Serge F. Ballif's overwhelming spiritual experience after visiting with President Whitney
Published October 23, 2026 at 12:31 PM
Contributed by
Millennial Star Research
After President Orson F. Whitney departed from Bebra, Prussia, following a missionary tour, President Serge F. Ballif described experiencing a profound spiritual depletion, comparing it to Moses's physical exhaustion after witnessing the glory of God. He recounted that for several hours, he felt unable to recover his natural strength and was overwhelmed by a sense of his own weakness and incompetence, contrasting this state with the divine inspiration he felt while in the company of President Whitney.
In Their Own Words
“After leaving your company at Bebra, Prussia, I felt much the same as I imagine Moses did when the glory of God had rested upon him, and then was withdrawn from him, and he was left unto himself. He fell unto the earth, and exclaimed: 'Now for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed,' and 'it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength.' So it is with me. I have not recovered my natural strength since parting with my distinguished friends. I see how weak and incompetent I am. Our trip through Switzerland and Germany was a continuous outburst of divine inspiration. — Millennial Star 83:38”
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), Vol. 83, No. 38 (1921). https://archive.org/details/millennialstar8338eng (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high)
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