Chapter 7—In Establishment of Confidence

On several occasions, while in vision, Mrs. White held a Bible on her outstretched hand and twice she held Bibles open for quite long periods of time.EGWMR 26.1

One experience often referred to, carries us back to the early part of the year 1845, and had to do with the large Harmon family Bible ^{*Weight, 18½ Pounds; Length, 18 Inches; Width, 11 Inches; Depth, 4 Inches.} weighing 18½ pounds. One morning at her own home in Portland, Maine, while in vision, Ellen Harmon stepped over to a bureau upon which rested the large volume, picked it up, placed it on her left hand, and then, extending it at arm’s length, held the closed book with ease for half an hour. During the vision, in short exclamations, she referred to the value of the Word of God. Under ordinary circumstances she was unable to pick up this book, for she was in frail health and at that time weighed only eighty pounds. She was in no way fatigued by the experience.EGWMR 26.2

At a little later time, in 1846, while attending a Sabbath afternoon meeting at the Thayer home in Randolph near Boston, Massachusetts, Mrs. White, in vision, held a “heavy, large quarto family Bible.” Otis Nichols, an eyewitness, gives an account of what took place. With the Bible “open on one hand, and lifted up as high as she could reach, and with her eyes steadily looking upward,” Mrs. White “declared in solemn manner, ‘The inspired testimony from God,’ or words of the same import. And then she continued, for a long time while the Bible was extended in one hand, and her eyes looking upward and not on the Bible, to turn over the leaves with her other hand and place her finger upon certain passages, and correctly utter their words with a solemn voice. Many present looked at the passages where her finger was pointed, to see if she spoke them correctly, for her eyes at the same time were looking upward.”—Quoted in Spiritual Gifts 2:78, 79, (1860). There were also other occasions when Bibles were held by Mrs. White while she was in vision.EGWMR 26.3

Such phenomenal exhibitions in connection with the early visions had a definite place in establishing the confidence of the believers in their divine origin before there was opportunity for the development of fruit by which the claims of the Lord’s messenger might be judged.EGWMR 26.4