In this letter Mrs. White references his vulnerability to his feelings, as well as his failure to cut off evil associates.
"You asked me whether it would be wrong for you to associate with a young man who was an unbeliever. Should you disconnect from his company? Now, my brother, you know perfectly well whether the influence of that young man is more to your disadvantage than your influence is to his advantage. You should not be a child in the knowledge of these things." {Lt 47, 1887, par. 2}
"I proposed your going to England, hoping that it would be a real advantage to you spiritually, but it proved to be a source of temptation. Your soul was all open to Satan’s devices. A spirit of flirtation was commenced there which has been to you a great detriment and a means of spiritual weakness. You do not have determination of purpose and firm power of will to be a man in the sight of God, a man of faith, a man growing constantly in experience, according to the light that shines upon you. You are seeking to drink at turbid streams and to forsake the fountain of living water. You are constantly reaching out for sympathy, and wanting to be propped up by human aids, but even here you do not obtain that help which you might have if you would place yourself in connection with those who could help you, who have strength of character and experience. You do not seem to want this kind of society, but you want that kind of society that can give you no wisdom, but who need help as much as yourself in moral power. The Lord is willing to be gracious to you if you will only come where He can help you." {Lt 47, 1887, par. 3}
"You have but one course before you, and that is to give up every sinful habit and practice; for if you regard iniquity in your heart, the Lord will not hear your prayers, and He cannot impart to you strength. You can be no help to the cause of God as far as your influence is concerned. Unless your heart is in the work, you had better be separated from it, for your influence while molded by the influence of those you choose will be detrimental. It cannot elevate, ennoble, refine anyone who has connection with you." {Lt 47, 1887, par. 9}
"I tell you, my brother, Satan’s snares have been set for your soul, and you are not making determined efforts to break his power, but you submit and are controlled without making scarcely an effort to resist him. Jesus will never leave you alone in your soul struggles. But you must choose different associates. You must stand fully and decidedly under the banner of Jesus Christ. You must make an entire surrender to God. Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" {Lt 47, 1887, par. 12}
Basel, Switzerland
May 7, 1887
Previously unpublished.
Brother Frey:
I have been hoping to see you occupying ere this a far different position spiritually than you now do, but I know that you do not see your dangers and realize your situation. You do not follow the light that God has given you. You do not heed good counsel and advice. I know that you cannot grow spiritually until you make more decided, determined, persevering efforts yourself. You do not seem inclined to come up to a higher, holier standard, and you will be ever wanting in spiritual knowledge and strength, to be indeed a true child of God until you meet the requirements of God in His Word. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 1}
You asked me whether it would be wrong for you to associate with a young man who was an unbeliever. Should you disconnect from his company? Now, my brother, you know perfectly well whether the influence of that young man is more to your disadvantage than your influence is to his advantage. You should not be a child in the knowledge of these things. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 2}
I proposed your going to England, hoping that it would be a real advantage to you spiritually, but it proved to be a source of temptation. Your soul was all open to Satan’s devices. A spirit of flirtation was commenced there which has been to you a great detriment and a means of spiritual weakness. You do not have determination of purpose and firm power of will to be a man in the sight of God, a man of faith, a man growing constantly in experience, according to the light that shines upon you. You are seeking to drink at turbid streams and to forsake the fountain of living water. You are constantly reaching out for sympathy, and wanting to be propped up by human aids, but even here you do not obtain that help which you might have if you would place yourself in connection with those who could help you, who have strength of character and experience. You do not seem to want this kind of society, but you want that kind of society that can give you no wisdom, but who need help as much as yourself in moral power. The Lord is willing to be gracious to you if you will only come where He can help you. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 3}
You have an experience to gain, and you are very slow in obtaining that experience which will be of any value to you. You have not placed yourself in the society of those who could help you, but rather you have chosen to be with those who would hinder you. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 4}
Now in regard to the young man of whom you spoke. You said you thought you might do him good. I ask you, “Are you doing him good?” You will either be a messenger of mercy to him, showing forth in your conversation and deportment the grace of Christ and the beauty of a truly reformed character, giving evidence of true heart work, or you will be just as surely imbibing his spirit, engaging in evil practices with him, and he will be molding you through this association while you are not doing him any good, or uplifting or reforming him. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 5}
I view your case as a very dangerous one for the reason that you do not in your very heart love purity and holiness, and do not distinguish between the common and the sacred. You would not, should your life close as it is, ever be an inhabitant of heaven, because you have not clean hands and a pure heart. You do not set your powers and capabilities to work, to live and walk in the light God has given you. You are not united to the Living Vine. You are not bearing fruit to the glory of God. Said Christ, “It is My Father’s good pleasure that ye bear much fruit.” [John 15:8.] While you remain in the condition you have been in, the Spirit of God cannot abide in your heart, and you are not in harmony with God. “Come out from among them and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean and I will receive you,” saith the Lord, “and I will be a father unto you.” [2 Corinthians 6:17, 18.] {Lt 47, 1887, par. 6}
You must comply with the conditions God has laid down in His Word before you will be acknowledged as a son of God. You are looking for help from human sources. Your salvation is at stake; you must cease all this weak sentimentalism, you must sever the last cord that binds you away from Jesus. You will come no nearer to God or the truth than you are at the present time without you awake to your sore needs, and you will finally be separated from God and from His work. You are trusting too much to feelings and impulses and are not moving from a firm principle. Feelings good or bad will prove no shield to you against temptation. The assaults of the enemy will surely conquer you unless you put on the whole armor of righteousness. The adversary of souls is holding you in the slavery of sin. Feelings which are not traceable to any conviction of judgment have no stability in them. They are dependent on outward circumstances, affected by prevailing influences. Temptation will change your feelings and leave you without confidence in yourself and without confidence in God, and you will be left drifting without being anchored anywhere. You have great need of inward assurance that will strengthen your purposes to stand against the devices of the enemy. Your foes who eagerly seek your destruction will succeed unless you watch unto prayer. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 7}
You should be alarmed, for you are not gaining spiritual strength, but you are losing. As long as the light shines upon you in such clear and steady rays, as long as you are brought where you can be under right influences if you choose, and yet you show that you have no inclination to connect with these influences, but keep them apart from your life, and as long as you do not interweave the sacred principles of truth into your character, you are becoming less and less impressed by divine influences. You have great need to make a decided move from wrong influences, to cut yourself loose from all these human props and cheap sympathetic sentimentalism or you will lose your soul. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 8}
You have but one course before you, and that is to give up every sinful habit and practice; for if you regard iniquity in your heart, the Lord will not hear your prayers, and He cannot impart to you strength. You can be no help to the cause of God as far as your influence is concerned. Unless your heart is in the work, you had better be separated from it, for your influence while molded by the influence of those you choose will be detrimental. It cannot elevate, ennoble, refine anyone who has connection with you. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 9}
The sympathy of women has been lavished upon you which has had a deleterious influence upon you, and this is one of Satan’s snares wholly uncalled for and in no way in accordance with the position women should assume. But it has acted upon your mind in just that manner that Satan designed it should. It has deceived you and lessened your respect for women. You need a deep and thorough experience in divine things, and all this sentimentalism that would lead you to lean upon human aid Satan will provide for you, for these things separate you from God. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 10}
Your friends do not know how weak you are in moral power. They do not know that your thoughts are not elevated, that your conversation naturally flows in a cheap and low channel, that your manners are not elevated and refined, but altogether too gross. Every one of these women who have given you special attention would be disappointed in you when they became thoroughly acquainted with you. The truth of God brings no one down upon a low level, but up to meet the elevated standard of righteousness. I care for your soul, and I wish that you had a care for it also. Do you intend to remain as you are? Are you not alarmed for your soul? I fear you are resting in a false hope. Let the repenting sinner look to Jesus Christ as his intercessor. Let his attention be diverted from himself to Jesus dying upon the cross, a sacrifice to save him. Let his faith lay hold of the merits of Jesus Christ, and he sees the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and then his faith works by love. He hates sin because Christ hates it. The transforming grace of Christ is stamping upon his soul the divine image. Oh, how changed is he! Gratitude springs up in his heart, a strong tide of love flows in, and then he is ready and willing to suffer for Christ’s sake, to deny self for Christ’s sake. The heart is broken, and Jesus the loving Saviour takes possession of the soul. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 11}
Your soul, full of repentance, should not rely upon a form of religion, but struggle into life. That which will prove the greatest hindrance to this office is the irreligious lives of those who claim to be religious, those who have made a profession of godliness, but have no love for the genuine truth and practical godliness. I tell you, my brother, Satan’s snares have been set for your soul, and you are not making determined efforts to break his power, but you submit and are controlled without making scarcely an effort to resist him. Jesus will never leave you alone in your soul struggles. But you must choose different associates. You must stand fully and decidedly under the banner of Jesus Christ. You must make an entire surrender to God. Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die? {Lt 47, 1887, par. 12}
The truth must be brought into your life and sanctify your character. You must make more determined effort to break away from every association that would not have a direct tendency to elevate you. Are you content to have your life a failure? It certainly will be unless you change your course of life. You must seek as you never have done before to have a firm belief in the great verity of God’s Word and, as a result, a constant realization of God’s presence and an unwavering confidence in Him. Reason must be satisfied. God has spoken, then faith must seize with a firm grasp what God has said. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 13}
The divine message, if received as the word spoken to you from God, produces on the mind and heart and life a corresponding impression, for God’s Word and God’s Spirit work in harmony. Addressed to every part of man’s nature, it touches every part of it, and is received into every part of it, and is fitted to exert a commanding influence. It commands and sways every faculty of the soul and every movement of the life. You will testify for Christ by words, by actions, and by unseen but felt influences. You must make a more decided effort, or Satan will surely gain possession of all your powers. Place yourself in your present spiritual weakness where temptation will not be so powerful upon you. Why do you seek to separate yourself from right influences, and choose those influences that will be a constant snare to your soul? You need to see yourself as a weak, sinful, erring creature, and one who needs special help, not from women’s influence who are as weak as yourself, but from the living God. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 14}
Cut all these sources of sentimentalism, and place your undivided affections upon God. You have absorbed the soft sympathy and unsanctified affections of women until it has bewildered your senses. It is more pleasant to you than you really imagine. It is Satan’s temptations; the hours of prayer are neglected. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 15}
There is a kind of sympathy, fascinating to the human heart, but soul deceiving, soul tarnishing. Separate from all such influences. You must wholly denounce this kind of experience before you can be a strong man in the truth. Satan takes you on your weakest points. It is not sympathy you need, but influences that are uplifting, that will refine, ennoble, and fit you for positions of sacred trusts. You will just as surely be swept away from the truth and lose your soul as you continue to gratify self and thus parley with Satan and invite his temptations. Your religion will be as sliding sand, having no more foundation, be easily swept over with storm of trial or tempest. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 16}
The important truths you are daily brought in contact with will prove to you a source of life unto life or death unto death. Unless you are bringing your life and character to meet the realities of the truth, then it would be better had you no connection with the truth. God alone can be your Helper. Flee to the stronghold. The laying hold of the power of God by living faith will alone be able to supply you with that power to resist temptation. “How shall I do this great wickedness,” said Joseph, “and sin against God?” [Genesis 39:9.] {Lt 47, 1887, par. 17}
You do not have a clear conscience. You feel under condemnation and feel easier when you are with those who have no spiritual discernment, no spiritual strength, like yourself. All these influences are shutting you away from the favor of God. His displeasure is upon you and in His name I tell you, you will become less qualified for performing the work in which you are engaged if you do not place yourself in connection and in communion with God. Do not be in connection and in communion with the enemy of souls, and with evil angels. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 18}
Your soul is in peril. Will you see it? The principles of truth which you hear, and which you are handling, have very little influence upon you, or hold upon your life, and do not sanctify your soul. You have temptations constantly appealing to your taste and appetite. You keep in that class who have no fear of God, who have not the light of truth which is enough to weaken moral power, and you become like them to a large degree. One in spirit, one in indulgences. If you injure your health, you unfit yourself for your work and for all religious exercises. You need and must have a thorough conversion or you will never be saved. You must have a close connection with God. You have evidence that you do not love God or love the principles of truth. No one who has any realizing sense of his relation to God and his accountability to his fellow men will have a desire or a choice to be in the society of those who are not connected with God. The truth which takes hold of eternal realities will have no relish for insipid and degrading pleasures, common low themes of conversation. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 19}
If you anticipate being one of that number who will stand about the throne of God with the crown of glory upon your brow, you must prepare for this great change here in this life. Your thoughts must be altogether of a different character. The work must begin with the heart. That must be cleansed of moral defilement and made pure for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Here is your work; make an entire change by cleansing the soul temple of its moral defilement through Jesus Christ. God help you to make haste before it shall be too late. {Lt 47, 1887, par. 20}