Harper, Walter
“Elmshaven,” St. Helena, California
July 1903
Portions of this letter are published in AH 378.
Mr. Walter Harper
My dear Brother,—
The cases of you and of your wife have been presented to me. Your wife is a Christian woman who is conscientiously trying to follow the way of the Lord. This way is not always your way, and therefore she and you do not always agree. You have an idea that the mind of your wife should be centered upon you and that she should obey your dictates. Your conduct toward her is more like that of a harsh schoolmaster toward his pupils than that of a husband toward his wife. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 1
My brother, if this is your idea of what married life should be, you need to be converted. Your wife is not happy. She is fully as capable of understanding her duty as you are of understanding your duty. You make her very unhappy by trying to bring her to your ideas and plans. She has a right to expect you to allow her a certain sum to use as her own. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 2
Your wife is right in thinking that she owes her mother and her grandfather a duty. You have married into the family, and you should act the part of a son toward your wife’s mother. It is far more important that with kindness and courtesy you fulfil the duties which you owe to those connected with you than that you acquire means. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 3
When your wife married you, she thought that there would be harmony between you and her mother, and she thought also that you would help her a little in caring for her mother. This she had a right to expect. When you took your wife from her mother, you should have felt the responsibility resting on you of trying to make up to the family, in some degree, for their loss. And you should have felt it a great blessing to be acknowledged as a son and brother. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 4
I want you to look at this matter as if viewing the whole presentation in a mirror. And I want you to give the right measurement to all things. Were your mother alive, would you be pleased to have your wife treat her as you have treated your wife’s mother? You have seemed to think that in marrying your wife, you did her marked honor and that, to please you, she should cut loose from every tie of nature. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 5
I know of no other woman who would have submitted as passively as your wife has to the restrictions you have made. You act as if you thought that your wife, because she has married you, must crucify all natural affections. She never thought that matters would reach the climax that they have. She has excellent capabilities and a loving, generous nature; and when her husband makes terms that would keep her away from her mother, how can she consent to obey him. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 6
I write you this because you are confirming people in the belief that you wish to separate your wife entirely from her relatives. You have certainly acted very strangely. The way in which you treat your wife and her mother is a great humiliation to her and is sapping her courage. She will soon see that one or the other must be given up. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 7
You are not, my brother, well balanced in character. Had you not made self the center, had you shown your wife that you appreciated her, both you and she would have been much happier. You need to change on many points and come into line. While you have been working so hard to make others follow your ideas, you have been destroying your wife’s love for you. Your determination to keep her away from her mother has forced her to decide that her mother, thrown on her own resources, and with no relatives near who could help, must not be left without her daughter’s presence. That mother may be and is defective in some respects. So are you, only more decidedly so. The Lord has not removed His love from your mother-in-law because she is not faultless. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 8
God wants you to see how utterly alone your wife has been left, to brood over her troubles, and to long to help her mother, to act toward her a daughter’s part. I wonder greatly, as I view the representation, how your wife has endured the humiliation so long. She is your wife, and yet she has had no place that she could call home. That every married woman should have. But instead of giving your wife a home, you have taken her into other families, and have laid out your money in buying presents for those with whom you were staying. Your wife has been keenly humiliated by this. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 9
In the purchase of gifts for your wife and others, you have shown a lack of judgment. In all such matters, it would be well for you to counsel with your wife. She would be wise in the outlay of means where you would be foolish. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 10
You should allow your wife a certain sum weekly and should let her do what she pleases with this money. You have not given her opportunity to exercise her tact or her taste, because you have not a proper realization of the position that a wife should occupy. Your wife has an excellent and a well-balanced mind. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 11
Had you in the past followed the proper course, the fibers of your wife’s spiritual nature would have been strengthened. There would have been developed in her a nobility of character that would have removed some very objectionable features in your character. You would have seen that your religious experience is much less well balanced than hers, and that you need a purified experience, else no woman could consent to live with you. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 12
I tell you the truth. You do not know how disagreeable you have made things for your wife. I talk to you as I would talk to my own son were he in your place. Will you not try to be wiser? What do you suppose your wife married you for?—To be trained by you, and dictated to, and compelled to obey your wishes? When you were persuading her to unite with you in marriage, you showed a spirit very different from the arbitrary spirit that now so severely taxes her integrity and her strength of principle. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 13
If you refuse to make a decided and entire change, and drive your wife into an unbalanced condition of mind, it will be at the loss of her soul. You need purification of heart. You need a deeper insight into your own life. Consider how you would like to live always with some one the exact counterpart of yourself. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 14
As things now stand, I cannot urge your wife to change. It is Walter Harper who needs to change. I want you to see how disagreeable some of your traits of character are. I want you to bring your words, your manners, your habits, into conformity to the will of Christ. Go to work and discipline yourself. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and He will take away your disagreeable traits of character, and will give you supreme love for Him and a pure, unselfish love for your fellow beings. With this experience, you could not take the position that you have taken in regard to your wife’s mother, and you would not dare to talk to your wife as you have talked. 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 15
May God help you to be pure, noble, and straightforward, firm for the right, but not stubborn for the wrong. Indignity and abuse were heaped upon Christ, but His prayer was, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” [Luke 23:34.] 19LtMs, Lt 47, 1904, par. 16