Testimonies for the Church, Volume 2 - Ellen G. White

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
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