GOD'S TESTS SUFFICIENT.
By Mrs. Ada D. Wellman
It is taken for granted, by many persons, that any one possessing the gift of prophecy must necessarily use perfect language; and that any imperfection of speech in the message indicates that the message is not divine. God has given tests whereby we may distinguish between a divine message and a human; but grammatical speech is not one of those tests, and we are not warranted in applying such as He has not given. That the gift of prophecy is not always accompanied with the gift of tongues, is illustrated by the experience of Moses; for though he was given revelations of divine glory, and sent as an ambassador of heaven to the Egyptian king and to the Hebrew people, yet he must needs employ his brother as spokesman, because of his own lack of readiness and accuracy in the use of651the Egyptian language. True, God would have miraculously bestowed upon Moses proficiency in this respect, had Moses possessed faith to claim the gift. But while he fell short of the full purpose of God, as indeed do all mortals, nevertheless he was a true prophet; and the instruction given through him to Aaron, and by Aaron to the people, was the word of God to the people, notwithstanding it came thus indirectly. The first revelation of God to Paul rendered that scholarly man incapable of good penmanship, the divine radiance having seriously impaired his eyesight; hence he was obliged to employ an amanuensis to write of the things which God had revealed. The claim that a divine communication must be accompanied with all the qualifications of a writer and speaker, would imply that a prophet be able to speak in many languages, in order to give his message to all who ought to hear it; but we are told in Holy Writ that to one is given “prophecy; . . . to another divers kinds of tongues.” As “the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you,” let us not insist that one member of the body of Christ should say to the other members (a prophet say to penmen, rhetoricians, and interpreters), “I have no need of you.”