Begins Public Labors for Christ

Nor were Ellen Harmon’s efforts for Christ limited to these public testimonies. She arranged meetings with her friends and related her experience to them, then exhorted and prayed for them individually. Night after night she prayed for these souls for whom she bore a burden, and her soul-winning efforts were marvelously blessed.AGP 270.3

It was at this period in her life that James White, a young man who was on fire with a burning zeal to lead his fellow men to prepare for the coming of Christ, which he believed to be near, visited Portland. He speaks thus of his first meeting with the one who was later to share his labors as his wife:AGP 270.4

“She was then a Christian of the most devoted type. And although but sixteen, she was a laborer in the cause of Christ in public and from house to house. She was a decided adventist, and yet her experience was so rich and her testimony so powerful that ministers and leading men of different churches sought her labors as an exhorter in their several congregations. But at that time she was very timid, and little thought that she was to be brought before the public to speak to thousands.” The Ministry of Healing, 126.

With such a background of experience, is it strange that the little company of believers in Portland, in their perplexity and trouble following the disappointment, should have confidence in the integrity of this girl who, with fear and trembling, told them of the vision that had been given to her? Could they wellAGP 270.5

doubt her sincerity? Sweet water does not flow from bitter fountains.AGP 271.1

The nature of the message, its fitness to their needs, its satisfying answers to the questions that were in their minds, its encouragement for confidence in their past experience, and for divine guidance for the future surely must have impressed those who heard Ellen Harmon relate it. As this has been covered in the preceding chapter, we shall not further enlarge on it here.AGP 271.2

It is, however, worthy of note that this vision was not of such a nature as to confirm them in what they already believed. Not only they, but Ellen Harmon herself, prior to this vision, had become persuaded that the “midnight cry” movement, through which they had passed, was a mistake. This was the general conclusion that had been reached by most of the leaders in the movement. It seemed logical to accept the fact that Jesus had not come as proof positive that the calculation of the prophetic period of 2300 years as ending on October 22 had been in error.AGP 271.3

But in the vision, instead of the “midnight cry’s” having been a mistake, lo, it was a light that was to illuminate the pathway of the adventist people all the way to the city of God.AGP 271.4

Therefore the substance of this vision cannot be accounted for as in anywise springing from the personal belief of Ellen Harmon, or that of her associates. That it served to change that belief is a strong evidence of its having been given to her by an intelligence outside of her own consciousness.AGP 271.5