Chapter on Time of Trouble—We have just read the matter in regard to the time of trouble. Brother Smith thinks that chapter by no means should be left out of Volume 4. He says there is not a sentence in it that is not essentially needed. This seemed to make a very deep impression upon his mind and I thought I would write to you in reference to this matter. I have read it and it has just a thrilling power with it. I see nothing that will exclude it from the book for general sale among unbelievers. [The book was published by the Pacific Press in late September, 1884, and gained favorable notice: “The Great Controversy, Vol. IV: This volume, so long looked for, is now out. And we are confident that it will more than meet the expectations of those who have anxiously waited for it. We judge from our own reading of it; we found the contents of deeper interest than our imagination could have reached.”—Signs of the Times, October 2, 1884,—Compilers.]—Letter 59, 1884.
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Work Begins on the Enlargement of The Great Controversy—Basel, Switzerland, June 11, 1886. I think you will want to hear some particulars in regard to our family. We now number ten. W.C.W. [White] and Mary and Ella are well. Sarah McEnterfer is well, and just as busy as she can be taking letters by dictation and writing them out on the calligraph [typewriter]. Marian’s [Davis] health is about as it usually is. She is at work on volume 4, “Great Controversy.”—Manuscript 20, 1886.
(3SM 111.2)
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Bidden to Portray Scenes of the Past and the Future—As the Spirit of God has opened to my mind the great truths of the past and the future, I have been bidden to make known to others that which has thus been revealed—to trace the history of the controversy in past ages, and especially so to present it as to shed a light on the fast-approaching struggle of the future. In pursuance of this purpose, I have endeavored to select and group together events in the history of the church in such a manner as to trace the unfolding of the great testing truths that at different periods have been given to the world, that have excited the wrath of Satan, and the enmity of a world-loving church, and that have been maintained by the witness of those who “loved not their lives unto the death.”—The Great Controversy, Introduction, p. xi.
(3SM 111.3)
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