Others Saw It

Observers looking on from without, even in the beginnings of our development, felt that there was something remarkable about the work and efficiency of this small people.SPIAM 9.3

For instance, in the year 1884, one of our workers, traveling by train in a Western State, fell into conversation with a bishop of one of the great churches, and with the editor of a newspaper, with whom the bishop was traveling. The bishop, at the close of the interview, said to his editor friend:SPIAM 9.4

“The Seventh-day Adventists are the greatest marvel of development of the last forty years. With all the opposition imaginable, with the most unpopular doctrines, in spite of all difficulties, this people have grown out of nothing and poverty to be one of the most successful in making themselves felt all over the earth; and their cause is onward in spite of everything.”—The Review and Herald, December 9, 1884.SPIAM 9.5

Yet in 1884 our work had only begun to look toward the wide world. Beyond North America and Europe we then had no work. But this discerning administrator of religious activities saw that the movement had within it the elements of vigorous, successful growth. Years later, I recall, two officials of another church called at our General Conference office in Washington to get information and material for the study of our plan of work and organization, which, they felt, had given this small people an efficiency in service beyond the ordinary.SPIAM 9.6

We know well enough that the power and efficiency are not in any plan that can be set down on paper. The results come from preaching the message of “the everlasting gospel” which the prophet John, in the Revelation, saw carried to all nations as the hour of God’s judgment came. That gospel is still “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” But along with the laying hold of the great system of Bible truth, our people from earliest times recognized the importance of the ministry of the spiritual gifts which Christ left with His church. Among these was the gift of prophecy, “the Spirit of prophecy,” as the Revelation names it in connection with the foretelling of last-day developments in the gospel work.SPIAM 10.1