Spalding and Magan's Unpublished Manuscript Testimonies - Ellen G. White

their affliction and keep yourselves unspotted from
the world."
This worldly policy has wrestled for the victory
among Seventh-day Adventists, and the principles
which should have been kept pure and
unadulterated have been overcome, and selfishness
has come into the very courts of the Lord. The
Lord has permitted those who did not love the
light, who departed from a plain "Thus saith the
Lord," to walk in the sparks of the fire of their own
kindling; but he says, "They shall lie down in
sorrow."
This condition of things has been created in our
conference and churches under a religious cloak
which existed in the world. Confederacies have
been formed to make their showing stand out as
superior, and they have gained the name of having
done a large work in their responsible positions of
trust. They flatter themselves that they were doing
God service when they were establishing principles
of robbery. They were depriving their brethren of
their rights in gathering everything in the book line
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