Ellen G. White: The Lonely Years: 1876-1891 (vol. 3)

His Associates Unprepared to Take Over

In his funeral sermon Smith made an interesting point. 3BIO 178.4

With every advance movement, with every new enterprise connected with this work, with all its outreachings to occupy new territory, and with the employment of new agencies to accomplish desired ends, his name has been connected, and his efforts have been inseparably interwoven. 3BIO 178.5

Is it strange, then, that we should never have contemplated the coming of a day when others would be obliged to go forward with this work without his active cooperation? Is it any wonder that we should come to feel that in a cause which we have expected would be brief at the longest, he with whom it began, and who has so long continued with it, should continue to the end?—In Memoriam, p. 23. 3BIO 178.6

George I. Butler sounded a somewhat similar note as he wistfully wrote just a month after White's death: 3BIO 178.7

We look forward to our next annual General Conference with much interest and anxiety.... The death of Brother White is a sad and startling event to our people generally. He has been regarded by all of us as the leading man in this cause. Our people have felt safe while he was living to counsel and bear burdens. His voice will no more be heard in our councils. He is gone. 3BIO 178.8

Unquestionably, quite a degree of anxiety prevails among our people as to what course will be taken. Who will bear the general burdens of the cause? Who will act as president of the [SDA] Publishing Association, and exert a leading influence in the college and Sanitarium? What shall be the line of policy adopted? How shall the debts upon our institutions be paid? These and many other questions will occur to the mind of the discerning reader.—The Review and Herald, September 6, 1881. 3BIO 179.1

Butler pointed out that the presence and counsel of Ellen White would be especially needed, and because of his connection with the publishing work at both offices, the presence of W. C. White was essential, as well. In another statement, Butler wrote of James White that he was a natural leader with the courage of a lion, yet manifesting the tenderness of a mother (Ibid., August 16, 1881). 3BIO 179.2

Of course, many expressed their sense of loss through the columns of the Review, particularly Dr. Kellogg, who wrote: 3BIO 179.3

No one, unless it be his bereaved family, can feel more keenly than we the loss of one who had been to us for years a father and a friend. To no one else have we been personally indebted for so many acts of kindness and so much wise counsel. We mourn not only for the irretrievable loss which the cause must sustain, but for a personal loss which cannot be repaired.—Ibid., August 9, 1881 3BIO 179.4