There is a word on this point in Vol. I of the Testimonies, p. 183, speaking of the cause when the loud cry begins:

All seemed to have a deep sense of their unworthiness and manifested entire submission to the will of God.

On page 2 of the Testimony, "Danger of Adopting Worldly Policy in the Work of God," I read these words:

I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.  Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.'  He who wept over impenitent Israel, noting their ignorance of God and of Christ their Redeemer, looked upon the heart of the work at Battle Creek.

But, brethren, we are in Battle Creek now and this means us.  This same Redeemer is now looking upon us.

Great peril was about the people, but some knew it not.  Unbelief and impenitence blinded their eyes, and they trusted to human wisdom in the guidance of the most important interests of the cause of God.

And from the Testimony entitled "To Brethren in Responsible Positions," p. 10, I read these words:

The original apostasy began in a disbelief and denial of the truth.  We are to fix the eye of faith steadfastly upon Jesus.  When the days come, as they surely will, in which the law of God is made void, the zeal of the true and loyal should rise with the emergency, and should be the more warm and decided, and their testimony should be the more positive and unflinching.

And on page 12 we read:

There are those who have prided themselves on their great caution in receiving 'new light,' as they term it, but they are blinded by the enemy and cannot discern the works and ways of God.  Light, precious light, comes from heaven, and they array themselves against it.  What next? These very ones will accept messages that God has not sent, and thus will become even dangerous to the cause of God because they set up false standards.

And again,

They need the heavenly anointing that they may comprehend what is light and truth.

That means you and me.  That means me especially.

I tell you, a good thing to do if you have not done it yet, is to read that first-page article in the Review of February 7.  It speaks quite fully on this subject.  I will read a few sentences:

To place ourselves in a position where we have an appearance of yielding, is a new position for this people.  It is a new experience, a departure from the principles to which we have adhered, which have made us what we are today, a people whom God has prospered, a people who have the Lord of hosts with them. . . . You who have a connection with sacred things, God bids you to be careful where you put your feet.  He holds you accountable for the light of truth, that it shall shine forth in clear and distinct rays to the world.  The world will never help you by its devices to let your light shine. . . . All who hold the truth should hold it in righteousness and appreciate its value and sacredness. . . . We need divine wisdom and skill that we may improve every opportunity that the providence of God shall prepare for the presentation of truth.

Improve the opportunity, not betray it, nor fail when the opportunity is offered because you are not prepared.  What are we here for if we are not prepared?  What are you and I as ministers--as Seventh-day Adventist ministers, ministers to carry the third angel's message--what are we here for, if we are not prepared, when God calls us and give us an opportunity?

Let not the fear of man, the desire for patronage, be allowed to obscure a ray of heaven's light.   Should the sentinels of truth now fail to sound the warning, they would be unworthy of their position as light-bearers to the world, but should the standard fall from their hands, the Lord would raise up others who would be faithful and loyal.

It will require moral courage to do God's work unflinchingly.  Those who do this can give no place to self-love, to selfish considerations, ambition, love of ease, or desire to shun the cross. . . . Some may not apparently engage in the conflict on either side.  They may not appear to take sides against the truth, but they will not come out boldly for Christ, through fear of losing property or suffering reproach.  All such are numbered with the enemies of Christ.

The time has come when Christ's friends should be known.  And if it is a Seventh-day Adventist that is called in question for his standing in Christ and the message, let your friendship in Christ be known by standing by him.

Now we have a few minutes to talk upon how we got into this position, how these dangers came upon us.

You remember the other evening when I was reading that second chapter of Joel, that one of the brethren, when I had read that 23d verse--Brother Corliss--called attention to the margin.   Do you remember that?  And I said we would have use for the margin at another time.  Now all of you turn and read that margin.  The 23d verse says:  "Be glad, then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain, moderately."  What is the margin?  "A teacher of righteousness."  He hath given you "a teacher of righteousness."  How? "According to righteousness."  "And he will cause to come down for you the rain"; then what will that be?  When He gave the former rain, what was it?  "A teacher of righteousness."  And when He gives the latter rain, what will it be?  "A teacher of righteousness."  How?  "According to righteousness."  Then is not that just what the testimony has told us in that article that has been read to you several times?  "The loud cry of the third angel," the latter rain has already begun, "in the message of the righteousness of Christ."  Is not that what Joel told us long ago? Has not our eye been held that we did not see?  Did not we need the anointing?  Brethren, what in the world do we need so much as that?  How glad we ought to be that God sent His own Spirit in the prophets to show us, when we did not see!  How infinitely glad we ought to be for that!

Well then the latter rain--the loud cry--according to the testimony and according to the Scripture, is "the teaching of righteousness," and "according to righteousness," too.  Now brethren, when did that message of the righteousness of Christ, begin with us as a people?  [One or two in the audience:  "Three or four years ago."]  Which was it, three? or four?  [Congregation: "Four."]  Yes, four.  Where was it?  [Congregation:  "Minneapolis."]  What then did the brethren reject at Minneapolis?  [Some in the Congregation:  "The loud cry."]  What is that message of righteousness?  The Testimony has told us what it is; the loud cry--the latter rain.  Then what did the brethren in that fearful position in which they stood, reject at Minneapolis?  They rejected the latter rain--the loud cry of the third angel's message.

Brethren, isn't it too bad?  Of course the brethren did not know they were doing this, but the Spirit of the Lord was there to tell them they were doing it, was it not?  But when they were rejecting the loud cry, "the teaching of righteousness," and then the Spirit of the Lord, by His prophet, stood there and told us what they were doing--what then? Oh, then they simply set this prophet aside with all the rest.  That was the next thing.  Brethren, it is time to think of these things.  It is time to think soberly, to think carefully.

On page 8 of "Danger of Adopting Worldly Policy in the Work of God," I read the following:

As man's Intercessor and Advocate, Jesus will lead all who are willing to be led, saying, 'Follow me upward, step by step, where the clear light of the Sun of Righteousness shines.'  But not all are following the light.  Some are moving away from the safe path, which at every step is a path of humility.  God has committed to His servants a message for this time; but this message does not in every particular coincide with the ideas of all the leading men, and some criticize the message and the messengers.  They dare even reject the words of reproof sent to them from God through His Holy Spirit.

You know who it was.  I do not mean for you to look to somebody else.  You know whether you yourself were at it or not.  And, brethren, the time has come to take up tonight what we there rejected.  Not a soul of us has ever been able to dream yet the wonderful blessing that God had for us at Minneapolis and which we would have been enjoying these four years, if hearts had been ready to receive the message which God sent. We would have been four years ahead, we would have been in the midst of the wonders of the loud cry itself, tonight.  Did not the Spirit of prophecy tell us there at that time that the blessing was hanging over our heads?  Well, brethren, you know.  Each one for himself.  We are not to begin to examine one another, let us examine ourselves.  Each one for himself knows what part he had in that thing, and the time has come to root up the whole business.  Brethren, the time has come to root up the whole thing.  I will read another passage upon that presently.

Again I read:

What reserve power has the Lord with which to reach those who have cast aside His warnings and reproofs and have accredited the testimonies of the Spirit of God to no higher source than human wisdom? In the Judgment, what can you who have done this offer to God as an excuse for turning from the evidence that He has given you that God was in the work?  'By their fruits ye shall know them.'  I would not now rehearse before you the evidences given in the past two years of the dealings of God  by His chosen servants.

This testimony was given in the fall of 1890, on the 3d of November.  Two years from that takes us back to the fall of 1888 in the month of November, and that was at Minneapolis at the very time when this thing was done.  There are a half a dozen brethren in this house, yes, perhaps a dozen of them, who, at another time, after Minneapolis, in an institute, heard the Spirit of God reprove and rebuke in open words that Minneapolis spirit that was in that Institute where we were and said plainly it was "the spirit of Satan."  That was the next spring after Minneapolis had passed.

But I continue:

But the present evidence of his working is revealed to you, and you are now under obligation to believe.  You cannot neglect God's message of warning, you cannot reject them or treat them lightly but at the peril of infinite loss.  Caviling, ridicule and misrepresentation can be indulged in only a the expense of the debasement of your own souls. The use of such weapons does not gain precious victories for you, but rather cheapens the mind, and separates the soul from God.  Sacred things are brought down to the level of the common, and a condition of things is created that pleases the prince of darkness, and grieves away the Spirit of God.  Caviling and criticism leaves the soul as devoid of the dew of grace as the hills of Gilboa were destitute of rain.  Confidence cannot be placed in the judgment of those who indulge in ridicule and misrepresentation.  No weight can be attached to their advice or resolutions.  You must bear the divine credentials before you make decided movements to shape the working of God's cause.

To accuse and criticize those whom God is using, is to accuse and criticize the Lord, who has sent them.  All  need to cultivate their religious faculties that they may have a right discernment of religious things.  Some have failed to distinguish between pure gold and mere glitter, between the substance and the shadow.

Before I read the next paragraph I want to read two paragraphs from this testimony that has not yet been published:

The false ideas that were largely developed at Minneapolis have not been entirely uprooted from some minds.  Those who have not made thorough work of repentance under the light God has been pleased to give to His people since that time will not see things clearly and will be ready to call the messages God sends a delusion.

Brethren, what greater danger could there be before us than that into which we have been brought by the course here pointed out and against which it warns--the danger of our betraying sacred, holy trusts, the danger of betraying our brethren and bringing them into places and positions where they will have to bear fearful burdens that the enemy will lay upon us and persecute us with?

There is another statement on the same subject, that I will read:

We should be the last people on the earth to indulge in the slightest degree the spirit of persecution against those who are bearing the message of God to the world.  This is the most terrible feature of unchristlikeness that has manifested itself among us since the Minneapolis meeting.  Sometime it will be seen in its true bearing with all the burden of woe that has resulted from it.

Brethren, God is getting in earnest about that thing.  It is time for you and me to seek the Lord now, while mercy yet lingers that we may be able to see the burden of woe in all its enormity, while yet there is mercy to free us from it.  God calls us to Himself.

Now this additional paragraph in the Special Testimonies:

The prejudices and opinions that prevailed at Minneapolis are not dead by any means; the seeds sown there in some hearts are ready to spring into life and bear a like harvest.  The tops have been cut down, but the roots have never been eradicated, and they still bear their unholy fruit to poison the judgment, pervert the perceptions and blind the understanding of those with whom you connect, in regard to the message and the messengers.  When by thorough confession, you destroy the root of bitterness, you will see light in God's light.  Without this thorough work you will never clear your souls.

Brethren, will you thus clear your souls and open the way for the Lord to send His Spirit in the outpouring of the latter rain?

You need to study the word of God with a purpose, not to confirm your own ideas, but to bring them to be trimmed, to be condemned or approved, as they are or are not in harmony with the word of God.  The Bible should be your constant companion.  You should study the Testimonies, not to pick out certain sentences to use as you see fit, to strengthen your assertions, while you disregard the plainest statements given to correct your course of action.

There has been a departure from God among us, and the zealous work of repentance and return to our first love, so essential to restoration to God and regeneration of heart, has not yet been done.  Infidelity has been making its inroads into our ranks, for it is the fashion to depart from Christ and give place to skepticism.  With many the cry of the heart has been, 'We will not have this man to reign over us.'  Baal, Baal, is the choice.  The religion of many among us will be the religion of apostate Israel, because they love their own way and forsake the way of the Lord.  The true religion, the only religion of the Bible, that teaches forgiveness  only through the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour, that advocates righteousness by the faith of the Son of God has been slighted, spoken against, ridiculed, and rejected.  It has been denounced as leading to enthusiasm and fanaticisms.  But it is the life of Jesus Christ in the soul; it is the active principle of love imparted by the Holy Spirit that alone will make the soul fruitful unto good works.  The love of Christ is the force and power of every message from God that ever fell from human lips.  What kind of future is before us, if we shall fail to come into the unity of the faith?

That was the question that was before us last night--the unity of the faith.  When the early disciples came together as one and prayed as one, and saw eye to eye, then the Holy Spirit came upon them and that is the thing that is set before us now.

Brethren, I do not say these things to find fault, or to condemn, but I say them in the fear of God, that each one of us may know where we stand.  And if there be any of those roots from Minneapolis lingering these four years or any caught from this and have been crops of this four years' standing, let us see that we here and now root up the whole thing and prostrate ourselves at the feet of Christ with only that one plea--"I am wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, and I do not know it."  That is where we are.

I know that some there accepted it.  Others rejected it entirely. You know the same thing.  Others tried to stand half way between and get it that way, but that is to the way it is to be had, brethren, that is not the way it is received.  They thought to take a middle course and although they did not exactly receive it or exactly commit themselves to it, yet they were willing to go whichever way the tide turned at the last, whichever way the body turned they were willing to go.

Since that time others have seen that God is moving the body of the cause forward in this very line and they have proposed to go along with the body as they see it moving that way.  Brethren, you need to get that righteousness of Jesus Christ nearer to your heart than that.  Every man needs to get the righteousness of God nearer to him than simply weighing up things and compromising between parties or he will never see or know the righteousness of God at all.

Others have apparently favored it and would speak favorably of it when everything was that way, but when in the fierceness of this spirit--this spirit described there as the persecuting spirit--when that spirit would rise up in its fierceness and make war upon the message of righteousness by faith, instead of standing nobly in the fear of God and declaring in the face of that attack, "It is the truth of God and I believe it in my soul," they would begin to yield, and in an apologetic way offer excuses for those who were preaching it, as though it were a matter only of men's persons, to be held in advantage because of admiration.

Brethren, the truth of God needs no apology.  The man who preaches the truth of God needs no apology.  The truth of God wants your faith; that is what it wants.  All that the truth of God needs is that you and I shall believe it and receive it into our hearts and stand by it in the face of all the attacks that can be made upon it and let it be known that you do stand by the messengers whom God sends to preach, not because they are certain men, but because God sends them with a message.

That, however, is but a sample.  There will be things to come that will be more surprising than that was to those at Minneapolis, more surprising than anything we have yet seen.  And, brethren, we will be required to receive and preach that truth.  But unless you and I have every fiber of that spirit rooted out of our hearts, we will treat that message and the messenger by whom it is sent, as God has declared we have treated this other message.

I will read the balance of this testimony in Volume 1 of the Testimonies, pages 186-7, and then close for tonight:

God will prove His people.  Jesus bears patiently with them and does not spew them out of His mouth in a moment.  The angel said, 'God is weighing His people.'  If the message had been of as short duration as many of us supposed, there would have been no time for them to develop character.  Many moved from feeling, not from principle and faith, and this solemn, fearful message stirred them.  It wrought upon their feelings and excited their fears but did not accomplish the work which God designed that it should.  God reads the heart.  Lest His people should be deceived in regard to themselves, He gives them time for the excitement to wear off, and then proves them to see if they will obey the counsel of the True Witness.

So, do not let us be weary of seeking God in this Conference and if the blessing does not come in a day, or a week or a month, let us keep on in the way, for God has said it shall come.

Again, I read on page 187:

God leads His people on, step by step.  He brings them up to different points calculated to manifest what is in the heart.  Some endure on one point but fall off at the next.  At every advanced point the heart is tested and tried a little closer.  If the professed people of God find their hearts opposed to this great work, it should convince them that they have a work to do to overcome, if they would not be spewed out of the mouth of the Lord.   Said the angel, 'God will bring His work closer and closer to test and prove every one of His people.'  Some are willing to receive one point, but when God brings them to another testing point, they shrink from it and stand back, because they find that it strikes directly at some cherished idol.

All this I myself have seen in individual cases, over and over, since the Minneapolis Conference.

Here they have opportunity to see what is in their hearts that shuts out Jesus.  They prize something higher than the truth and their hearts are not prepared to receive Jesus.  Individuals are tested and proved a length of time to see if they will sacrifice their idols and heed the counsel of the True Witness.  If any will not be purified through obeying the truth and overcome their selfishness, their pride, their passions, the angels of God have the charge, 'They are joined to their idols; let them alone.' And they pass on to their work, leaving these with their sinful traits unsubdued to the control of evil angels. Those who come up to every point and stand every test and overcome, be the price what it may, have heeded the counsel of the True Witness and they will receive the latter rain and thus be fitted for translation.

Brethren, that is where we are.  Let us act like it.  Let us thank the Lord that He is dealing with us still, to save us from our errors, to save us from our dangers, to keep us back from wrong courses, and to pour upon us the latter rain, that we may be translated.  That is what the message means--translation--to you and me.  Brethren, let us receive it with all the heart, and thank God for it.