I was shown that self-exaltation has caused Brother R to stumble. He has exercised a certain dignity, savoring of severity, in his family and toward his wife. This has shut her from him. She felt that she could not approach him, and has been in her married life, more like a child fearing a stern, dignified father, than like a wife. She has loved, respected, and idolized her husband notwithstanding his lack of encouraging her confidence. My brother, you should pursue a course that would encourage your timid, shrinking wife to lean upon your large affections, and this would give you a chance, in a delicate, affectionate manner, to correct the errors existing in her, as far as you are capable of so doing, and to inspire her with confidence in herself.

I was shown that you had not possessed that love for your wife that you should. Satan has taken advantage of her defects and your errors, to work for the destruction of your family. You have suffered shame of your wife to come into your heart, and your respect has grown less and less for her whom you vowed to love and cherish until death should part you.

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October 25, 1868, your case was again presented before me. I was shown that evil thoughts and unlawful desires have led to improper acts and to a violation of the commandments of God. You have dishonored yourself, your wife, and the cause of God. You could have exerted an influence for good in the cause of God. But the pursuance of a wrong course in matters that you thought were of little consequence has led to greater evils.

Brother R, you are now in danger of making total shipwreck of your faith. You have sinned greatly. But your sin in seeking to cover up, and blind the eyes of those who have suspected you of wrong, has been tenfold greater. All have not acted as prudently and with as much love and care as the Lord would have been pleased to have them, in order to redeem you. But when you tried to put on an air of injured innocence, did you think that God could not see your wrong course? Did you think that He who made man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, could not discern the intents and purposes of the heart? You have thought that if you should confess your sin you would lose your honor—your life, as it were. You thought that your brethren would have no confidence in you. You have not viewed matters in the right light. It is a shame to sin, but always an honor to confess sin.

Angels of God have kept a faithful record of every act, however secret you may have thought you were in its committal. God discerns the purposes of man and all his works. Every man will be rewarded according as his works have been, whether good or evil. That which a man sows will he also reap. There will be no failure in the crop. The harvest is sure and plentiful. You have tried to blind your brethren in regard to your course. How could you do so, when you knew that you were guilty in the sight of God? If you value your soul’s salvation, make thorough work for eternity.

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You will have to make a clean track behind you by thorough confession. You need a thorough conversion—a transformation of self by the renewing of your mind. Your self-esteem must be overcome. You must learn to esteem others better than yourself. Your exalted opinion of your own acquirements must be given up, and you must obtain a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

You have possessed a spirit which has led you from the path of rectitude, and now you are troubled. Doubts, and fears, and despair seize you. There is but one way out, and that is by the way of confession. Your only hope is in falling on the Rock and being broken to pieces; if you do not, it will surely fall upon you and grind you to powder. You can now right your wrongs; you can now redeem the past. By a life of goodness and tru