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

to the most solemn, impressive discourses upon the
judgment, which seemed to bring them before the
tribunal of God, causing them to fear and quake;
yet hardly an hour would elapse before they would
be engaged in their favorite, bewitching sin,
polluting their own bodies. They were such slaves
to this awful crime that they seemed devoid of
power to control their passions. We have labored
for some earnestly, we have entreated, we have
wept and prayed over them; yet we have known
that right amid all our earnest effort and distress the
force of sinful habit has obtained the mastery, and
these sins have been committed.
Through severe attacks of sickness or by
powerful conviction the consciences of some of the
guilty have been aroused and have so scourged
them that it has led to confession of these things
with deep humiliation. Others are equally guilty.
They have practiced this sin nearly their whole
lifetime and, in their broken-down constitutions
and sievelike memories, are reaping the result of
this pernicious habit; yet they are too proud to
confess. They are secretive, and have not shown
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