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    Chapter VI

    Both her writing and her speaking brought Ellen White before the public. There were large demands for the services of both James and Ellen White at the camp meetings held from year to year in the various states. She developed into an eloquent and much-sought-after public speaker, both inside and outside of Seventh-day Adventist circles.EGWP 8.2

    Her usual schedule included eight, ten, or twelve camp meetings each summer. On invitation she occasionally spoke in other Protestant churches, as she did in the Methodist church in Portland, Oregon. We find her also in the state prison in Oregon addressing the convicts. She spoke at the Sunday afternoon evangelistic street meetings held in the resort town of Calistoga, nine miles from her Elmshaven home. In 1870 she spoke on a Mississippi riverboat on the subject “Heaven, the Reward of the Faithful.”EGWP 8.3

    In Battle Creek in 1877 she was invited by a committee of prominent citizens to be the speaker at a mass temperance rally Sunday evening, July 1. The meeting was held in the Michigan Conference camp meeting tent borrowed for the occasion, and an audience of 5,000 gave almost breathless attention as she spoke for ninety minutes. This was her home town. This was where she reared her family and did her shopping.EGWP 8.4

    In those days before the electronic amplifiers, she developed a firm, sustained speaking voice that carried out over the crowd. People who heard her speak thirty-two years later at the General Conference session in Takoma Park reported that those who sat in the front rows in the big tent heard her comfortably and easily. She was just as easily heard by those in the back rows and even beyond the bounds of the tent. Such a speaking voice was one which she developed as she complied with instruction God gave to her in vision.EGWP 8.5

    She once recounted that in her younger days she used to talk too loud, but the Lord showed her that she could not make the proper impression on people by getting the voice to an unnatural pitch. Christ’s manner of speaking was presented to her: “There was a sweet melody in His voice.” 1Evangelism, 670 (Washington, D. C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association 1946). She learned to use her abdominal muscles in breathing to support her voice and to avoid straining her vocal chords. Thus she was able to speak for long periods to very large audiences without undue weariness. A report published in 1878 said:EGWP 8.6

    As a speaker, Mrs. White is one of the most successful of the few ladies who have become noteworthy as lecturers, in this country, during the last 20 years. Constant use has so strengthened her vocal organs as to give her voice rare depth and power. Her clearness and strength of articulation are so great that, when speaking in the open air, she has frequently been distinctly heard at the distance of a mile. Her language, though simple, is

    always forcible and elegant. When inspired with her subject, she is often marvelously eloquent, holding the largest audiences spellbound for hours without a sign of impatience or weariness.... She has frequently spoken to immense audiences, in the large cities, on her favorite themes, and has always been received with great favor. 2American Biographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men of the State of Michigan, Third Congressional District (1878), p. 108, published in Remnant, p. 114.EGWP 9.1

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