A Marked Confidence-Confirming Experience

Daniells could hardly wait to read the testimonies for which he had been waiting. With a fellow minister he read the communications. They noted that while each of the two documents had been copied on Thursday, December 21, 1905, one was penned in August, 1903, and the other June 1, 1904.6BIO 69.6

Arrangements were made immediately for a meeting in the Tabernacle that evening at seven-thirty, at which the testimonies would be read to the whole church. At seven-thirty the Tabernacle was full—auditorium, vestries, and gallery. Dr. Kellogg was not there. His brother, W. K., and a number of the doctor's supporters were there. Elder Daniells took the lead, telling the congregation of how in times of old, God communicated with His people. Sometimes the prophet delivered in person the message God gave him; sometimes it was delivered through others. He pointed out that “from the earliest days of this cause the Spirit of Prophecy had been in our midst, and had been recognized by those who were loyal to this message, and that the messenger had always claimed liberty to deliver the message either in person or by sending it to others to be read.”— Ibid.6BIO 69.7

He read the telegram instructing him to wait in Battle Creek for the testimonies. Now he had the two documents in his hands: Manuscript 120, 1905, “The Result of a Failure to Heed God's Warnings” and Manuscript 122, 1905, “A Solemn Appeal.” He pointed out that both were penned by Ellen White in her journal, one as much as two years before, but were not copied until she was impressed to do so, Thursday, December 21. Both documents carried solemn messages pointing out that leaders who were spiritually blind were leading the blind, and unless “converted and transformed,” “leaders and their followers” “cannot be laborers together with God.”—Manuscript 120, 1905.6BIO 70.1

“They persist in trying to make it appear as if they have made no mistakes, and have not been led by seducing spirits, when I know that they have; for thus saith the One who is truth.”— Ibid.6BIO 70.2

Speaking of the “one who has long stood in the position of physician-in-chief,” she declared that “no dependence can be placed in a man whose words and actions reveal that he is spiritually blind.... What can be said regarding a man who ... in his life practice disregards a plain ‘Thus saith the Lord’? He has a bewildered mind, an uncertain experience.”— Ibid.6BIO 70.3

She referred to the experiences of Adam and Eve, who “allowed themselves to be allured by the seductive influence of Satan's voice” and were beguiled.6BIO 70.4

Thus it has been in the case of the one who has long stood at the head of our medical work. He often declares that he has always believed the messages God has given through Sister White; and yet he has done very much to undermine confidence in the validity of the Testimonies....6BIO 70.5

Oh, how many he has influenced to view things as he has viewed them! How often he has led others to think, “Somebody has told Sister White”!— Ibid.6BIO 71.1

Both of the testimonies were read without comment. As Elder Daniells read on, page after page, a number in the large Tabernacle audience could not help but note how accurately they described the words and attitudes witnessed just the night before as Dr. Kellogg addressed Sanitarium leaders. It was nine o'clock when Daniells finished reading the sixteen pages of the two documents. “It seemed to me as I read,” he wrote the next day, “that I never felt the burning power of words reaching my own soul as these.”—AGD to G. A. Irwin, December 27, 1905.6BIO 71.2

“We ought to resort to earnest prayer,” he told the hushed audience, and suggested that those who wished to do so “retire to the north vestry.” But too many wished to pray, and so the audience turned back to the main auditorium.6BIO 71.3

During the break three men who had been in Dr. Kellogg's six-hour meeting came to Daniells and told him that the meeting held the previous night had been clearly described in the messages Ellen White felt impelled to have copied and sent. They also said that “if there had been a doubt in their minds regarding the source of the testimonies, it would have been swept away by their own statements [as set forth by Ellen G. White] in the testimonies.”— Ibid.6BIO 71.4

From nine-fifteen to ten all united in prayer that their eyes might be opened to see things as God sees them. They prayed that Dr. Kellogg and his associates and all the Sanitarium helpers might be led to receive and obey the solemn messages that had come to them.6BIO 71.5

The next few days in old Battle Creek there was a lot of talk of how the Spirit of the Lord on the previous Thursday led Ellen White in California to have the message she wrote two years before copied and sent to Battle Creek to arrive just after the notable meeting was held by Dr. Kellogg in the college building. Some described the Monday-night meeting as such that “if they had not been well grounded, they would have been turned away entirely from the testimonies. One said that he would be driven into infidelity if he believed the things the doctor related to them.”— Ibid.6BIO 71.6