Signs and Wonders God Wrought in the Ministry for Forty Years/Foreword
An Appreciation
A WORD FROM A WELL-KNOWN MISSIONARY
Rev. Stanley Smith was for many years a worker with '"The China Inland Mission."' About thirty years since a band of seven young men (called "The Cambridge Seven") stirred England by giving up excellent worldly prospects and sailing for China on mission work.
One of these was Stanley Smith (a stroke oar of The Cambridge University Eight) and another C. T. Studd, the great cricketer. Rev. Stanley Smith writes:
"I cannot let this opportunity go by without again bringing to the notice of my readers, 'Acts of the Holy Ghost,' or 'Life and Experiences of Mrs. M. B. Woodworth-Etter.' It is a book I value next to the Bible. In special seasons of waiting on God I have found it helpful to have the New Testament on one side of me and Mrs. Etter's book on the other, this latter is a present day record of the Acts' multiplied. Mrs. Etter is a woman who has had a ministry of healing since 1885, her call as an evangelist being some years previous to this. I venture to think that this ministry is unparalleled in the history of the Church, for which I give all the glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, as Mrs. Etter would, I know, wish me to do. This ministry should be made known, for the glory of the Triune God and the good of believers.
"My old friend Mr. George B. Studd, a man whose word is his bond, writes me:—'I know Mrs. Etter and her work first hand. She was at our Los Angeles camp meeting last year, and there were many wonderful healings. She is sound in the faith and mightily used of God, and has been so for years. I know many other spiritual and reliable saints. who have known her and her work for years. Like the "sect" that Paul belonged to (Acts xxviii., 22), the Pentecostal movement is "spoken against"; and so is anyone who is used so mightily as Mrs. Etter is. Yes, she is indeed "a true handmaid of the Lord." Fear not, of course there is chaff as well as true wheat in the Pentecostal movement, and doubtless strange things and unwise happen-but God is in it.'
"Mrs. Etter's spiritual ministry, under God, leading sinners to Christ, Christ, and believers into the Pentecostal baptism has been also most remarkable."
This testimony was also published in '"Confidence,"' Sunderland, England. Rev. A. A. Boddy, Vicar of All Saints Church, Editor.