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Foreword
A different plan has been adopted in assembling the materials for this E. G.
White devotional book. Rather than gathering selections on a central theme,
we have chosen, somewhat at random, appropriate inspirational messages
written or presented orally by Ellen White on every calendar day of the year.
The writings, usually an unbroken unit, have been chosen from forty-six
of the seventy years of Ellen White’s ministry. Selecting the items from
letters of counsel and encouragement and sermons and articles has afforded
an opportunity for choice presentations on a wide range of helpful topics
.
This procedure has opened up some interesting and often unusual insights
into the ministry of God’s special messenger. For example, we note her
frequent habit of writing important counsel early in the morning while the
rest of the household slept. It was so in 1905. The New Year was just one
hour old when Ellen White arose that Sunday morning, and made her way to
her writing room to start the day’s activities. Of this she wrote:
It is a cool morning. Built my fire. Bowed before the Lord in prayer. I
have so many things burdening my mind. I asked the Lord Jesus to direct me,
to guide me. What shall I trace with my Pen this morning? ... I need the great
guide to control my mind. What shall I trace with the pen first? ...Oh, how
much I feel that I need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.—
Manuscript 173,
1905
.
She was in her comfortable writing room on the eastern end of the second
floor at Elmshaven, well known to many Seventh-day Adventists. That
morning the Holy Spirit led her mind first to the students of Oakwood college,
for whom she wrote a four-page message of encouragement. In the years
before this her writing had been done in a variety of settings such as her
sunnyside home at Cooranbong in Australia; her apartment on the second
floor of the central publishing house in basel, switzerland; her healdsburg
home close to the college in Northern California; and her home at Battle
Creek. In early years at Battle Creek when her home was small and often
filled with children and visitors, she wrote in the corner of the library at the
Review and Herald office
.
Travel by train, boat, or horse and buggy did not prevent her from writing.
At the close of this book a short historical outline of her activities and travels
[7]
will provide a general setting for a number of the readings
.
Early in her work Ellen White chose to include personal counsels in her
published books, because the “warning and instruction” that applied to one
person often contained principles and advice that might well apply to another
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