply, and have not possessed the power to throw off care, perplexity, and discouragement of mind. I saw that God would be to you a very present help, if you would only trust yourself with him; but you worry yourself out of the arms of your dear, loving Saviour. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” What a precious promise is this! We may claim much of our kind heavenly Father. Great blessings are in reserve for us. We may believe in God, we may trust him, and by so doing glorify his name. Even if we are overcome of the enemy, we are not cast off, not forsaken and rejected of God. No; Christ is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

I want to say, my sister, you need not cast away your confidence. Poor, trembling soul, rest in the promises of God. In so doing, the enemy’s fetters will be broken, his suggestions will be powerless. Heed not the whisperings of the enemy. Go free, oppressed soul. Be of good courage. Say to your poor, desponding heart, “Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” I know that God loves you. Put your trust in him. Think not of those things which bring sadness and distress; turn from every disagreeable thought, and think of precious Jesus. Dwell upon his power to save, his undying, matchless love for you, even you. I know that the Lord loves you. If you cannot rely upon your own faith, rely upon the faith of others. We believe and hope for you. God accepts our faith in your behalf.

You have tried to do right, and God is pitiful and compassionate to you. Be cheerful, and bid adieu to gloom and doubts. In indulging these doubts, you dishonor God. There is peace in believing, and320 joy in the Holy Ghost. Believing brings peace, and trusting in God brings joy. Believe, believe! my soul says, Believe. Rest in God. He is able to keep that which you have committed to his trust. He will bring you off more than conqueror through Him who hath loved you. May the Lord bless you and strengthen your trembling faith, is our prayer. We commit these few lines to you, trusting they may do you good.

A SELF-CARING, DICTATORIAL SPIRIT.

Dear Bro. U: I was shown in the last vision that you would need to watch yourself with jealous care, or your peculiar temperament would control you. You erred while engaged in praying for Sister V, and took upon yourself the same dictatorial, overbearing spirit which has been the curse of your life. You bore down on Bro. W, when, considering your failures in the past, you should have been unassuming and modest. It will be very difficult for you to overcome the habit of watching others, and noticing little things, and speaking out in a decided, censuring manner. All this you have nothing to do with. Just as sure as you are overcome in a small degree in this direction, the door is open for a greater failure. There is no safety for you but in constantly controlling yourself, and possessing your soul in patience. You cannot accomplish any great work, but, if right, may do a little good in the cause of God. But your influence need not injure; if you are guarded and sanctified to God, you may be able to speak a peaceful word of comfort, and to bear testimony to the great riches of God and the undying love of Jesus.

Let your heart be softened and melted under the divine influence of the Spirit of God. You should not talk so much about yourself, for this will321 strengthen no one. You should not make yourself a center, and imagine that you must be constantly caring for yourself and leading others to care for you. Get your mind off from yourself into a more healthy channel. Talk of Jesus, and let self go; let it be submerged in Christ, and let this be the language of your heart, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Jesus will be to you a present help in every time of need. He will not leave you to battle with the powers of darkness alone. Oh, no; he has laid help upon One that is mighty to save to the uttermost.

Be not self-caring. Overcome your notions, your little peculiarities, and seek only to represent Jesus. When talking or praying in meeting, do not be too lengthy. You have failed here. You can remedy this. Lengthy speaking and praying is injurious to yourself, and is no benefit to those who hear. You will have close work to be an overcomer. Yet you can do it, if you engage in the work calmly. Here you need to guard yourself. You are uneasy, hurried, nervous. This you may also overcome.

You have an earnest, anxious desire to do right, and meet the approval of God. Continue your earnest, persevering efforts, and be not discouraged. Be patient. Never censure. Never let the enemy beguile you from your watch. Watch as well as pray. After you pray, watch thereunto. The effort is your own; no one can do this work for you. Take hold of the strength of God, and as fast as you see your errors in the past, redeem the time.

A FORGETFUL HEARER.

DEAR BRO. Y: In the last view given I was shown that you do not understand yourself. You have a work to do for yourself which no one can do for you. Your experience in the truth is short, and322 you have not been thoroughly converted. You place a higher estimate upon yourself than you will bear. I was pointed back to your past life. Your mind has not been elevated, but has dwelt upon subjects not calculated to lead to purity of action. You have had habits which were corrupt, and which have tainted your morals. You have been too familiar with the other sex, and have not possessed modesty of deportment. You would be well suited were there greater familiarity encouraged between men and women, much after Dr. A’s theory. Your influence at — was not good. You were not a proper person for that place; your light and trifling conversation disqualified you to exert a good influence. The character of your music was not such as to encourage elevated thoughts or feelings, but rather to degenerate.

For some weeks in the past your influence has been improving; but you lack firmness of principle. You are deficient in many things, and in some things you must know where you fail. The follies of your youth have left their impress upon you; you can never recover what you have lost through impure habits. These things have so benumbed your sensibilities that sacred things are not clearly discerned. You cannot, with your present experience, resist temptation. You cannot endure trials. You are not sanctified through the truth. You have taken hold of the truth, but it has not taken hold upon you, to transform you by the renewing of your mind. You are a self-deceived man. Oh, do not, I entreat you, remain deceived in regard to your true condition! You have not felt deep conviction because of your sins, and in humility sought the Lord with anguish of heart that your transgressions might be blotted out. You could not see that your ways were so sinful before God. Therefore the work of reformation has not been wrought in your soul.

You have clothed yourself with a self-righteous323 garment, to cover up the deformity of sin, but this is not the remedy. You know not what true conversion is. The old man is not dead in you. You have a form of godliness, but not the cleansing power of God. You can and do talk and write smoothly, and as far as your words go, they may possibly be correct, but the true language of the heart is not spoken. You are enough acquainted with yourself to know this. Your case is perilous; yet God pities you, and will save you if you fall all broken at his feet, feeling your impurity and vileness, your rottenness of soul, without the transforming power of God.

My brother, I do not wish to discourage you, but to lead you to investigate your motives and acts as in the light of eternity. Break away from Satan’s snare. Do not, I beg of you, lead any person to think of you in a more elevated light than you can bear, for when this deception shall be removed, and your true self appear as you are, there will be a reaction. You do have convictions of the Spirit of God, and feel the force of truth when you listen to it; but these sacred, softening impressions wear away, and you are a forgetful hearer. You are not established, strengthened, and settled in the truth. You have thought it best for your interest to adopt the truth, but you have not yet experienced its sanctifying influence. Now we would entreat of you, be not deceived, God is not mocked. It is not too late for you to become a Christian; but do not move by impulse. Weigh every move well, and deceive not your own soul.

REMEDY FOR SENTIMENTALISM.

DEAR SISTER B: In the vision given me June 12, I was shown your case. You are in a sad state, not so much because of actual disease, although you are not well, but because of imaginary inability to labor.324 Several years ago I was shown that you suffered your mind to dwell too much upon the boys. You have frequently made them the theme of conversation, and your mind has run in a channel not profitable to your spiritual advancement. You have fallen into a train of thinking which has led to evil results. You have injured and abused your own body, and brought upon yourself an imbecile state of mind. You have indulged in a love-sick train of thought and feeling, until you are almost ruined, soul and body. Your indisposition to exercise is very bad for you. Useful employment in bearing home burdens, and engaging in useful labor, would overcome this sickly, sentimental state of feeling sooner than any other means.

You have been sympathized with too much. To relieve you from all responsibility has been a very great mistake. Nearly all your thoughts are now upon yourself. You are fretful, and your mind dwells upon sad things, and pictures your condition as very bad, and you are even settling it in your mind that you can never get well unless you are married. In your present state of mind you are not fit to marry. There is no one who would wish you, in your present helpless, useless condition. If one should fancy he loved you, he would be worthless; for no sensible man could think for a moment of placing his affections upon so useless an object.

The sad, gloomy state of your mind, which leads you to weep, and feel that life is not desirable, is the result of allowing your thoughts to run in an impure channel, upon forbidden subjects, while you indulge habits that are steadily and surely undermining your constitution, and preparing you for premature decay. It would have been far better for you had you never gone to ——. Your stay there injured you. You dwelt upon your infirmities, and mingled in society which was corrupting in its influence. Miss C was a corrupt, evil-minded woman. Her association with yourself increased the evil which was already upon you.325 “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” At the present time your condition is not acceptable in the sight of God; yet you imagine that you have no desire to live. But should you be taken at your expressed wish, and your life cease, your case would be hopeless indeed. You are neither prepared for this world nor the next.

You imagine that you cannot walk, or ride, or even exercise, and you settle into a cold, dead apathy. You are a grief and anxiety to your indulgent parents, and no comfort to yourself. You can rally, you can work, you can shake off this terrible indifference. Your mother needs your aid; your father needs the comfort you can give him; your brothers need a kindly care from their elder sister; your sisters need your instruction. But here you sit upon the stool of indolence, dreaming of unrequited love. For your own soul’s sake, have done with this folly. Read your Bible as you have never read it before. Engage in home duties, and lighten the cares of your over-burdened, over-worked parents. You may not be able to do a great amount at first, but every day increase the task you set yourself. This is the surest remedy for a diseased mind and an abused body.

If you possess earnestness and steadiness of purpose, your mind will come back, in a degree, to dwelling upon more healthful, pure subjects. Self-indulgence has degenerated by degrees into such a wantonness of will as knows not how to please itself. Instead of regulating your actions by reason and principle, you suffer yourself to be guided by every slight and momentary impulse, which makes you appear variable and inconstant. It is vain for others to seek to please you, for you could not please yourself, even if all your wishes were indulged. You are a capricious child, and have become sick of yourself through very selfishness.

This wretched state is the result of unwise sympathy326 and flattery. You have had a very good mind, but it has become unbalanced by being directed in a wrong channel. You now amount to little else than a blank in society. This need not be. You can do for yourself that which no one else can do for you. You have duties to perform. But you have so long yielded to a helpless condition that you imagine you cannot do. The will is at fault; you have the power, but not the will.

You are pining for love. Jesus calls for your affections; if you will devote them to him, he will rid you of all this sickly, sentimental, impure love, found in the pages of a novel. In Jesus you may love with fervor, with earnestness. This love may increase in depth and expand without limit, and not endanger health of body or strength of mind. You need love to God and to your neighbor. You must awake, you must shake off this deception which is upon you, and seek pure love.

Your only hope of this life and the better life is to seek earnestly for the true religion of Jesus. You have not a religious experience. You need to be converted. Your listless, indolent, selfish sadness will then give place to cheerfulness, which will be beneficial to body and mind. Love to God will insure love to your neighbor, and you will engage in the duties of life with a deep, unselfish interest. Pure principles should underlie your actions. Inward peace will bring even your thoughts into a healthful channel. Devote yourself to God, or you will never gain the better life.

You have duties to perform to your parents. You should not be discouraged if you become weary at first. It will not prove a lasting injury. Your parents frequently become exceedingly weary. It will not be half so injurious to you to become very weary in useful labor, as for your mind to be dwelling upon yourself, fostering ailments and yielding to despondency. A faithful fulfillment of home327 duties, filling the position you can occupy to the best advantage, be it ever so simple and humble, is truly elevating. This divine influence is needed. In this there is peace and sacred joy. It possesses healing power. It will secretly and insensibly soothe the wounds of the soul, and even the sufferings of the body. Peace of mind, which comes from pure and holy motives and actions, will give free and vigorous spring to all the organs of the body.

Inward peace and a conscience void of offense toward God, will quicken and invigorate the intellect, like dew distilled upon the tender plants. The will is then rightly directed and controlled, and is more decided, and yet free from perverseness. The meditations are pleasing because they are sanctified. The serenity of mind which you may possess, will bless all with whom you associate. This peace and calmness will, in time, become natural, and will reflect its precious rays upon all around you, to be again reflected upon you. The more you taste this heavenly peace and quietude of mind, the more it will increase. It is an animated, living pleasure which does not throw all the moral energies into a stupor, but awakens them to increased activity. Perfect peace is an attribute of Heaven which angels possess. May God help you to become a possessor of this peace.

Continue reading: DUTY TO ORPHANS.