Van Horn, Brother and Sister
NP
Circa. 1878
Previously unpublished.
Brother and Sister Van Horn:
My dear children, ever near and dear to me. It is with pain I now address you. The neglected work in this conference has been shown me, and I was shown that you both have no real sense of your neglect of duty, when the work has been sadly left at loose ends. The people have not been educated and disciplined as they should have been. They need to be instructed. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 1
Adelia had an important part to act in this matter, but she had too many fears and too little trust in God. Her mind and thoughts were centered upon herself. She was having a new experience which she can now make of account if she places herself in a position where she could put that experience to use. But with her present burdens she has separated herself almost entirely from the cause and work of God. And now you are both hampered; there is a continual drawback to Isaac, and Adelia is lost to the cause of God in the cares of a helpless family. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 2
Do you really understand the situation? Did you count the cost? Did you consider that it is far better to be childless in these days of wickedness and peril than to have children to suffer with the parents? I have been shown that most of the rising generation will be swept off by death prior to the time of trouble. Some will live, but most children of believing and unbelieving parents will be spared the day of trial for God’s people. Could you have looked at these things aright you would have both entered the field as workers for God. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 3
Adelia, God would have used you to be a co-laborer with Him, but you have made this next to impossible by your own plans. You are naturally fearful—borrowing trouble and anticipating want—and your talents which should be used to the glory of God in making plain the way of salvation to others have been tied up and buried. You are now situated where your active mind has not compass to expend its strength, and it will be used in conjuring up difficulties, anticipating troubles, and imagining neglect from your husband, unless you now consecrate yourself to God. When real necessity comes, and your husband has to give his mind to nursing you and the children, he can do it. But it is not the work to which God has called him. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 4
You have led him astray in these first steps, and God’s cause has to feel the result of this course. He sees doubts and suspicions in your mind—a sort of jealousy that he does not have sufficient thought and care for yourself and for your children. There is not in your nature a spirit of courage and bravery. There is a constant timidity and worriment and care that are against you which you must labor to overcome—for your good and the good of your children. You will have many fears and be constantly guarding your children and weaving into their young lives a timidity and fear and effeminacy that lead them to feel that there is no safety for them anywhere, but close by your side. This brings on you a great burden and will make your children greatly deficient and very helpless, so that they will always be a great care. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 5
Your constantly charging them, constantly warning them of danger, is the worst thing you can do for them, both physically and mentally. You are planning, in the education of your children, to lead them to hang to you and to be a great care. All this burden and all this care devoted to the bringing of sons and daughters to Jesus was the work God gave you, which you did not accept. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 6
Adelia, you belonged to God. Your husband belonged to God. He called for all your powers, and you have chosen a course of your own. In doing this you have taken yourself out of the field and to a very great extent taken your husband out of the field. Your feelings and your reflections upon him are not right or reasonable. They are the revealings of a mind not at peace with God, a heart not consecrated to His service. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 7
Adelia has become weary in holding herself upon the altar of God as not her own, as bought with a price—ransomed from the thralldom of sin and the power of Satan and now God’s property, not to dispose of her time and her abilities as she may choose, but in a manner which will serve His cause the best. When Adelia suffers pain, she is exceedingly sensitive. She imagines herself much worse off than she is, and she anticipates the worst. She cannot endure what many can. She does not have the faculty of accommodating herself to circumstances. The things which others would feel that they could do, and would do, she does not do because she has not educated and set herself to do. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 8
Ways may be provided whereby she can release her husband, but she does not see everything pleasant in stepping in these ways and letting her husband go free. He feels a depression of spirit that there is unreconciliation for him to be away from his home. There is a constant influence drawing him from his work and labor in the vineyard of the Lord. He is not one that bears these discouragements and feels brave and cheerful and strong under them, unless he schools himself to this phase in his married life. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 9
Adelia, take off that constant pressure of reflection. Cease your worriment, your anxious care, and trust in God. Do not feel so fearful in regard to means. Exercise faith and trust in God. Away with your repining and censuring. Put away your selfishness. Let your faith strengthen by talking faith and exercising faith. In dwelling on your prospects for the future with an unbelieving, complaining spirit, you think wrong, you imagine wrong, you think wrong of your husband. Your mind has not been making the best of your situation, and you have felt that it was unbearable to be left with all the cares and burdens and liabilities of so helpless a little flock; that it was indeed hard and cruel. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 10
The enemy has had considerable control of your mind and worked it up almost to the verge of insanity. God did not give you this burden. You have chosen unitedly to fill your arms with burdens God has not designed you should have. And now for you to center your minds and thoughts on these cares and make them first, absorbing your entire thought, making them your world, is all wrong. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 11
God designed you to stand by the side of your husband. He failed to educate himself wherein he was deficient. With your financial ability, your discriminating powers, you would have supplied his lack. You would have given him courage, and together you would have been a perfect whole. It was your unbelief, Adelia, which has caused you to pursue the course you have. There is such a selfishness with you that whatever belongs to you absorbs your whole being. Is there any reason why your voice should not be heard in the assembly of the saints? You feel that your children are a sufficient excuse for you to say and do nothing in the cause of God. Satan thought so too and devised the plan to take you from the field and withdraw your husband and leave the perishing flock and poor sinners to go to ruin. Is this the spirit of Christ? You have both been greatly blinded by the enemy or you would not be today in the situation you are in. The hopeless state of things as far as the labors of both of you are concerned has made my heart ache. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 12
Adelia’s peculiar turn of mind is such she educates her children to be helpless and to require constant care. Now she sees that the burdens she has lifted herself will require much labor, and the enemy suggests to her that duty does not call in two ways at once. Her family now requires all that there is of her. But who gave you this work? What doest thou here, Elijah? This solemn time, so near the judgment, on the very borders of the eternal world, is the very time when those whom God calls to a special work, if they have wives, should be as though they had none. Trouble and afflictions are coming to our world, anguish and distress upon every soul. Men’s hearts will be failing for fear and for looking after those things that are coming upon the earth. While in this solemn time you should be wide-awake, earnest, giving your whole souls to the work in warning the world, you are veering from it, divorcing your interests and hearts from it by accumulating your domestic cares. You are both serving tables. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 13
In the place of bringing to God sons and daughters whom Satan is trying to destroy by his devices, you are raising up a little family of children requiring time, care, and attention. I tell you, God is not pleased with this work. You have placed yourselves in a position of almost uselessness. Isaac has that sluggish temperament that he needs someone to urge him out, and in the place of this you have hindered him. You have felt that you should have his time to help you take care of his and your children. He labors under a feeling that you are not satisfied, that you feel he neglects you. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 14
Every interest in this field has been treated badly. He would in his labors get the people up to a high state of interest, then his dallying traits of character would lead him not to make the most of the interest and come to a sharp decision at the right time, but let it dwindle down, down, and by unwise management he would secure less than one half what he might have secured had he the help of his wife by his side—she, with her sharp discrimination, using the abilities God has given her as well as her husband’s using the abilities God has given him. His wife should have been entirely free to unite her labors with her husband, consecrating herself fully to the work. God required this, but Satan has defeated it. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 15
In Salem the numbers might have been double if Elder Van Horn had been zealous and earnest and not slow in visiting from house to house. The golden moment passed, never to return. Then after some have come out into the truth, they have been left to have but little care, to languish and die. Great discouragements have been brought upon the cause of God. And in the present state of Elder Van Horn’s family, whatever he may be doing, however important the work, he is liable to be called from it at any time to have a care for his helpless family, the ailments of children, or the overburdened wife. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 16
I have wept over the state of things here. I have been in an agony over them, but neither of you senses them. I am sure of that. God called for the result of your united labors, but did not have them. God speaks of some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He refers to those who keep His Sabbath. He says they shall have a name and place in His house better than that of sons and of daughters. I tell you, men and women have no idea of self-denial, of consecration to the work and cause of God. Their own plans look right in their own eyes. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 17
Adelia, you have a burden upon you now that you need not have had. You will now, if you follow your own course as you have been doing, be swallowed up in your own little family, making that your all in this life, centering all your soul upon them. You will not accept of help unless it shall in every sense meet your mind. God in His providence has opened ways for you which you did not accept. You let your own feelings control instead of feeling that you would place yourself in any position if you could by so doing the better free your husband and yourself, and place yourselves where you could glorify God. You want to make your own way and please yourself, and have not studied the cause of God—its want, its distressing condition. As Isaac has tried—half-paralyzed as he has been—to do something, you have felt, oh, so unreconciled. You felt the need of help and you have allowed yourself to imagine many wrong things of him. You have separated your confidence from your husband. He has not given his heart as much to home duties because he has felt he was not where God has placed him. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 18
I feel sad indeed over this state of things, where a portion of the work—such as the tithing system—is neglected, where the narrowest calculations are made, and care is taken to not touch the means of the people. Where the straight, close work essential to be done is neglected by a minister, the Lord will—after testing and proving him—remove him and let another come in his place. And then will come the trial to the people. If he does thorough work for God, he will be sure to offend some, and a contrast will continually be drawn between his manner of labor and the one who neglected his work and did not build up the interest of the cause of God. If he had the thorough and hearty co-operation of the people professing the truth to help him in his faithful efforts to do something to advance the cause, then an ingathering of souls might be expected; but he bears to them unpalatable truth, he seeks to take up the neglected work, he has most earnest appeals to make, and it hurts the money-loving hearts. They would be better satisfied to let matters be as they were—narrow and dying. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 19
When the complaints came to you from some of the brethren in Washington territory or Upper Oregon that Elder Loughborough took undue advantage of them at the time they pledged, all that murmuring was not against the man Loughborough, but against the Holy Spirit of God which flooded the room where they were assembled. You unwisely sympathized with them, for selfishness came in. You thought all the means should be kept in your own conference and your own self would be affected by this movement. God was displeased with your course. Your privations, your supposed wants, were imaginary, and you are guilty alike with the complaining ones. If you had exercised wisdom, you would have labored earnestly to show them the peril of their position, but you were not right and you were all wrong together, and God was displeased with you all. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 20
There is great need of your seeing these things, for you have felt that you were left to want, but you deceive your own soul. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by your murmuring when the people are receiving your mold in the place of the mold of the Spirit of God. You have had the sympathy of your brethren. You will always have it too much for your good, and their good, unless there is a decided reform in your manner of laboring. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 21
The course you have entered upon, if pursued, will finally result in your both being of no decided advantage to the cause of God. As you have been shaping your course in accumulating cares and family perplexities, the interest for the cause of God and the burden for souls has been gradually and almost imperceptibly lessening upon you. Everything considered, I was shown in your course of action that it would have been much better for the cause of truth in these almost new fields if you had never entered them. You both obtained the confidence and love of the people. Elder Van Horn was empowered to act as their president and the neglect of magnifying your office has been so marked as far as the working part of it is concerned that the marks of your undone duty are seen in almost every branch of the work. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 22
Could some one have taken the field when you did, and worked with persevering and untiring earnestness, becoming better and more thoroughly qualified for the work by years of experience, improving their opportunities and enlarging their capacities, having high motives and working with increased capacity and devotion to keep up all parts of the work, there would be now a large army of educated, well-disciplined soldiers in the army of the Lord, with the power of their influence to extend to others in darkness. Everything has been turned aside from its true course as God designed. Satan has been at work gradually to change the current of events, of causes and results, until a condition of things exists in the cause of God which will require more labor and hard work to bring things up on a true basis, in working order, than had they been taken in the first place by one who made the interest of God’s cause paramount to every other interest, and worked as Christ worked—unselfishly, self-sacrificingly, losing self and self-interest in devotion to the cause and work of God. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 23
This field is no harder than many other fields from which are gathered a precious harvest of sheaves. Every field, when the seed of truth is sown, is necessarily hard, because moral power is so weak, darkness and iniquity prevail to a fearful extent. If men labor as ministers, ordinarily they have seen the fruits of their labor. Intellect is not sufficient. God will hold the individual members of that church responsible, for the distracted, discouraged state of the church is dishonoring to the most sacred truth that was ever committed to man. There is no excuse for them, for Jesus has opened to every one a way, that he may have wisdom, grace, and power if he is not too indolent and too ease-loving and world-loving to seek it. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 24
Jesus is our example in all things, and nothing should divert the mind from the main aim and object in life, which is to have Christ in the soul, melting and subduing the heart, making every member of the church, every individual professor of the truth, Christlike in character, in words, in actions. Some have denied the precious truth in their assimilating to the world the very ones who have been channels of light, whose hearts have been made glad by the precious light of truth, but have lost their power and self-denial and self-sacrifice for the truth’s sake, and have been depending upon broken cisterns for happiness. These are in great peril, because the light of truth has once shown upon them, and they rejoiced in its beams, they walked in its light. And unless they speedily gather up the rays of light and return to the Lord with repentance and confession, they will be left in darkness. The Lord will move the candlestick out of its place. We are in a day of peril, when error, deception, and delusion are captivating the world. Who are to warn them, who are to show them the better way, unless those who have had the light of truth shall keep their souls sanctified through the truth and shall let their light so shine before the world that in seeing their good works they will glorify God. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 25
I wish I could impress upon you all your danger of losing heaven unless you will see and sense your responsibilities. Joining the church is one thing and connecting with Jesus Christ is quite another thing. Not all the names registered in the church books are registered in the Lamb’s book of life. The reason many apparently sincere believers are not happy and make such hard work of serving God is that they do not keep up a living connection with Jesus Christ by earnest prayer and constant watchfulness. They are formal; the inner work of grace in the heart is not sought for or enjoyed. The Master has not the service of the members of the church. They enlisted, they entered their names on the record, but failed to knit their souls to the dear Savior. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 26
Individually we may feel that we are bound by sacred vows strictly to guard the interest of the cause of God and of the church. But your brethren are fallible fellow creatures like yourself. Their mistakes and errors and failings are to be regarded with mercy and forbearance, as you wish them to regard you with your defects of character. Your brethren should not be watched and spied upon and then their defects eagerly grasped and paraded to the front, exhibited to the world for them to exult over. And while you who dare to do this work have climbed upon the judgment seat and constituted yourselves judges, you have neglected the garden of your own hearts, and pernicious weeds are obtaining a rank growth. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 27
“With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged.” [Matthew 7:2.] We each have an individual case pending at the court of heaven. Your character is being weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, and it should be your earnest desire to walk humbly before God, being distrustful of yourself, jealous of yourself lest you fail to let your light shine forth to others, jealous lest you fail of the grace of God and lose everything that is of value. All dissension, all faultfinding and differences should be put away, with all evil speaking and bitterness; and kindness, love, compassion for one another should be cherished, that the prayer of Christ may be answered that His disciples may be one as He was one with the Father, “that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” [John 17:21.] 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 28
These are the credentials we present to the world in our harmony and unity, that God has sent His Son and that Jesus is the Son of God. Genuine conversion will ever lead to genuine love for Jesus and for all those who love Him and for those for whom He died. The heart that joins the heart of Christ, the life knit by hidden links to Jesus Christ, will be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. This faith will increase and grow stronger, just in accordance with your course. 3LtMs, Lt 51a, 1878, par. 29