UNTO the building up of the body of Christ" [the church] (Ephesians 4:12, R.V.).

That is the purpose of all the gifts--of apostles, teachers, evangelists, pastors, and all the rest. All these gifts have wrought in the Seventh-day Adventist Church ministering the Word of God. That Word it is that "builds up." In the apostle Paul's farewell to the elders of Ephesus, warning them of the apostasy that would sweep into the church after his death, he said: "Now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified" (Acts 20:32).

Always to the fore in ministering this word that builds up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been the gift of prophecy. Observers without have noted the spiritual influence of this gift.

At a council in Oslo, Norway, G. A. Lindsay told of a Lutheran clergyman who wrote a thesis on the Second Advent idea in history. It was for his Doctor's degree in one of the universities of Sweden. He wrote very fully of the work and Second Advent teaching of Seventh-day Adventists. Mr. Lindsay said:

"He had somehow procured a copy of Early Writings, an early edition, and had been greatly impressed by the writings and work of Mrs. White in connection with this cause. He declared: 'The secret of the piety and spirituality and consecration of the Adventists will be found in these writings and messages of Mrs. White."'

It is the truth, though believers in all lands would confess how poorly we have lived up to the high calling. More than any other one gift, this gift has continually drawn us to that "word of his grace" to which the apostle Paul commended the early church. It has been like a living hand laying hold upon the church, drawing it with forceful entreaty to the fountain of living waters in Holy Scripture. It never lets go. Deeper yet, higher yet, has been the insistent appeal from the days of 1844.

In the first vision to that young girl in 1844, there was a picture of the highway of holiness on which the people of the movement must walk to the Holy City: "I turned to look for the Advent people in the world, but could not find them, when a voice said to me, 'Look again, and look a little higher.' At this I raised my eyes, and saw a straight and narrow path, cast up high above the world. On this path the Advent people were traveling to the city."-Early Writings, p. 14.

The chief burden of this gift of prophecy, it would seem, has been to urge believers into this path, "high above the world." The voice that rang out clear and thrilling over many a campground in the years of Mrs. White's physical strength, "Clear the King's highway, and let the Saviour in," sounds in all the writings. People of remotest lands recognize it. In languages of the African interior, in the islands of the South Seas, among peoples who have but comparatively few translated portions, it is recognized that here is a special call to piety and spirituality.

I was visiting a mission conference in ancient Taiyuanfu, chief city of Shansi, in North China. The whole atmosphere of the meeting was Chinese. The superintendent was an able Chinese evangelist. The only foreign touch was in the presence of several foreign missionary visitors. One day between sessions I saw a group of village women in specially animated conversation.

I said to a missionary who knew the language, "Now, what do these village women talk about among themselves, so earnestly and eagerly?'"

My friend, A. A. Esteb, listened a moment, then exclaimed: "I declare! Do you hear what that young village woman has just said to the others? 'What a wonderful treasure of spiritual food is given to us in the writings which have come to us through the gift of prophecy!'"

A gift that stands so directly for the essential things of the Christian life merits the opposition of the enemy of souls. And it has met this from earliest days. In the 1860's Uriah Smith, lifelong editor of the church paper, wrote of these writings:

"They tend to the purest morality. They discountenance every vice, and exhort to the practice of every virtue. . . . They have aroused and re-aroused us to greater consecration to God, more zealous efforts for holiness of heart, and greater diligence in the cause and service of our Master.... Yet with all this array of good fruit which they are able to present, with all this innocency of any charge of evil that can be brought against them, they everywhere encounter the bitterest opposition. . . . Why is all this? Whence all this war against that of which no evil can be said?"-The Review and Herald, June 12, 1866.

The answer is that the prophecy foretold the special wrath of the enemy against the remnant church that keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:17). That explains the otherwise inexplicable. The first Seventh-day Adventist minister ever to set foot in Ireland, the late R. F. Andrews, visited the North of Ireland counties in 1885. Not a note had ever been struck there by us. But he found that an American minister, of a group of no-law opponents of our work in the United States, had gone to and fro over there, warning the people against the writings and work of Ellen G. White. Strange how loyalty to the law of God, and possession of this gift of prophecy, brings forth the bitter attacks, as foretold.

In 1886 a minister, formerly prominent among us, left the movement. Others, he said, had turned and fought their former brethren, but this he would never do. But almost at the first dash he was called by some church circles to fight the Adventists. He it was of whom J. H. Waggoner, one of our editorial pioneers, wrote in 1887:

"A certain man advertised to give a lecture in a village in California, in which he promised to 'expose the visions of Mrs. E. G. White.' At the close of his lecture, a gentleman, not connected with the Adventists, asked the lecturer, 'What is the nature and the tendency of these visions? What is their moral tone, and what would be the effect of a person's living in strict harmony with their teachings?' The lecturer admitted that the morality taught therein is pure, and that any one would be saved who lived up to what they teach. Said one who was present, to the writer of this article, 'I wondered what a man could think of himself, advertising to oppose and expose writings which are morally pure, and which would lead to salvation any one who would heed them."'Quoted in The Review and Herald, May 3, 1887.

Those who called for such help to oppose the Adventists in California, quickly found that they were only helping the cause they desired to check. People of other churches did not appreciate the attack upon a Christian woman. They said, "We know Mrs. White. She is a good woman, and her life and influence among us have been such that attacks of this character are an offense to us."

While no doubt printed misrepresentations of this gift and its agent have turned some from investigation of the truth, on the other hand, many in various lands tell how the bitter spirit of the attacks has turned their hearts to this way. One such, Mr. J. L. Branford, of Australia, years ago told of an experience:

"When I accepted the Sabbath truth, two books were placed in my hands almost immediately. One was Early Writings, the other was a book written by Mr. Canright. I read Canright's book first. I had not gone very far before I was convinced that the spirit that actuated that man was from beneath. I could not contradict the statements he made against Mrs. White nor against the denomination, but I knew the man had not the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was not until I read Mrs. White's writings myself, and saw that they convinced me of sin, and pointed out my faults, that I realized that to follow their teachings would lead me to the kingdom of God. It was that that convinced me that the Spirit of prophecy was from God."-Australasian Record.

This is typical of the experience of many. On that same occasion when the above statement was made, Pastor Robert Hare, one of the first Adventist ministers to be ordained for Australasia, said: "When I read the Testimonies, the Spirit of Christ talks to me. When I read the things men have written against Mrs. White, I see there a spirit of bitterness and hatred. But a tenderness flows into my soul when I read the Testimonies, and I know it comes from heaven."

Early in Mrs. White's experience an angel messenger explained to her in vision:

"Your success is in your simplicity. As soon as you depart from this and fashion your testimony to meet the minds of any, your power is gone. Almost everything in this age is glossed and unreal. The world abounds in testimonies given to please and charm for the moment and to exalt self. Your testimony is of a different character. It is to come down to the minutiae of life, keeping the feeble faith from dying and pressing home upon believers the necessity of shining as lights in the world."-Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 667.

The uniqueness of this instruction is that it does come down to real life, to the minute details of home and church and human relationships. The nine volumes of the Testimonies for the Church are largely composed of personal messages sent to this one and that one in need of help, or to workers in service, and to boards and committees dealing with administrative problems. The counsels are therefore not so generally an exposition of abstract principles, but came as messages to actual men and women needing help in personal problems and experiences. Thus they speak in a very personal way to all; for people and families and groups are much alike.

In this same way Mrs. White had a way of dealing in person with problems, wherever she was called to go in those seventy years and more of service on three continents.

For instance, just as the movement was taking shape in Europe, Mrs. White was called to spend two years or more there. Writing of a council at Basel, Switzerland, in 1885, one of the first held in Europe, one of our pioneers in the French work, D. T. Bourdeau, wrote:

"Never was the gift of prophecy more needed, and its service more timely, than on this occasion. Errors and difficulties that had baffled human wisdom and effort were pointed out, corrected, and removed, with that tenderness, plainness, faithfulness, and impartiality which have characterized this gift during the entire period of its manifestation among us."

As he observed the manner in which this gift laid hold of the actual problems in that new field, he wrote of the methods:

"It not only probes the wound, but it also pours in the oil, binds the wound, and hastens the process of restoration.... It identifies itself with those for whom it labors, bearing their burdens in earnest, persevering prayer, forgetful of self and ease, and keeping the glory of God and the salvation of souls in view, aiming to secure these at any sacrifice. It brings with it the supernatural discernment that Peter evinced in the case of Ananias and Sapphira. It brings with it the miraculous, without which religion were a formal, heartless, lifeless, human affair."Quoted in The Review and Herald, Nov. 10, 1885.

This sort of observation might have been repeated of hundreds of occasions. Multiply such service a thousandfold, and one approaches the record of seventy years of the ministry. In the face of practical, visible, living help rendered on an occasion like that, the murmurings and representations of all the critics that ever lived become as the foam of raging waves of the sea dashing against the rock. It is service rendered that counts. It is help given in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God that attests a divinely directed gift. When believers have seen and experienced such workings of a gift, day in and day out, year in and year out, sure of touch, unwavering, unfailing, they know the living God has placed a gift in the church for service.

We have had good mothers in Israel, multitudes of them, who lived the true life, and carried the true burden of helpfulness. God has made them a blessing. Some of them had natural gifts by education and training above any natural advantages that Mrs. White had had to whom this gift of prophecy was committed. But none of them-- not one--could do, and not one of them ever did do, the kind of work that she was doing all the time for seventy years.

There was something more than goodness here. She was a good mother in our Israel, as were many others. But it had to be something in addition. It was the gift of prophecy, as of old, manifested through human weakness, and the high purpose in it all was to build up the church of the movement in piety and devotion and spiritual life and service.

And what a burden of soul for the salvation of believers was Mrs. White strengthened to carry! The record of her life seems to leave not a moment when this or that need of the church was not immediately pressing; or when some worker's need of encouragement or warning was not laid upon her heart. Let me illustrate by one example:

In 1932 I was at a large camp meeting in Sydney, Australia. I had spoken of how Mrs. White, while living in Australia, was given messages for Europe, for Africa, for America, for work and workers in all the ends of the earth. As an illustration having a local appeal, I read a three-line note written by Mrs. White from the Australian village of Cooranbong, where she was living in 1900, alongside the Avondale school. Across the sea to another continent she sent the message to a brother whom I called John Blank: "My instructor said, 'John Blank, you are departing from the faith once delivered to the people of God."'

From out that little cottage, set on the edge of the Australian bush, the appeal went across the world to a beloved worker in danger. It shows how the lines of counsel and entreaty were always running out from the place of that gift, touching the work and workers in all the world. After the meeting an elderly lady in black came to me to speak of Mrs. White. "I know who Mr. Blank was," she said. "I worked for Mrs. White in 1900, as housekeeper. Night after night, in the early morning hours, I was awakened by Mrs. White's voice in prayer. I heard her praying for Mr. Blank, entreating God not to let him go, to hold him, and keep him, and save him."

It is one glimpse of the spirit in which this gift of prophecy was ever exercised. With all its stern warnings against sin and the wrong course, it spoke ever in the spirit of Christ. It is "the testimony of Jesus Christ," the voice of the Good Shepherd who came to seek and save the lost.

Men of the world have recognized a spirit beyond the ordinary in these instructions to the church. J. A. Rippey told of leaving a volume of Testimonies for the Church on a train seat. When he returned, a gentleman, who apologized for having picked it up, said: "I hold a chair on the faculty of a university in New York. I am continually reading books, but this is the finest literature I have ever read. Where can I get some of these books?"