Manuscript Releases, vol. 18 [Nos. 1301-1359]

MR No. 1334—Diary Selections—November, 1902; Evils in the Publishing House; Christians to Reflect Christ; Not to Speculate About God

St. Helena, Calif., November 12, 1902—This morning [I] have written many pages to be copied. I slept until half past four o'clock. Last evening Edson and Emma White came upon evening train, and it must be that I met them and welcomed them to my home. I thank the Lord I can say my rest was undisturbed until half past four in the morning. 18MR 217.1

We were so thankful that my children came through from Nashville in safety. They took tourist sleeper but report the jostling and shaking about was quite wearisome. 18MR 217.2

I cannot converse with them, for my soul is bowed down with grief and sorrows that cannot be expressed to anyone. They cannot understand the many things that are presented before me in the visions of the night. I am conversing with wise instructors in the night season. Last night there were some things I was listening to of great interest to me. The subject was being canvassed in regard to the character of books to be used in our schools. The One of authority was speaking. The statements were that the character of the books and their study was an index of the standard of the mind of those who used them. There are too many books perused or run through which are of very little profit but are doing the minds positive injury. There is too much poured into the mind from too many books, while there are too few books of real advantage studied. 18MR 217.3

Elmshaven, St. Helena, Calif., November 26, 1902—I now write in the early morning hours in one of my old diaries I find close at hand. Cannot sleep after 12:00 p.m. Commence writing. I have things presented to me by revelation, and under the most discouraging burden pressing me as a cart beneath sheaves I am in an agony of distress. 18MR 218.1

I have had representation that the Lord's Holy Spirit has not been working upon the minds of the leading men in the Review and Herald office. I seemed to be passing through the office days in succession, in different rooms. There is a condition of things represented that justice and integrity and the love of God are not teaching and guiding the managers. How long will God continue to bear with the perversity and unsanctified working of the men who should be afraid, terribly afraid, because they are far from working in straightforward, righteous lines? The Lord will soon cleanse that publishing house as He cleansed the temple courts of its defilement. Iniquity is practiced, and the more it is practiced the harder and more unimpressible are the hearts of the actors. Every unfair scheme that is planned that savors of the least selfish grasping is the same that God has reproved over and over again. 18MR 218.2

This is one of the reasons, as I see it, that the Lord has declared there shall be publishing plants in other places. It shall be that I am not to be dependent longer on Battle Creek. There is unprincipled work done. God looks upon it and His wrath is kindled, and God is soon to rise out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth shall disclose her blood and no more cover her slain. 18MR 218.3

Elmshaven, November 26, 1902. This day I am 75 years old. I thank my heavenly Father that I have the use of all my faculties. I can occupy the room fitted up for me and ascend and descend the stairs with quickness and ease, requiring no assistance. I have every reason to praise the Lord that my right hand has not lost its cunning. I can trace the writings upon paper with ease; for this I am thankful. My mind in regard to the Scriptures is clear, and the comfort I receive from writing on Scriptural subjects is a source of continual gratitude. For one month I am awakened at twelve o'clock, and matters have been opened before me and deeply impressed upon my mind in regard to the cause and work of God to be carried forward at this important period of time when all the signs Christ has foretold should come are taking place as He predicted. 18MR 218.4

Elmshaven, November 27, 1902—I am spending hours of the night, while others are asleep, in prayer. The past life is woven into your future. We must individually make every failure that appears thus a success, because we learned how to guard our minds, our words, our deportment. By looking unto Jesus, by beholding Him in His ministry, we shall become changed into His likeness in character, and then when imbued with His Holy Spirit we give glory to God in reflecting to others the grace bestowed upon us. Thus we declare the glory of God, by copying His character which we highly esteem and by being intensely in earnest to declare His excellencies in our own life character. 18MR 219.1

My prayer is daily that I may speak with a sanctified tongue. Every Christian is to declare the attributes of the character of Christ. He looks upon Christ, His goodness, His patience, His compassion, and His love, and he cheerfully employs all his powers and all his faculties in His service. False motives and spurious principles decidedly lead away from Christ. Their seeming good works cannot bear the test and trial, and when brought into strait places self breaks forth in words of criticism and harsh words of condemnation of that which he should approve. 18MR 219.2

It is the love and fear of God and respect to all His commandments which is an influence to provoke to love and good works. Every human agency that loves Jesus Christ will take care of the disposition of the mind in that he will not sin in thought, in tongue and voice, or in expression. By our words we shall be justified or by our words we shall be condemned. 18MR 220.1

[Two entries above from Journal No. 43, pp. 1, 2.]

Elmshaven, November 27, 1902—I have been deeply impressed by the Spirit of God that we are to pass through severe trials. Everyone's faith will be tested. We must study carefully the old waymarks. These experiences in the past are to be revived. Daniel is to stand out conspicuously with the Revelation given to John on the Isle of Patmos. 18MR 220.2

Daniel 12—Read attentively this chapter. Hosea 4:1. [Verses 1-6, quoted.] There is work to be done. Who will take it up? 18MR 220.3

In our experience in these last days we shall meet every conceivable thing that Satan can invent to make of none effect the established points of our faith that have been, in the providence of God, so greatly blessed. These foundation principles are to be held fast unto the end. Read the Word of God. 18MR 220.4

[This entry from Journal No. 20, pp. 351, 352.]

Elmshaven, November 28, 1902—I am deeply troubled in mind. I rose from my bed at twelve o'clock. During the night in the visions God has given me I have been in one company assembled together in Battle Creek, another in New York City, another at Nashville. I cannot clearly write out all these things this day; my strength is not sufficient. Oh, how sad it is that men will permit the enemy to deceive their souls, and they will be wrought upon by the enemy [to the extent] that they will dare venture to exalt their own finite judgment and express word and devise plans and methods which I have been instructed are decidedly contrary to the expressions and plans of God in behalf of His people. In thus doing they compel me to stand under the load of refuting the banner under which they stand and declaring that plan and that course of action that the Lord has been laying out distinctly before me again and still again, in advancing the work, that His truth shall not be leavened with men's diseased ideas of truth. 18MR 220.5

How much care, anxiety, and wearing of the physical and mental powers they might save me in my old age, and the souls who are being deceived, when I am still in the field of battle discharging the very duties the Lord has laid upon them, to correct the wrong course of their own action. They are doing the very work Satan would have them do, which labor comes upon me, which will have to be undone if I act conscientiously, because they do not understand what is truth through which they must be sanctified. I esteem all the Lord's precepts concerning His work as being the right way, and that His plans are not to be broken up by human wisdom and human devising. 18MR 221.1

Elmshaven, November 29, 1902—I awakened this morning having passed a good night. Slept until three o'clock. I lay in bed until nearly four o'clock, meditating and praying the Lord to give me clearness of perception to understand the truth as it is in Jesus, and then, by appropriating the truth daily, it will be to me the bread of life; the parable will be understood and acted, for is it not of weighty consequence? Eternal life is the result of our humanity availing itself of the privilege of being partakers of the divine nature, having overcome the corruption that is in the world through lust. Watchfulness over our individual self means everything to us. 18MR 221.2

[Two entries above from Journal No. 43, pp. 3 and 25.]

Elmshaven, November 30, 1902—The subject of speculation regarding God's personality we will not venture to express, except in the language of the Word which represents His personality. There is to be no discussion over this question lest God would give unmistakable revelation of what He is that would extinguish the one who dares venture on the holy ground in his speculative theories, as some ventured to do in opening the ark to see what was in it as its power and how God was manifested. The men were slain for their curiosity science. 18MR 222.1

Let human beings consider that by all their searching they can never interpret God. When the redeemed shall be pure and clean to come into His presence, they will understand that all that has reference to the eternal God, the unapproachable God, cannot be represented in figures. It is safe to contemplate God, the great and wonderful God, and Jesus Christ, the express image of God. God gave His only begotten Son to our world, that we might through His righteous character behold the character of God. In heaven we shall be in the eternal presence of God. 18MR 222.2

In this life ever remember, “Thou God seest me.” Do nothing you would not like God to see. Speak nothing you would not like God to hear. [Write nothing] you would not like God to read. Your time is precious. Read no books of which you would not like God to say, Show it to me. Spend not your time in any foolish action that would bring condemnation to your soul if you considered, The Lord is looking upon me. 18MR 222.3

[This entry from Journal No. 51, p. 9.]—Manuscript 223, 1902.

Ellen G. White Estate

Washington, D. C.,

December 17, 1987.

Entire Ms.