Time Vindicates the Counsel of the Gift

Thirty-eight years have gone by since those marvelous experiences, and during all these years truly wonderful developments have attended the enterprise.AGP 317.4

Those who were entrusted with the responsibility of developing the school endeavored faithfully to follow the outline given by the spirit of prophecy. Land was cleared and placed under cultivation. Fruit trees and grapevines were planted. A dairy was provided; carpentry, painting, and printing became important industries; and a small factory for the manufacture of health foods was installed.AGP 317.5

God’s blessing rested signally upon the field and orchard at Avondale. I remember at one time, while connected with the school for a short period, I went into the vineyard, lifted up some of the heavy vines, and brought to view large bunches of the most luscious grapes I have ever seen. From the ten-acre orchardAGP 317.6

I have helped the boys carry to the school kitchen large baskets of peaches, oranges, lemons, and apples, as fine as could be grown. So numerous and so large were the turnips in a two-acre patch that I was able to walk across without stepping on the ground.AGP 318.1

Some years later a practical demonstration was given by Prof. C. W. Irwin, then principal of the college, of the fulfillment of the assurance, “God will spread a table in the wilderness.” As a large number of people surrounded long tables laden with many varieties of choice fruit grown on the property, the providences of God in the establishment and growth of the school were rehearsed.AGP 318.2

In 1909, twelve years after the opening of the school, Professor Irwin, who had been principal eight years, wrote as follows:AGP 318.3

“As time has gone on, and we have had an opportunity to watch the work develop, we can say most assuredly, from our experience, that God led in the selection of this place. Everything that has been said about the location of the school in this place has been fulfilled—everything.

“The brethren in counsel with Mrs. White had made such broad and liberal plans for the school that through my eight years’ connection with it I have never yet needed to change a single plan they had laid down. God guided in the establishment of the work there; and all we have endeavored to do during these eight years has simply been to develop more fully the plans already made. I believe the working out of this has proved that God’s instruction was true.”