A Gift Of Language

No; let no one get the idea that because Mrs. White was called as a young girl, with but limited school training, she had not a remarkable use of language in which to express the messages given. She was all her life in a school of rare experience. The eldest among us cannot remember a time so early that this woman’s voice did not speak the messages in eloquent and choice language. Professor M. E. Cady, one of our veteran educational leaders, once commented on this as follows:SPIAM 52.3

“In later years, while at a camp meeting near Boston, Dr. Emerson, president of the Emerson School of Oratory, heard Mrs. White speak. He remarked that her voice was remarkable for its resonant quality and its flexibility. He further said that from beginning to end of the sermon the speaker did not violate a single rule governing correct expression.”—The Review and Herald, September 12, 1929.SPIAM 52.4

Early workers who were in Australia with Mrs. White tell of an illustrative incident there. Mrs. White spoke one day at a camp meeting, reading her message from a pen-written manuscript. After the meeting three ladies—not Adventists—asked Mrs. White if they might take the manuscript home for examination. The request was granted. When the spokesman brought it back, she said: “We had been told by unfriendly critics that you could not write proper English. But here we have seen this writing in your own hand, and find it in good English. We know your critics are unfair.”SPIAM 52.5

Many years ago an opposer suggested to me that the newly published book, “The Desire of Ages,” was probably written by one of Mrs. White’s helpers.SPIAM 53.1

“No,” I replied at once. “You must remember that Mrs. White comes in before us in committees and councils, and speaks offhand and at length in the same language,—the same high thoughts, the same eloquent and graphic, moving sentences. You know that no helper she ever had could do that.”SPIAM 53.2

It is absolutely true. Any one who really knew Mrs. White in service recognized these finest things in her books as indeed really identifying marks of her own personal touch.SPIAM 53.3

This is not to suggest for a moment that possession of this gift ensured grammatical accuracy or expertness in punctuation or capitalization, or in all the technical niceties of the traditional literary method. The chosen agent was concerned with the vital thing of delivering the messages faithfully.SPIAM 53.4

Of the help she had in a literary way from James White as they traveled among the churches in the early years, she wrote:SPIAM 53.5

“We traveled extensively. Sometimes light would be given to me in the night season, sometimes in the daytime before large congregations. The instruction I received in vision was faithfully written out by me, as I had time and strength for the work. Afterward we examined the matter together, my husband correcting grammatical errors, and eliminating needless repetition. Then it was carefully copied for the persons addressed, or for the printer.”— “The Writing and Sending Out of the Testimonies to the Church,” p. 4 (from a letter written in 1906).SPIAM 53.6