Chapter 28—Strengthened by His Presence

“Can you not come to the meetings in the Eastern States? We want you to speak to the people and to help in deciding some important matters,” wrote one of the leading workers to Mrs. White. She was busy at her Battle Creek home writing some of the wonderful things God had shown her, but she decided to lay away this work for a few weeks and attend the meetings. She knew that it would be helpful to the many people who would come to these large gatherings to hear the messages God had given to her.HMes 155.1

After attending several meetings in other parts of the East, she went to Salamanca, New York. On the way she took cold and was almost ill, but she spoke on Sabbath afternoon to a large group of people, and on Sunday morning she spoke again to the people of the city who met together in the opera house. There was a great crowd of people filling all the seats and the aisles, and crowding around the platform. She spoke to them about the evils of intoxicating drinks, and urged parents to train their children in habits of self-denial so that they would grow up to be men and women able to resist temptation.HMes 155.2

After the meeting she was so tired that her secretary urged her to go back to her home. “You must go back to Battle Creek and take treatments,” she said. “You are sick, and should not try to work longer.” “Oh, do not give up hope that the Lord will give you strength to help in the meetings,” pleaded the ministers. “We need you with us.” The poor sick woman hardly knew what to do. The next appointment was in Virginia, and she did not have the strength to travel farther. The next afternoon she spoke to a large audience although she was suffering from severe pain in her ears and head. After the meeting she said, “I must go home to Battle Creek at once. I am ill.” She then went to the house where she was staying, to rest.HMes 155.3

After slowly climbing the stairs to her room, she knelt to pray. Before she had spoken even one word she felt that the room was filled with fragrance of roses. Looking up to see where the fragrance came from, she saw that the room was flooded with a soft, silvery light. At once her pain and weariness left her. Hope and comfort and peace filled her heart.HMes 156.1

Then she lost all consciousness of what was around her, and was shown many things concerning the cause of God in different parts of the world. She was shown what she must do to best help the work. How happy it made her to have the sweet assurance that God was watching over her and caring for her.HMes 156.2

That night she lay on her bed, her heart so full of happiness that she could not sleep. Many times she repeated to herself the words of Jacob as he saw angels ascending and descending upon the ladder from heaven, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”HMes 156.3

The next morning her son and one of the ministers came to see what Mrs. White had decided. She told them of her experience the evening before and of how the Lord had healed and blessed her. “I am fully decided to go to Virginia according to appointment,” she happily said.HMes 156.4

For two months after that she went from one meeting to another, speaking in several States, and her health remained good. As soon as she had finished this work, Mrs. White hurried back to Battle Creek and settled down to her writing again. She was eager to write as much as possible, for she felt that writing what the angel showed her was a part of the gift that God had given her.HMes 156.5

Soon after the first vision in 1844 the angel of prophecy had commanded Ellen Harmon to write, and in all the years that followed she had continued to write. Even when she was spending much of her time in traveling and speaking, still she used every moment she could to write. Often she rose at three or four o’clock in the morning to write letters of encouragement or letters of reproof that the angel had directed her to write.HMes 157.1

“I have been aroused from my sleep with a vivid sense of subjects previously presented to my mind; and I have written, at midnight, letters that have gone across the continent, and, arriving at a crisis, have saved a great disaster to the cause,” she once said, while telling of how God sent these messages to her.HMes 157.2

Not many years after the angel of prophecy had first spoken to her, Mrs. White had been shown the whole story of the world, from Creation to the coming of Jesus. At a meeting in Lovett’s Grove, Ohio, in March, 1858, ten years later, she had been again shown this same great view and told to write it for others to read. During this same vision she had been shown that Satan and his angels would try to hinder the work. But she had also been shown that the angels of God would not leave her alone and that she must trust in God.HMes 157.3

The next day after this vision had been given to her, she and her husband talked over the plans for the writing and publishing of the story in a book which would be called The Great Controversy Between Christ and His Angels and Satan and His Angels. The powers of darkness had not been willing to allow this important work to be so easily written. Before Mrs. White had even begun the work of writing this book, she had been suddenly made very ill with a stroke of paralysis. She had not been able to speak, and her whole side had been paralyzed. After prayer had been offered for her, she partially regained the use of her body. It was in this way that Satan had tried to hinder her from writing out what she had seen in the vision.HMes 157.4

While so very sick she had begun to write The Great Controversy. “At first I could write only one page a day,” she said at one time. “After this exertion I would have to rest three days before trying to write again. As I worked, my strength increased until I could write several hours a day.”HMes 158.1

When James and Ellen White had had an opportunity to be alone, she had read to him what she had written. He had listened very carefully and had often made suggestions to change a word here or there in such a way that the meaning would be made clearer.HMes 158.2

In September, 1858, the little book named Spiritual Gifts—The Great Controversy Between Christ and His Angels and Satan and His Angels had been ready to send out. In later years Ellen White rewrote this book, adding much material that had been shown her in later visions. This she wrote as her boys were growing up. William White often told of how the whole family would sit around the fireplace at night while his mother or her secretary read what was being written.HMes 158.3

“Hour after hour we sat and listened,” he would say, “while mother read those inspired stories of Martin Luther and other great Reformers.HMes 158.4

“Sometimes she would stop reading and say to her secretary, ‘I have written about this more fully elsewhere. Look in my files and see what you can find.’HMes 158.5

“Then the secretary would find what mother had written before, and it would be added to the story, making it clearer and more easily understood.”HMes 158.6

Mrs. White was greatly stirred as she saw the great conflict between Christ and Satan opening up before her.HMes 159.1

“As I write upon my book, I feel intensely moved,” she wrote to Uriah Smith. “I want to get it out as soon as possible.... I have been unable to sleep nights, thinking of the important things to take place. My mind is stirred so deeply I cannot rest. Write! Write! Write! I feel I must and cannot delay.”HMes 159.2

As she rewrote the book, presenting the story more fully, many of the scenes were shown to her again in vision.HMes 159.3

“While writing the manuscript of The Great Controversy I was often conscious of the presence of the angels,” she wrote, “and many times the scenes about which I was writing were presented to me anew in visions of the night, so that they were fresh and vivid in my mind.”HMes 159.4

Many, many times Mrs. White had been given a message to a man or a woman who needed help. Some of these personal testimonies were gathered together and published so that this good advice could be read by all. Other letters to churches and many general articles were added. These were published in a set of books called Testimonies for the Church.HMes 159.5

In these books may be found many wonderful messages that God has sent to His people. Although what was said was often especially for just one man or woman, it was a good message for all who were trying to follow the Saviour.HMes 159.6

In telling of the wonderful things God had shown her, Mrs. White also wrote a number of other books and many articles for the Review and Herald, the Signs of the Times, and The Youth’s Instructor.HMes 159.7