“A Supernatural Manifestation”

W. A. Spicer, at that time president of the General Conference, prepared in 1929 a volume, The Certainties of the Advent Movement. On page 202 and onward he speaks of the work of Mrs. E. G. White as follows:TOJ 46.2

“In earliest times and in the extreme youth of the human agent called to the exercise of this gift, the very use of the gift carried the credentials of its genuineness. The gift was for practical service. It was a time of religious tension and confusion of thought among the large Adventist body in New England following the disappointment of 1844. Out of that disappointment was to come the definite movement of the prophecy bearing its message to all the world.TOJ 46.3

“Just there it was that the hand of God was revealed through this gift pointing the way. As we have seen, Miss Harmon’s first vision, in December, 1844, was a description in miniature of the progress of the movement from 1844 to the city of God. With the relation of the experience and the vision, conviction came to sober, earnest hearts that God was sending messages to men. The duty was pressed upon this young woman to go from company to company, directing minds to patient searching of the Scriptures and holding on to the hope of Christ’s second coming. Fanaticism began to come in and every wind of doctrine was blowing. There it was that a young girl of seventeen, unused to public life, shrinking from the thought of presuming of herself to instruct others, was called to stand beside gray-haired ministers of God, or to stand alone bearing the message which she dared not withhold....TOJ 46.4

“It was not a natural thing, but a supernatural manifestation as the voice of the youthful messenger bore counsels on questions of order and government and organization. Rich as were the later years in instruction to the Adventist people, no years seem more marvelously to manifest the divine origin of this gift than those early years, when a young woman at seventeen and eighteen and onward was bearing messages that stand to this day as strong counsels in the matter of organization and the conduct of religious work, and above all emphasizing the necessity of a spiritual experience rooted in a living Saviour and in the living Word of God....TOJ 47.1

“Through all the years the agent chosen was faithful to the task. Human, fallible, often bearing witness to her own need of forgiving grace and keeping power, the instrument did yield itself for service. There was nothing in the life strained or unnatural, though the working of the gift itself and the fruitage of it bore constant witness to the supernatural. Like many another, Mrs. White was in personal life a good mother in Israel. There was no lifting up of self, no assumption of leadership in the movement, but a faithful bearing of messages as the Lord sent counsel and light.”TOJ 47.2