OPPOSERS have been quick to say, "Oh, you Seventh-day Adventists have another Bible--the writings of Mrs. White."

No, we reply, Seventh-day Adventists have but one Bible. That is the one foundation of faith and doctrine. The church is built upon Christ, and all its doctrine upon the living Word. All spiritual gifts are gifts to the church that is built upon the Word. These gifts are to minister the word of God to us, and to lead us into the Scriptures, which are our one rule of faith.

That has always been the teaching in this Advent Movement. In the first little booklet issued by James White, our early leader (who became the husband of Ellen G. Harmon), he wrote in 1847: "The Bible is a perfect, and complete revelation. It is our only rule of faith and practice."--A Word to the Little Flock, p. 13.

This was the principle laid down from the beginning in the writings of Mrs. White. Early in her experience she wrote:

"I recommend to you, dear reader, the Word of God as the rule of your faith and practice. By that Word we are to be judged. God has, in that Word, promised to give visions in the 'last days'; not for a new rule of faith, but for the comfort of His people, and to correct those who err from Bible truth."-Early Writings, p. 78.

"'The word of God is sufficient to enlighten the most beclouded mind, and may be under stood by those who have any desire to understand it. But notwithstanding all this, some who profess to make the word of God their study, are found living in direct opposition to its plainest teachings. Then, to leave men and women without excuse, God gives plain and pointed testimonies, bringing them back to the word that they have neglected to follow."' "'The word of God abounds in general principles for the formation of correct habits of living, and the testimonies, general and personal, have been calculated to call their attention more especially to these principles."' "'The Lord designs to warn you, to reprove, to counsel, through the testimonies given, and to impress your minds with the importance of the truth of His word. The written testimonies are not to give new light, but to impress vividly upon the heart the truths of inspiration already revealed. Man's duty to God and to his fellow man has been distinctly specified in God's word; yet but few of you are obedient to the light given. Additional truth is not brought out; but God has through the Testimonies simplified the great truths already given and in His own chosen way brought them before the people to awaken and impress the mind with them, that all may be left without excuse."'-Testimonies, vol. 5, pp. 663-665.

In the lands that she was called to visit in a lifelong ministry, Mrs. White bore the same testimony. Speaking in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, in 1885, she said:

"The Bible, and the Bible alone, is to be our creed, the sole bond of union; all who bow to this holy word will be in harmony. ... Let us meet all opposition as did our Master, saying, 'It is written.' Let us lift up the banner on which is inscribed, The Bible our rule of faith and discipline."--Quoted in The Review and Herald, Dec. 15, 1885.

Well I remember the last words this faithful servant ever spoke in the general assembly of the church. At a world General Conference in Washington, D.C., she came to the platform on the last day of the session to speak a farewell word to the delegates who had come in from the four quarters of the earth. She felt impressed that she would never attend another General Conference, and she never did. What would be the last message by personal presence in such an assembly by one who had been so many years the agent through whom the gift of prophecy had been manifested? Mrs. White spoke a few words of good cheer and farewell, and then turned to the pulpit, where lay a Bible. She opened the Book, and held it out with hands that trembled with age. And she said:

"Brethren and sisters, I commend unto you this Book."

Without another word, she closed the Book, and walked from the platform. It was her last spoken word in the world assembly of the church she served. Well was it symbolic of her lifelong ministry, ever exalting high, supreme above all, the Holy Scriptures as the foundation of the faith of the people of the Advent Movement.

No; critics of this movement can never justly say that Seventh-day Adventists have "another Bible." The one Book is all that is needed to maintain the doctrines they preach as fundamental in the gospel of salvation.

But all through the history of the movement the gift of prophecy has ministered these things of sound doctrine to us, and has been an inspiration to higher living and a counselor in the doing of the work. Warnings have come to us when we have taken the wrong turn, and the right way has been pointed out. The Lord, the living God, has been leading a movement, as He led the Exodus movement long ago. We who have marched with the Advent Movement through the years as it has risen from a small restricted field of work into a truly world movement, have all along seen this gift of prophecy doing things that we knew Mrs. White herself could never have devised by any natural gift or skill. There is here the touch of the supernatural.

As Dependent As Others on Divine Grace

Mrs. White was like other believers. She felt the need of seeking God for her own personal needs as every believer feels it in his sense of weakness. At the General Conference of 1871 she spoke out:

"I never realized more than I do today the exalted character of the work.... I see the need in myself. I must have a new fitting up, a holy unction, or I cannot go any further to instruct others. I must know that I am walking with God.... I must know that the grace of God is in my own heart, that my own life is in accordance with His will."--Testimonies, vol. 2, p. 618.

The possession of the prophetic gift does not make the human agent a strange and different kind of person. My childhood memory very clearly pictures Mrs. White as a kindly, motherly neighbor for whom I used to do errands. She was a good mother in Israel, and our old headquarters in Michigan had numbers of such good mothers in the church and community. Mrs. White loved the home duties, and might be heard singing to herself as she worked about the house. Naturally, the constant demands upon her time in the work of the cause left her less time for the common duties than other home keepers generally have.

There was nothing of the pretentious about her bearing, no attitude of officiousness. There was no assumption of personal authority or suggestion of personal wisdom about everything. But when the Spirit of the Lord impressed her to give counsel there was an inflexible courage to speak the message needed, in the fear of God and in the spirit of Christ. Leading brethren might come for counsel regarding this problem or that. She might say that no light had been given her concerning it; the brethren would have to seek God and do their best. Again it might be she had just the light needed. She had been shown the very situation presented, and had counsel from the Lord as to what should be done. Often this counsel would be found written out in those journals in which she would write, write, morning by morning and day by day, as the Spirit recalled to her mind things shown, perhaps in the night season.

Considering the fact that as a girl Mrs. White had been prevented from getting more than a common-school education, it is all the more unexplainable from the natural standpoint that she should have written what she did. With no preparation for literary work she produced books that the best minds have admired, as we shall see.

It was done in weakness. We are told in Life Sketches of Ellen G. White that for a considerable time after her call to service she was unable to write. Of a time well on in the year 1845, she says:

"Up to this time I could not write; my trembling hand was unable to hold a pen steadily. While in vision, I was commanded by an angel to write the vision. I obeyed, and wrote readily. My nerves were strengthened, and from that day to this [written in 1880] my hand has been steady."-Page 90.

The writing was often done amid the rush of daily interviews and ministry, at home and abroad; and often through the years it was done amid physical weakness. In 1891 Mrs. White was asked by the General Conference Committee to visit Australia, where a vigorous work was growing up in a new field. A year and a half later she wrote to the headquarters office in America:

"With the writings that shall go in this mail, I have since leaving America written twenty hundred pages of letter paper. I could not have done all this writing if the Lord had not strengthened and blessed me in large measure. Never once has that right hand failed me. My arm and shoulder have been full of suffering, hard to bear, but the hand has been able to hold the pen and trace words that have come to me from the Spirit of the Lord."--Ibid., p. 340.

While these writings are not placed on the same level as Holy Scripture, as we have shown, one who reads the volumes she produced will find that they bear the impress of the same Spirit who spoke in the ancient prophets. There is something unmistakably characteristic of these writings that is not found in other works that we publish. The divine credentials of these writings are discovered in the reading of them.

In view of the nature of these writings, and having regard to the lack of any special training for literary work, there is but one explanation of it all-- with the call to that young woman in 1844 to take up this burden, there came strength and gifts to do the work required.