Preface

    IN presenting this, my third little volume, to the public, I am comforted with the conviction that the Lord has made me his humble instrument in shedding some ray's of precious light upon the past. Sacred History, relating to holy men of old, is brief. Inspiration has dealt sparingly in praise of the noble deeds and holy lives of the faithful. For example, the life of righteous Enoch is summed up in these words: "And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him."
    On the other hand, the errors, sins, and vile apostasies of some, who had been the consecrated and favored servants of God, are dwelt-upon in Sacred History at length, as a warning to after generations.
    Infidelity has seized upon the sad history of apostasy, which occupies so large space in the Old Testament, and has deceived many with the base insinuation that the men of the Bible, without distinction, revere bad men, and has even blasphemously asserted that the Sacred Scriptures sanction crime.
    Since the great facts of faith, connected with the history of holy men of old, have been opened to me in vision; also, the important fact that God has nowhere lightly regarded the sin the apostate, I have been more than ever convinced that ignorance as to these facts, and the wily advantage taken of this ignorance by some who know better, are the grand bulwarks of infidelity. If what I have written upon these points shall help any mind, let God be praised.
    When I commenced writing, I hoped to bring all into this volume, but am obliged to close the history of the Hebrews, take up the cases of Saul, David, Solomon, and others, and treat upon the subject of Health, in another volume.

E. G. W.
BATTLE CREEK, July, 1864.

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Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts (Battle Creek, Mich.: Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 1864), vol. 3, pp. 90-96. Reprinted in Signs of the Times, 5:90, March 20, 1879, and in Spirit of Prophecy (Battle Creek, Mich.: Review and Herald, 1884), vol. 4, pp. 85-89.

Ibid., pp. [iii], iv.