DEAR BRO. WHITE :—I received your kind letter a day or two since, and with pleasure comply with your reasonable request in letting the Church know through the Review, my present condition and position as nearly as I may be capable of judging in the matter. I will use as a figure by which to represent my outward man, an old and nearly-worn-out piece of mechanism, not fit for service until much repaired.
The ague and fever with which I was so severely attacked last June at Rochester, stayed fast by me (though in a milder form than at first) until Aug. 29th. The disease so prostrated me that I could labor neither in word nor doctrine, manually nor mentally. The weakness of my eyes has not permitted me to read more than a few verses per day, and some of the time not any without sensibly injuring my eyes. Since about the first of Sept. I have gained strength of eyes, body and mind slowly. According to the promise I lacked no good things kind friends could afford me, during my illness. I found the promise of Jesus [Mark x, 30] verified to me. I have found a "hundred fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers," (in Israel.) I thank God for giving me so many good friends, and hope ever to remember with grateful feelings the kind acts of those dear brethren and sisters who so faithfully and freely administered to my necessities while in affliction. May the Lord grant them a reward in his kingdom, is my prayer, for I cannot reward them.
I have often said within myself, as did David, [Ps. cxix, 71,] "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." Again it is said, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word." I thank God for the peace of mind, patience, and reconciliation he has given to me during the trials of the past eight months. "Tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed." Rom. v, 4, 5. I thank God for tribulation, patience, experience and hope.
My chronic disease catarrh and cough, is quite sore upon me; yet I trust in God that I shall recover strength to labor in his vineyard. During two weeks past I made a short circuit among the saints to try my health and strength. I find myself not able to speak publicly more than once or twice a week without much injury to my health. I earnestly desire to do good in the cause of Christ, and labor more successfully than I ever have in the whitening harvest.
I humbly crave the prayers of the Church that I may recover strength to help swell the loud cry of the third angel's message.
My position is as it has been for the last five years, with this variation; viz., a great increase of light on the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. When I speak or write in vindication of present truth, my heart burns with love to God and his people, and I feel strengthened to plod my way on through tribulation deep toward the promised inheritance, to that rest for which we now labor. I feel firmly fixed and rooted in keeping God's moral law and the sayings of his Son Jesus. I trust I am growing slowly in grace and in the knowledge of the truth, and am occasionally winning by faith in Christ, new victories over new developments of the carnal mind, and am striving to keep my body and spirit in subjection to the Father of spirits, "lest after having preached to others I should become a cast-away." Since I left Rochester, I have called on the brethren in Cayuga, Oswego, Jefferson, Oneida, Onondaga, Madison, and Chenango counties, and find them holding on their way, and some of them growing stronger and stronger. I have seen a few through the Summer and Fall who are falling in love with the doctrine of the Bible; embracing the light of present revealed truth.
Dear Brother, by what I learn from the Review and otherwise, I conclude that a few who were formerly with us are now gone out from us. I have been grieved in hearing of the course and position of some in the vicinity of Rochester and in Michigan, who are speaking evil of those who have in faithfulness reproved them for their faults. I have no sympathy or union with the course, views, feelings, and spirit of those disaffected members, who have been disfellowshipped by the Church, and noticed in the Review. My heart and life are wrapped up in the truths of the message of the third angel. My spirit is in union with the spirit of those who have labored, toiled and struggled through trial, conflict deep and sore, and discouragements, during eight or nine years past, in the dark and cloudy day, in search of here and there a scattered sheep, to bring them to the fold of Christ, and place them by the standard and under the banner of the angel of God's presence. Here, I pause and weep, as I reflect upon what God has done by his servants in establishing his Church again upon the rock. My heart is knit with those faithful laborers, on whom the Lord has laid much of the burden of his work and cause. My prayer is that the gracious Lord may greatly bless with his holy Spirit, to strengthen and prosper those who have the charge, under God, of the Review, and those who write for its columns. The Lord helping me, I will try to meet you, Bro. and Sr. White, in the holy City, to dwell with you and all the pure hearted saints forever in the holy land.