Testimony Treasures, Volume 1 - Ellen G. White

have not confidence in you. Satan often presents the past before you and tells
you that it is of no use for you to try to live out the truth, the way is too strait
for you. You have been overcome; now Satan takes advantage of your sinful
course to make you believe that you are past redemption.
You are on Satan's battlefield engaged in a severe conflict. The barrier
which is thrown around every family circle, and which makes it sacred, you
have broken down. And now Satan harasses you almost constantly. You are
not at rest. You are not at peace, and you seek to make your brethren
responsible for your conflicting feelings and doubts and jealousies; you feel
that they are at fault, that they do not give you attention. The trouble is with
yourself. You want your own way, and do not rend your heart before God,
and with brokenness and contrition cast yourself all broken, sinful, and
polluted, upon His mercy. Your efforts to save yourself, if persisted in, will
result in your certain ruin.
Cease your jealousies and your faultfinding. Turn your attention to your
own case and by humble repentance, relying alone upon the blood of Christ,
save your own soul. Make thorough work for eternity. If you turn from the
truth you are a ruined man, your family is ruined. After the fortifications
preserving sacred the privacy and privileges of the family relation have been
once broken down, it is difficult to build them up; but in the strength of God,
and in His strength alone, you can do this. Truth, sacred truth, is your anchor,
which will save you from drifting in the downward current to crime and
destruction.
A conscience once violated is greatly weakened. It needs the strength of
constant watchfulness and unceasing prayer. You are standing in a slippery
place. You need all the strength that the truth can give to fortify you and save
you from making entire shipwreck. Life and death are before you; which will
you choose? Had you seen the necessity of being firmly settled upon
principle, not moving from impulse, and not being easily discouraged, but
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