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Manuscripts and Memories of Minneapolis - Contents
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    G. I. Butler to E. G. White, Dec. 28, 1886

    [Selection begins on p. 3 of letter.]

    Never before that we shall see a work done in Michigan. There are some faithful souls yet here who will do all they can to help the work onward. I must mention one thing that will encourage your heart. And that is concerning your nephew Frank Belden. I tell you the Lord has done a great work for him, and I believe that he is one of the most earnest devoted young men we have, and he is a man of no small ability, he has a clear head on him. I think he knows what it is to be converted. He talks the best I have heard for a long time in the meetings. His testimonies are so broken and seem to have the spirit of God in them. It is wonderful how the Lord has helped him in the last year or so. I never believed that there was so much in that poor pale little boy that used to be around. We can’t tell what the Lord will do for people when they give themselves to him. His heart is as tender as a child’s. When he gets up to speak his broken accents show that the Lord is working for him to me. Yet he is one of the most stirring workers we have. He has been appointed state agent for Michigan.MMM 45.1

    Your last letter I did not answer as fully as I should on some of the point is though I made some reply to it last week. I thought after I read it over the second time that you felt that on this side of the mountains we were indifferent to the circulation of Vol. 4 because it was printed in the Signs office. Now, I cannot read people’s hearts but I try to read my own, and I must say that I am not conscious of any such feelings. I have tried to deal with perfect impartiality in any of these things. I have tried to place every thing on its proper basis. I have talked four times as much and written four times as much the last year in favor of the circulation the Signs and the publications that they get out as I have for the Review. I think that I have made a mistake in this, and carried the matter too far. I have talked strongly in behalf of the Sentinel and Signs, and have said but very little in favor of the Sickle or Review, and I am not aware that many of our brethren here dislike or are not interested in Vol. 4 because it is printed in the Signs office. Truly I cannot see that it is so Sister White. I have always plead for its circulation, feeling that it was one of the most blessed books on the earth, and I always expect to do the same. You mention two or three instances. How these are I know not, but I know this as I think I stated in my previous letter that the circulation of Vol. 4 is three or four times as great as that of the Thoughts on Daniel and Revelation, and this seems to me to demonstrate the fact that this prejudice cannot be very strong for I am certain that the largest proportion of these were not sold on the other side of the mountains. Indeed I know of conference after conference where they sell Vol. four and do not the Thoughts. This is not so in every conference but it is true in a great many of them.MMM 45.2

    But it seems to me that this is an important book, containing really the points of our faith, and I think should be circulated as extensively as the other. And I will make bold to say one thing further which very likely you will not agree with, unless I utterly misread the status, there is twice as much sectional feeling in regard to their own publications on the pacific coast as there is in this part of the country. And nothing short of a testimony from heaven would change my mind on this point either. For I have tried to look the matter over candidly, and in the best of feelings toward all, I feel kindly toward all of my brethren, but I am constrained to believe that is the truth. The course that the Signs has taken in regard to publishing things that were opposed to the principles of our faith, disputed points etc. has injured its influence, and it will be very hard to ever get our brethren many of them to feel that interest in it that they have in the past. This I greatly regret but I know not how to help it. If there is any thing in this world that I have tried hard to do in this work it has been to maintain a spirit of union in all parts of this work that all branches of the cause may prosper equally. Of course I am a poor erring mortal and liable to make mistakes, and may be deceived in this, but this is the way that things appear to me and I might as well perhaps express my mind concerning these things as there has been more or less said about them for the last two or three years, and I would beg pardon for mention them only that they have come up and I saw no better way to do. I trust that it will not hurt your feelings or make me less kindly regarded. I know, Sister White, that you have no personal or sectional feelings, and that you have always been interested in the work everywhere. I never have questioned your feelings on this point. The cause to you is one, but I cannot say the same of all who have acted a leading part in the work without doing violence to my convictions. I shall try the best I can to deal fairly, and ever exercise a kind and generous spirit towards all my brethren in the work, and be faithful and true to every call of duty.MMM 45.3

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