Description
Type: Red hardcover
Foreword
Just under ten years are spanned by Testimonies Nos. 31 through 33, which make up Volume 5. The first Testimony was published in 1882, but contains messages given in 1881 and thereafter. No. 32 was published in 1885, and No. 33 rolled off the press in 1889. That same year, these three were collected into one book—Volume 5.
This was a most interesting period in the rapidly developing work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In North America, in the year 1882, two new high schools were opened, one in South Lancaster, Massachusetts, and the other in Healdsburg, California. Thus from our church center at Battle Creek the educational work began to reach to the ends of the earth. Ten years previously our first school had been opened in Battle Creek, and two years later the new buildings were dedicated. During these ten years many specific problems were encountered which accompanied this new and important challenge. Sometimes the problems were great, and in not a few cases special counsel was given by the spirit of prophecy to guide and protect this work. These messages relating to problems ranging from exhortation to curriculum form a part of this book.
The nine-year period covered by this volume was also a period of intensive writing and publishing for Ellen White. In 1882, preparations were made to reprint A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White, and volume I of Spiritual Gifts. In the same year these two books were combined into one volume entitled Early Writings. To meet the continuing demand for the Testimonies, the first thirty numbers were reprinted in 1885 and published in four books, volumes I through IV, as we now know them. Sketches From the Life of Paul, the precursor of The Acts of the Apostles, was published in 1883. In 1884 Mrs. White completed her work on volume IV of Spirit of Prophecy, or The Great Controversy, which was immediately published. It soon found its way through the hands of peddlers to many thousands of homes, and in just three years ten editions had rolled from the presses. In 1888 the enlarged Great Controversy, the book with which we are now so familiar, was published, taking the place of an earlier and shorter edition.
At the church headquarters in Battle Creek a steady growth was observed. The publishing house was newly equipped. The sanitarium and school prospered and showed continued growth. These developments brought large numbers of Adventists to that city. The dangers connected with such a concentration of Adventists in one place, and the inevitable tendency toward a lessened sense of responsibility and lower standards, are pointed out at the beginning of this volume. These developments in the church also brought with them the real danger that the work would become mechanical in nature and lose its original simplicity. Such dangers were especially evident in the publishing house. The Testimonies in this volume emphasize good management, industry, vigilance, and provide a guideline for the executive and leading men in the discharge of their duties.
As the problems of the established work were being considered at our headquarters, new fields were being developed in the northwestern portion of North America, and many there received the message. With the opening up of these advanced territories many new problems presented themselves. Ellen White herself made two visits to the northwest, and in connection with the last visit wrote a great deal of counsel for the workers there—advice on practical subjects vital to the welfare of the work, and the ministers who were laboring among the strong and headstrong men and women who had come west as pioneers and had made their homes in these vast and newly opened territories. These were men and women of energy, courage, and strong personalities, but many of them had deep religious convictions, who responded to the call of the Advent message. These energetic pioneers needed the powerful and molding influence of the Spirit of God for the development of Christian character. They needed warnings against the passion for money and worldly ambition.
