The Spirit of Prophecy in the Advent Movement

A Lodge Devotee Surprised

I may add one more incident, never before put in our printed records, I think. In Australia I was told by a veteran worker of a man who had stood high in one of the secret societies. In fact, he had reached the high degrees in the order. He felt, as he joined this advent movement, that there was nothing inconsistent in holding his place in the lodge. Some had talked with him, but he was strong in his position. SPIAM 116.4

“When you meet Mrs. White,” he was told, “you will find she will have something to say about it.” SPIAM 116.5

He replied: “It will have to be something pretty strong, I can tell you.” SPIAM 116.6

Some time later Mrs. White invited him to an interview. There were a few moments of greeting, and at once Mrs. White began reading a message that she had been given for him. But in agitation the man interrupted the reading. “Do you know what you have been doing, Mrs. White?” “I am giving you a message that God has given me for you,” she replied. “Yes,” he said; “but you have been giving me the signs and all the passwords of my lodge.” Later he said to his brethren: “I told you it would have to be something strong; and I got it strong, all right. That woman never could have Known what she did in meeting me, and talking with me.” SPIAM 116.7

When this was told me by one of the workers in Australia, this brother had long since been dead. I met his widow, who added this further information concerning the interview with Mrs. White that fully convinced him he should sever his lodge connections. She said: SPIAM 117.1

“I had pleaded with my husband to give it up; but he was fascinated with it. He had been raised to be Master of his lodge. Some months after his promotion he was called to go to our school at St. Kilda. There Mrs. White met him. He was so late leaving the interview that he missed the last train to Preston, where we lived, and had to walk several miles. When he arrived home, he seemed very happy. He said he was not tired by the walk, as he seemed to be treading on air all the way, because of the talk he had had with Mrs. White. He said he knew the Lord had condescended to speak to him through her. SPIAM 117.2

“She told him that she had been holding this message for him for twelve months, because she knew he was not ready before to receive anything she might say. He told her it was true that he would not have been ready to hear, but now he would listen. He told me that Mrs. White went through motions and signs, unconsciously, in meeting him, signs of his order, which he knew she could not have understood; and in talking with him she used certain passwords of the order. It helped him to understand that the message she had for him was of the Lord, and he accepted it.” SPIAM 117.3

Enough of such instances of ministry for workers needing help in ways quite beyond her own ken. These incidents are helpful to us. But the great thing of all the seventy years of personal service was the constant spiritual ministry, and the constant intervention of this gift in the regular conduct of the work—counsels often coming in such a timely way on occasions of need that again and again workers receiving the messages have had to exclaim, “Mrs. White never could have written that thing of herself!” SPIAM 117.4

The living God has been speaking to the advent movement, and leading it. SPIAM 117.5