SPIRIT OF PROPHECY APPEARS

As the time came in 1844, that gift of the Spirit of prophecy appeared. From the earliest times “we have heard with our ears,” “our fathers have told us,” how, in 1844, the Spirit spoke in vision to a young woman of one of the early Adventist groups in New England, giving messages to be told to the people looking for the coming of Christ. The name of the young woman was Ellen G. Harmon (she was later married to James White, who became our pioneer leader in this advent movement). The frail, youthful agent begged the Lord to choose someone else. She wrote of the first vision given her to tell to the people:HEVI 114.1

“After I came out of this vision I was exceedingly troubled. My health was very poor, and I was but seventeen years old. I knew that many had fallen through exaltation, and I knew that if I in any way became exalted, God would leave me, and I should surely be lost. I went to the Lord in prayer, and begged Him to lay the burden on someone else. It seemed to me that I could not bear it. I lay upon my face a long time, and all the light I could get was, ‘Make known to others what I have revealed to you.’”-Early Writings, 20.HEVI 114.2

That young woman accepted the call of God, and she rose from prayer to enter upon the speaking and the writing which continued among us for seventy years. And still those writings speak in living messages of counsel and guidance, covering the pilgrimage of the advent people even to their journey’s end in the city of God.HEVI 114.3

In the volumes and counsels from that agent, by pen and voice, the world, looking on, recognized a special gift that built up this advent movement. When Mrs. White at last laid down her life, in ripe old age, the editor of the leading religious journal of America commented on the growth of our work in all the world, and wrote of Mrs. White’s relation to it:HEVI 114.4

“In all this, Ellen G. White has been the inspiration and guide. Here is a noble record, and she deserves great honor. Did she really receive divine visions? ...Why should we answer? One’s doctrine of the Bible may affect the conclusion. At any rate, she was absolutely honest in her belief in her revelations. Her life was worthy of them. She showed no spiritual pride and she sought no filthy lucre. She lived the life and did the work of a worthy prophetess.”-The Independent, New York, Aug. 23, 1915.HEVI 114.5

In that first day of her call, as a youth, Ellen Harmon has sought as a supreme gift that, if she must bear messages from God in a special way, she might be kept from the spiritual self-exaltation that so often ruins men. As this New York editor testified at the end, her life had shown no spiritual pride. Through all the history of the work of the gift in this movement there was ever an effort to direct souls to Jesus and the Holy Scriptures, and to combat that natural tendency to make human flesh and the human agent the trust.HEVI 114.6

We have seen this gift year after year doing things that we knew Mrs. White never could have done of herself. The Spirit of prophecy was established in this movement in the early days by “many infallible proofs,” and still the writings speak to us with up-to-date counsels for these times that we are now passing through.HEVI 114.7