Chapter Ten—Reading the Thoughts of Men’s Hearts

There was another significant contribution that Mrs. White made to the Advent Movement, a contribution often as dramatic as those we have already discussed. That was her endless contacts with men and institutions as she sought to give aid in hours of perplexity, a sense of direction in times of confusion, and rebuke in instances of error and evil. Her correspondence was great. All through her life she wrote the first draft of her letters by hand. Enlightened by a night vision over some problem of the church or of some individual, she would rise up to write—often long before daybreak.WBEGW 66.1

The files of the White Estate, in which are found carbons of her letters since the beginning of the use of typewriters in the 1880’s, bear silent witness to her prodigious literary labors. But the really unique feature of all this was not the volume of her writing, great as it was, or the wide range of her concern, which was as wide as our world program. Rather, it was the amazing insights into human character and human problems that her letters reveal. She dealt at times with the innermost secrets of men’s hearts, for it is the secrets of the heart that are the source of all our actions.WBEGW 66.2

There are those who would seek to explain away this amazing fact with the casual remark that she simply picked up gossip here and there and acted upon it. How easy the explanation! Why did we not think of it before? Why be concerned with her claims to revelation? Gossip explains it, of course. Or at least, so we are told.WBEGW 67.1

But let us look again at the matter. What is, above all else, the distinguishing mark of a gatherer of gossip, who in turn acts upon his gossipy knowledge to write to this, that, and the other person? You reply, He is best distinguished as a distressing, even obnoxious character, who sows discord and ultimately loses all his friends.WBEGW 67.2

But does this describe Mrs. White? No one who has any knowledge of the Adventist Church and Mrs. White would say Yes. Did she create dissension right and left, and wear out her welcome everywhere? The very opposite was the case. When she wrote letters to individuals and sometimes to churches where trouble existed, the result was generally contrite confession, revival of religious experience, victory over sin. That happened in so many, many instances, as to become rather commonplace. Does that describe a gossip?WBEGW 67.3