Chapter 4 — A Friend among Friends

IT HAPPENED IN FINLAND about 1926. The Finnish people are religious. They live close to nature, and have an inborn feeling of reverence for the God of nature. In the long, quiet winter nights, alone in their little homes, the Lord speaks to them through His works. In the majesty of the mighty forests, with their wide expanse of glistening snow and the sparkling, clear stars overhead, God speaks to their inner souls, so that communion with their Creator becomes very real. There is perhaps no people more ready to believe in spiritual gifts. God comes near, and they feel themselves in His very presence. The idea that the Creator of all things can communicate His thoughts to men seems a blessed reality. They readily believe in divine visions and revelations. I had been in the country frequently to attend conferences and mission workers’ meetings, and at one time was having another week of prayer and meditation with these servants of God. They had asked me to give a study on the spiritual gifts, including the gift of prophecy as revealed in the Bible and as seen in the remnant church.FSG 39.1

As I looked into the faces of these earnest workers, the thought came to me: Has any one of them seen Mrs. White? Have they heard her speak, and do they know of her personal life? The work in Finland started at the beginning of this century, and some well-educated people in the country—people with a deep spiritual insight—had accepted the message. I stopped in my lesson and asked them, “Have any of you people here seen the messenger of the Lord so that you have heard her speak or been in personal contact with her?” All of them together exclaimed, “No, we haven’t. None of us ever saw her, and there isn’t very much of her writings translated into our language. What we have read is good and spiritual and agrees with the Bible, but we have wished so many, many times that we could have seen her or that someone who knew her would tell us more about her. She has been dead some years now, and while we love her writings, we wish we knew more about her as a person. Was she married? [In Europe her articles were then usually signed E. G. White or Ellen G. White.] Did she have a family? Did her neighbors like her? Was she kind and practical? Could people go and talk with her in true spiritual confidence? Was she easy of approach, and did she have a large circle of honored and reliable friends? She was in Europe once, but that is long ago and there were no Adventists in Finland at that time, so she has never been in our country.”FSG 39.2

As I listened to this chorus of questions, coming almost all at once, it occurred to me that it might be well, especially at this late day, if some of those who knew Mrs. White personally would tell what her contemporaries thought of her and what kind of individual she really was. All people of importance have a circle of acquaintances, and what such people are is best known by the way they are judged by those close to them in their daily life. What impression did Mrs. White make upon the people who knew her through the years, what, traditions do lay members who met her hold concerning her, and what were the experiences told about her by those who came close to her?FSG 40.1

I can tell something about the opinions and feelings of the common people among our members away back in the eighties and even earlier concerning Mrs. White. I remember so well what the members of my own church in southern Minnesota who had met her and had been in her home and talked with her thought of her. I remember hearing, as a young man, the godly, faithful women in our church speak about her. Some years earlier they had attended a small camp meeting in Medford, Minnesota. Mrs. E. G. White and her son W. C. White attended that meeting. It was in 1872. Our church was about forty miles from Medford, and some from that church often spoke of Mrs. White. These were practical, hard-working folks, and not easily fooled. They had observed how kind and courteous her son was to her and how gently he seemed to care for his mother. They had heard her preach in many meetings. They never tired of telling about her religious revivals, and how beautifully she portrayed the glories of heaven, and what touching appeals she made for purity of life and for happy homes. I loved to hear them tell it, because they always stressed her great love for children and youth.FSG 41.1

Among other things they told this: At the camp meeting some of the sisters (and they were all farmers’ wives living in new country, as southern Minnesota then was) said to one another, “Let us call on Mrs. White where she is staying. Though it I is hardly courteous, we will not tell her we are coming. We will just go there when we know she is at home, and see how she receives us when we come unexpectedly, and really find out how she is as a woman and mother.” They went to see her, and they were happily welcomed. She received them in a kind, matter-of-fact way. She asked them to come in, and although the home where she was staying was furnished simply, she found a chair for each one of them, and then began to chat. They found her simply a common, kind mother who had a deep interest in her children and in the children and homes of others from Michigan. She was acquainted with new-settlement experiences, and asked them such questions as they asked each other: Did they have a warm, well built house, and was it a log house? Did they have a well with good soft water? How far did they live from the school, and did their children have a chance to go to school in the summer as well as in the winter? She inquired concerning the health of the children, and whether any of them had recently had some of the new-settlement diseases so common at that time, such as malaria and others. She asked about their church, about family worship; she talked with them about knitting and sewing and a score of other things that young country wives with growing families were thinking of every day. They said she seemed so understanding and so like one of them that they felt perfectly at home with her. She didn’t preach to them; she didn’t correct them. She answered their questions naturally in a simple, straightforward manner. She had some definite ideas as to how children should be trained, but she told them that not two of her four children were alike, and she knew that every child had to be trained in its own Way.FSG 41.2

Some three decades later Mrs. White wrote the following on the question of child training:FSG 42.1

“Years ago the children in my home were learning how to knit. One of them asked me, ‘Mother, I should like to know whether I am helping you by trying to do this knitting work?’ I knew that I should have to take out every stitch, but I replied, ‘Yes, my child, you are helping me.’ Why could I say that they were helping me? Because they were learning. When they did not make the stitches as they should have made them, I took out every stitch afterward, but never did I condemn them for their failure. Patiently I taught them until they knew how to knit properly...FSG 42.2

“Let the children know that they are helping father and mother by doing little errands. Give them some work to do for you, and tell them that afterward they can have a time to play.FSG 43.1

“Dress your children neatly in simple clothing, and allow them to spend much time out of doors. You can furnish them with cartloads of sand in which to play.”—The Review and Herald, June 23, 1903, page 12.FSG 43.2

At the visit sketched above, these sisters spent about two hours with her in just such happy, pleasant neighborhood conversation as Adventists enjoy. When some people objected to Mrs. White, as certain critics did, those people replied, “We know better; we have seen her. We know how plainly and becomingly she dresses. We know what she thinks of her husband and her home. She is interested in the very things that interest us, and we had the most pleasant time we ever enjoyed in a visit, just talking with her. She didn’t try to get us to think of her as a person away up high above us. There was with her a quiet dignity and a deep love for things divine that impressed us all, but we don’t know that she was different in that from other very godly people we have seen.”FSG 43.3

As I listened to these stories in my own church and near-by churches, I often said to myself, “I wish I could hear and see Sister White.” That opportunity came when I was a high school student of seventeen. I went through Minneapolis in the autumn of 1888 while the renowned Minneapolis General Conference was in session. It was a stormy meeting. Some men were urging the importance of righteousness by faith. Their work and their teaching were the beginning of a large revival, as every student of Adventist history knows, but there were some who were not clear on the matter, and it took three or four years before they came into entire harmony with these views. Mrs. White did not reprove them severely. She urged that they be given time, and before long practically every one of them did accept the full light. I had heard about the conference before I came, and I knew that it was rather a troubled session. I attended a meeting the first day. S. N. Haskell was chairman, and Uriah Smith was secretary.FSG 43.4

That evening D. T. Bourdeau preached on the Ten Commandments. I was not interested in his sermon or impressed particularly with his discussion of the Ten Commandments. That night, however, when I occupied the little cot they had given me in a room with three seasoned preachers, I was much surprised. They made fun of the sermon, and they were critical. Some of the words that they said seemed most cruel to me. They not only did not like the evening sermon but condemned strongly some of the things that had been said by the men who taught righteousness by faith.FSG 44.1

I was very much surprised, for I had never heard my parents say one unfavorable word about a preacher, and it had never dawned on my mind that any preacher could criticize or ridicule another preacher. In the course of the night (and I didn’t sleep a wink while they were talking), one of them remarked, “Well, you know Mrs. White is to speak tomorrow forenoon.” I said to myself, “I shall be there, and I am going to take a seat right up front so I can see her and really observe her myself, and not merely hear what she says.” In good time the next morning I had a seat on the front row. In those days Adventists did not sing many hymns while people were waiting; the members were supposed to sit quietly in meditation or prayer, without being disturbed by either talking or singing. I was half an hour early, and I noticed that about ten minutes before the time of the service a small group entered, three preachers and two women. From pictures I had seen of Mrs. White, I knew at once that she was one of the women. S. N. Haskell, a tall, impressive man, led the way. With him came Uriah Smith, who had one of the kindest and most intelligent faces of any man I ever knew. He seemed to have a keen sense of humor. Then came Mrs. White and her secretary, whose name I did not know. W. C. White, then a young man with raven-black hair, came in last and sat near the rest. I observed those people as closely as I ever watched anything in my life, and especially was I anxious to see Mrs. White and note what she did.FSG 44.2

They took their seats below the rostrum and sat for two or three minutes in prayer. Then Elder Smith smiled and made some cheering remark. Elder Haskell nodded, and they turned to Mrs. White, who looked pleased and agreed to what they said. They were discussing the service. After a further brief meditation, in which they all seemed perfectly at case and natural, Elder Haskell led the way to the platform, followed by Elder Smith. The secretary did not go up, but Mrs. White took her place on the rostrum, accompanied by her son. I do not remember anything about the hymns or the prayer, but when Mrs. White rose to speak, the whole audience was tense and expectant—possibly no one more than I, since I had heard my parents and others tell about her. She began to talk in her low, pleasing, melodious voice about God’s plan and purpose to save mankind. She did not tell us her topic, and she did not read many Bible texts—I think only four or five—but she simply talked to us about the marvelous love of God and His efforts to save mankind. She talked about Jesus in almost a new way, as a very dear personal friend. I had never till then heard a sermon like it. It was so attractive. It had a certain drawing power beyond anything I had known. One seemed almost in the presence of the Lord, and I could not help thinking of how Deborah, another messenger of God, must have taught the way of the Lord in the days of the old prophets.FSG 45.1

One thing that especially impressed me was her voice. It was so beautifully natural. One would think she was talking to people within four or five feet of where she was standing. I wondered whether the other folks could hear. Later, at the 1905 conference in Takoma Park, Washington, D.C., after I had entered the ministry, I had a chance to test her voice. She was standing on the large platform in front addressing an audience of five thousand people, some of them in the very back of a large tent. I sat in front, and I said to myself, They never can hear in the rear so as to know what she is saying. Slipping out, I walked outside the tent to the rear, and when I came in and stood behind the great crowd I could hear every word and almost every syllable of every word just as plainly as I could up in the front.FSG 45.2

The Minneapolis audience, of course, was smaller, but it hung on her words as if they felt that they were listening to the very instruction from heaven. In it all, with her magnificent gift of speaking and her ability to control an audience and to move them either to solid thinking or to the deepest emotion, she seemed quietly sure of herself as a messenger of God; yet she did nothing to call attention to herself or exalt her authority. She merely stood there as a mouthpiece for the Lord, thinking only of His Word and seeking only to lift up Jesus so that we might see Him alone. Her great purpose, her very life, seemed to be to lead people to study and love the Word of the Lord.FSG 46.1

In the meetings of Mrs. White there was a richness of spiritual light and power that all who knew her will remember. I think of one such occasion at the General Conference of 1909 in Takoma Park, the last General Conference she ever attended. She was old, quite feeble, and was not present at many meetings. Early in that session it was announced that Mrs. White had asked to meet all the ministers. It was understood that she had something very special on her heart, and that she had a message from the Lord for us. Like other young preachers, I kept wondering what it was. There were several things I thought she might very helpfully present and sternly correct. There were other subjects that I was eager to hear her discuss, and as I talked with the other young preachers about it, we thought of a number of topics of which we hoped she would speak.FSG 46.2

After the meeting began and they had prayed, Mrs. White in her quiet, dignified way rose to give the message. She took her Bible and read the first five verses of the third chapter of John. I was a bit disappointed, though I fancied she would dwell on some educational problem, using the text, “We know that Thou art a teacher come from God.” But she did not. Instead, she told us how happy she was to see us and how earnestly she desired that all the ministers, including the younger preachers, would grow into faithful, Spirit-filled burden bearers for Christ, with a real experience in the things of God. Then she told us that her text was the words, “Ye must be born again.” I regret to confess that some of us were disappointed. I knew we needed spiritual help, but it did not seem to me that is was quite an appropriate text for a ministers’ meeting. However, I had not thought that way two minutes before I almost awoke with a start, saying to myself, “That is something new. That is deeper and higher and grander than anything I have ever read or heard on the topic of the new birth, and the new birth as a daily experience for the preacher.” I had never before, nor have I since, heard such a heart-searching and yet kind and beautiful presentation pf the work of the Holy Spirit in transforming human lives into the glorious likeness of Christ as she presented to us. And I noticed that the other young preachers, and I suppose the older ones as well, were as impressed as I was. When her talk was finished (it lasted less than thirty minutes), we preachers said, “That is the best for our own souls we have ever heard.” It was not critical; it was not discouraging; it did not condemn us; but it did give us a glimpse of the heights of spiritual excellence to which we might attain and to which we ought to attain if we were really servants of Christ to lead people on to a living faith in the Lord Jesus.FSG 47.1

My wife’s mother lived as a young lady in Mrs. White’s home in Battle Creek, Michigan, as helper in the family and as secretary to Mrs. White. When I told her this experience and the general impressions, both within and without the church, of Mrs. White as a humble and practical, godly woman, she went on to tell one experience after another of what she had observed in Mrs. White’s home when she was there. She was especially impressed with the sunny spirit of the home and with Mrs. White’s kindly humor and good sense concerning home affairs, neighborhood problems, and everything that enters into the care of a large house and family such as Elder and Mrs. White had. She loved to tell how good Mrs. White was to her helpers, what plain yet nourishing food she served, and how useful Mrs. White was in ordinary questions of dress, furniture, and health.FSG 48.1

From 1914 on, I was president of the Lake Union, which included Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and especially old Michigan, where we had so many members and where the Adventist work was largely started, back in the fifties and sixties. While there, I met many of our faithful Michigan believers who had personally known Elder and Mrs. White and who had entertained them in their homes many, many times. They had the fullest confidence in them. They did not think of Mrs. White as infallible, but they regarded her—to use a Bible expression—as a true “mother in Israel.” I remember well one family that lived near Grand Ledge, Michigan. I saw the grandmother again in 1938 when attending camp meeting there. She gave me a large number of old books written by Mrs. White, pamphlets that are hard to find today. Then she went on to tell me that Elder and Mrs. White in the late sixties had spent a whole winter in their home. She and her husband were among the early settlers. They were well to-do farmers and had a large house. She remembered how happy the Whites seemed to be in their own home life. He was humorous, and loved to tell amusing things. She loved them, too, but every so often she would say, “No, no, James. Now, now, don’t go too far.” And he would reply, “Ellen, I think the Lord wants us to be happy,” to which she quickly agreed.FSG 48.2

Many of the old Adventists in Michigan and Illinois loved to relate how kind and helpful Elder and Mrs. White were, especially to the poor. It was in the early days of the Michigan settlements. Many of those new settlers lacked food or clothing. Very often their neighbors had to help them, and Elder White, who was keen in business matters as well as in spiritual things, was constantly trying, as any reader of the old Review knows, to help people in need. The men delighted to tell how he would say, “Ellen, talk is cheap; but the thing that counts is what you and I can give. It is good to sympathize with these folk, but the result of our sympathy is determined by how deep we dig into our pocketbooks.” And Mrs. White was constantly working in the same spirit of helping the poor and needy. What she writes in such books as Ministry of Healing and many of the Testimonies concerning our duty to the needy and sick was exemplified most beautifully in her own life. This chapter would become much too long if I should recount all the things that these old acquaintances said of Sister White. I never heard one of them find fault with her in any way.FSG 49.1

While I was living in Chicago, our brethren in Wisconsin told me of a certain lady who had been a Sabbath keeper for many years. They were eager that I should visit her and interest her in behalf of our school in Wisconsin and in our work in other places. She lived not too far from Madison. I made an appointment to spend a day with her, and a happy, useful day it was. I did not need to talk money matters with her much, for she was in the mood to help as far as her circumstances permitted. She was really getting on in years, but her memory was active and clear. As we visited, she soon began to talk about Mrs. White.FSG 49.2

She said to me, “I knew Mrs. White’s father and mother. They first lived in the country, not too far from Portland, Maine. Later they lived in the city. I was older than Mrs. White by five years, and we often played together. I remember very well the sad accident she had in her childhood. My folks were well to do, but her folks were in rather limited circumstances. Her father had a small hat business.”FSG 50.1

I said to her, “What did you think of Mrs. White, not merely as a child, but after her conversion, as a young lady, before and after she was married?”FSG 50.2

She smiled and said, “Well, that is an interesting story which I delight to tell. James was older than Ellen by about six years. We were young people there together. Their friendship was a model and an inspiration to us all, and their marriage a most beautiful and happy event.”FSG 50.3

But I said, “What did you think of her earlier, when she first began to have visions? Were the visions written out, and were they good?”FSG 50.4

She said, “Many of them were never written as far as I know, but the effects of them were always good. My recollection of Sister White,” she added, “is that never in my life have I known a woman who seemed so completely devoted to the Lord Jesus. He seemed to be to her a personal friend whom she knew and loved and trusted. She found great joy in talking about Jesus; and all of the younger people agreed that there, at least, was a young lady who lived very near to the Lord and who in her sincere, practical way tried with all her heart to follow Jesus.”FSG 50.5

This woman was not a member of the Adventist Church, though she had been close to us all her life and she had splendid recollections both of Adventists and other people in her neighborhood. I can still hear her speak of how the deep personal godliness of Mrs. White had impressed her, and also how ordinary and friendly as a girl Mrs. White was with all the girls of her age. She told me she was a real favorite with the young people, and that they loved her and regarded her most highly, even though some of them did not believe all her visions, for they were not Adventists.FSG 50.6

In a most helpful way Mrs. White had a gift of making and keeping friends. She was a prodigious letter writer, and nearly all her letters were written by hand. In many places in this country and even overseas, we used to find personal letters she had written to her friends. When visiting conferences in South America in 1938, down in Argentina, I met a woman who had several personal letters from Mrs. White. This woman belonged to a prosperous old Adventist farm family in southern Minnesota. The head of that family had been a strong supporter of the Adventist cause all through his life. He had accepted the truth back in the sixties. His sister had worked for years as one of the secretaries of Mrs. White. This woman in Argentina had known Mrs. White rather casually; but, knowing of her experiences, Mrs. White wrote her these beautiful letters. She gave two of them to me. They were newsy, and contained beautiful spiritual sentiments; but as they were of no special significance, I have not kept them. Our members felt that Mrs. White took an unselfish personal interest in her friends, and we can only explain this by saying that she just loved people.FSG 51.1

Her ability to keep the confidence of her friends extended even to those who had left our message and who had written or worked against her. In 1915 I was urged to visit D. M. Canright, who at one time was prominent in our church. He lived then on a poor little farm near Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was eager to tell about his past experiences and seemed to regret that he had ever left the advent people. He talked like a discouraged, disappointed man. As we talked about old time Adventists, he began to tell about Mrs. White.FSG 51.2

He said, “I knew her very well. For some time, as a young man, I lived in her home, and for eighteen years was intimately acquainted with the White family. I want to say to you that I never met a woman so godly and kind and at the same time so unselfish, helpful, and practical as Mrs. White. She was certainly a spiritual woman, a woman of prayer and deep faith in the Lord Jesus.”FSG 52.1

I asked him what he thought would happen to people if they followed the Testimonies of Mrs. White.FSG 52.2

He answered, “Anyone who follows her writings, the Testimonies, as you call them, in prayer and faith will certainly get to heaven. She always exalted Jesus, and she taught true conversion and genuine sanctification as few others have. I have known a great many men and women who claim to be extraordinary in their imagined divine calling and gifts. I have always found them more or less arrogant and proud, eager to be recognized and often arbitrary and harsh in judging others. With Mrs. White I found the exact opposite. She was reserved and modest and seemed to have no desire at all to call attention to herself as someone great or to her authority.”FSG 52.3

Some months after these visits, at the funeral of Mrs. White in Battle Creek, I met D. M. Canright again. There were six of us men who stood as a guard of honor while the people passed through the tabernacle to view Mrs. White as she lay in her plain casket. I noticed Mr. Canright as he came down the aisle toward the rostrum. He stopped at the casket and looked at Mrs. White quite a while. He reached down and took hold of her right hand, which had done all that immense amount of writing.FSG 52.4

Later I asked him, “Now that she is dead, what do you really think of Mrs. White?”FSG 52.5

He replied, “She was a most godly woman. All her life she lived near to Jesus and taught the way of living faith. Anyone who follows her instructions will surely be saved in the kingdom of God.”FSG 53.1

I mention this to show his view and judgment of her as a person and a Christian.FSG 53.2

If we want to understand what Moses or Paul or other servants of God were, we get a glimpse of their life by noticing what others say about them. The Israelites thought so well of Moses as a leader and a friend that they mourned for weeks after he passed away. The people, too, who knew Jesus personally gave testimonies of Him which really show what His contemporaries thought of Him. The mothers loved Him and felt free with Him. They brought their little babies for Him to put His hands upon and bless. The publicans trusted Him and even invited Him to some of their special pleasure occasions so that He could talk with them. It was not only learned men like Nicodemus who admired Him, but also ordinary soldiers and working people. They declared, after listening to Him, “Never man spoke like this man.” We are told that “the common people heard Him gladly.” There were little things in the life of Jesus that impressed people. After His resurrection, one of the first things He did was to say to His disciples when, after fishing all night, they were cold, wet, and hungry, “Children, have you anything to eat?” Then miraculously He gave them a good breakfast.FSG 53.3

In similar manner, hundreds of little things have been told by those who knew Mrs. White, and all testify to her genuine religious experience and to her unselfish life. Adventists have never regarded Mrs. White as infallible. They think she was inspired as Ezekiel and other prophets were inspired, and they accept her messages as counsels from the Lord.FSG 53.4

What our leaders and believers in earlier years thought of Mrs. White was well expressed in 1922 by O. A. Johnson, one of our most learned and efficient college Bible instructors:FSG 53.5

“While neither Mrs. White nor any of her most devoted followers ever claimed that she, as a human being, never erred, yet she claims that what she wrote under the direction of the Spirit of God was to be regarded as nearly perfect as could be given through human agency.”FSG 54.1

Adventists loved and trusted her for her sterling integrity. When she died, she did not leave a large fortune as some modern prophets have; in fact, she was generous almost to a fault, and had given away so much that at the time of her death she was in debt, though her obligations were more than covered by valuable assets and their earnings. The profits from her books paid all her debts. No individual, not even her relatives, profited in a wrong way by her gift, which she thought of as belonging to the church of Christ. She was constantly giving and helping. Up to the time her husband died, in 1881, Mrs. White received but little salary from the Adventist Church, and in her early years she was never paid anything for her books and articles.FSG 54.2

I remember when we began our mission work among the Icelanders in America. The Icelanders are small in numbers, there being about 120,000 in Iceland and about 25,000 in Canada and the United States. We were eager to get a little paper started among these people. It was in the days when money was scarce, and there were many calls for mission giving. We said, “Let us write Mrs. White and tell her about our desire to begin the work among the Icelandic people, and just bluntly ask her for one hundred dollars. If we get one hundred dollars from her, others will give, and we will soon have the three thousand dollars needed.” In about two weeks an answer came in which she greatly encouraged us to begin work among Icelanders, stressing that everyone was to hear the gospel and that no nation was so small that it should be neglected; and she enclosed a check for one hundred dollars. But that is only one of many such incidents.FSG 54.3

Mrs. White seemed to live her life for just one purpose to exalt and glorify Christ and to do good to others. In a letter written at Elmshaven, Sanitarium, California, January 30, 1905, to O. A. Olsen, she says this of her life service for others:FSG 55.1

“After my marriage I was instructed that I must show a special interest in motherless and fatherless children, taking some under my own charge, for a time, and then finding homes for them. Thus I would be giving others an example of what they could do.FSG 55.2

“I have felt it my duty to bring before our people that for which those in every church should feel a responsibility. I have taken children from three to five years of age, and have educated them, and trained them for responsible positions. I have taken into my home from time to time boys from ten to sixteen years of age, giving them motherly care and a training for service. These boys have now grown to manhood, and some of them occupy positions of trust in our institutions. One was for many years head pressman in the Review and Herald publishing house. Another stood for years as foreman of the type department in the Review and Herald...FSG 55.3

“In Australia I carried on this same work, taking into my home orphan children, who were in danger of being exposed to temptations that might cause the loss of their souls.FSG 55.4

“While we were in Australia we worked as medical missionaries in every sense of the word. At times I made my home in Cooranbong an asylum for the sick and afflicted. My secretary, who had received training in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, stood by my side, and did the work of a missionary nurse. No charge was made for her services, and we won the confidence of the people by the interest that we manifested in the sick and suffering.”—Letter 55, 1905.FSG 55.5

Those who have studied the writings of Mrs. White well know that again and again she expresses a fervent personal love in her heart for Christ. She thought of Jesus as a very dear friend near at hand, with whom she had almost constant contact and communion. Over in Europe a famous state church bishop with great power was bitterly prejudiced against those of the advent faith and hope. One of our tactful members supplied him with a copy of Steps to Christ and most politely asked him to read it. Some time later this learned man wrote in a public statement that although he did not accept the doctrine of Adventists, he was much impressed with their touching, personal love for the Savior, as seen in the writings of a certain E. G. White. Then a converted pastor in one of the districts of this bishop said publicly that every week he read and often copied from the articles by E. G. White in the Adventist paper, because these writings were so friendly and full of love for Jesus. That indeed was the feeling of people everywhere who knew her.FSG 55.6

Both her fellow ministers and her many friends have unreserved confidence in her kindness of heart, balanced judgment, solid sense, and practical worth.FSG 56.1