Closing Labors
341
and “The Life of Christ.” Following the issuance of the subscription
edition of “Controversy” in 1888, she completed the companion vol-
ume, “Patriarchs and Prophets,” in 1890. “Steps to Christ” appeared
in 1892, “Gospel Workers” in 1893, and “Thoughts from the Mount
of Blessing” in 1896. Her largest literary work, “The Desire of Ages,”
occupied much of her time during the sojourn in Australasia, and
appeared in 1898.
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When “Christ’s Object Lessons” and “Testimonies for the Church,”
Volume 6, appeared in 1900, some of her friends thought that her
laborious efforts to prepare manuscripts for publication in book form,
had about ended. But not so. The burden to write was still pressing
heavily upon her heart. An impelling sense of the needs of a perishing
world, and of many also who claimed to be subjects of King Emmanuel,
led her to labor on and on, in an earnest endeavor to give to others that
which was filling her own soul with joy and peace. Hear her declaring,
when in 1902 she was writing to a friend on the high standard to which
Christian believers should attain:
“O, what is there that will give them a consciousness of the re-
sponsibility resting on them to be Christ-like in word and act! I shall
try to arouse their slumbering senses by writing, if not by speaking.
The awful sense of my responsibility takes such possession of me that
I am weighted as a cart beneath sheaves. I do not desire to feel less
keenly my obligation to the Higher Power. That Presence is ever with
me, asserting supreme authority and taking account of the service that
I render or withhold.”
Unpublished Letter, December 9, 1902
.
“The Lord commands me to speak, and this I shall do,” Mrs. White
declared further when feeling thus burdened over her responsibility
as a chosen messenger. ‘I have been instructed to bear my testimony
with the decision of authority.”
Unpublished Letter, December 7, 1902
.
And in another communication, penned the same month, she wrote:
“I have every reason to praise my heavenly Father for the clearness
of thought that He has given me in regard to Bible subjects. I long
to bring out these precious things, so that the minds of ministers and
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people may, if possible, be drawn away from contention and strife to
something that is nourishing to the soul,—food that will give health,
hopefulness, and courage....
“In the night season many things are passing before me. The
Scriptures, full of grace and richness, are presented before me. The