The eagerness of Seventh-day Adventist workers in 1945 to secure Spiritual Gifts, Volumes III and IV, is matched only by the eagerness of their forefathers who in the winter of 1863 and 1864 awaited the appearance of these important works which they knew to be in preparation. A James White preview of the content of the forthcoming books whetted well the earnest desire for their possession, for, as stated in a back-page note of the Review, they would "contain matter of deep interest in relationship to the race of man from creation to the end—six days' creation, the size and glory of the first pair, the fall, the flood, the dwindling of the race physically and morally and mentally, lost arts, causes of diseases, the best food for men, laws of health," and "practical portions of Testimonies for the Church, Numbers 1-10."
While Spiritual Gifts, Volume I (1858), had dealt briefly with the fall of Satan and the fall of man, there was a complete gap in the story between the announcement of the plan of salvation to Adam and Eve and the narrative of the appearance of the Saviour as a babe in Bethlehem. Now this gap was to be largely filled by the tersely written account, giving a wealth of information presented in vision to Ellen White, but which, up to this time, had not been published for the church.
The timeliness of the appearance of these works is clearly seen when we observe that Volume III deals in detail with creation and creation week, also the flood with its causes and the subsequent effects and degeneration of the riuman race after the flood—just the information which was needed to meet the newly annunciated evolutionary theory, then in its infancy, but which had been gaining ascendancy since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. While the world was enthusiastically drinking in this evolutionary theory, based upon a pseudoscientific explanation of certain phenomena which had been discovered, Seventh-day Adventists were fortified by the detailed, inspired account, which gave the true explanation—depicting man, not as gradually ascending, but created in the image of God, originally a mighty being, physically and mentally, declining rapidly in stature, mental capacity, and moral powers through disobedience to God's laws, and that in the space of only a few centuries.
Thus Spiritual Gifts served well in guarding the newly born Seventh-day Adventist Church from evolution, the greatest cause for the decline in faith in other Protestant churches.
Not a few were concerned because the Old Testament account presented so fully the sins and waywardness of God's chosen people. To these, the Spiritual Gifts account, with vivid detail and the lessons drawn from the experience of the patriarchs, served as an explanation, making it clear that there are lessons for the church of today to be drawn from God's dealings with 'those who made mistakes and failures in the past.
Volumes III and IV of Spiritual Gifts are unique not only in their basic delineation of the experience of God's people from the early centuries of the world's history but also in their presentation of the initial writings of Mrs. E. G. White on the subject of health. In Volume IV, and Volume IV alone, do we find the carefully written, compact statement of the principles of health reform as given in the momentous vision of June 6, 1863. Point after point is made in rapid succession, carrying the reader through the comprehensive outline of that vision which opened up to Ellen White a whole new field of instruction given as an aid in preparing the church to meet the Lord. The appearance of this thirty-two-page chapter alone would justify the reissuance of these early books. Every basic underlying principle of our health reform message is set forth in this terse statement.
True, later views brought an amplified picture and gave guidance and application to the principles, but as Volume I of Spiritual Gifts presented in 1838 the basic great controversy vision, the presentation of which was later amplified in the entire Conflict of the Ages Series, so this basic health vision presented the fundamental elements of the health message, which was set forth more fully in detail in succeeding publications devoted to that subject.
The last section of Volume IV of Spiritual Gifts consists of a selection from a series of "ten small pamphlets, entitled Testimony for the Church," which had appeared during the nine-year period from 1833 to 1864. "Local and personal matters" were omitted, "giving those portions only which are of practical and general interest and importance." The principle of condensation and selection annunciated in these explanatory words of Ellen White may well serve as an illuminating guide in our introducing .the testimonies to new converts.
This, the third of the facsimile reproductions of the early Spirit of prophecy literature, giving to our workers these materials just as they first came to the church, are photographically reproduced and bound in one volume, bearing a cover stamp identical with the first volume of eighty years ago. Volumes III and IV, completing the set of Spiritual Gifts, are sure to be received with the same high acclaim as was given Volumes I and II. Significantly, this work is made a part of the Ministerial Reading Course of 1946, keeping before our workers who face the finishing of the task the spirit, the atmosphere, and the information of the days of small beginnings.
