The Great Second Advent Movement: Its Rise and Progress

Chapter 20 — Sacrifices in the Early Work

“GATHER my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself.” ¹ GSAM 311.1

In the The Review and Herald, June 3, 1902, we read: “Those who enter the work at the present time know comparatively little of the self-denial and self-sacrifice of those upon whom the Lord laid the burden of his work at its beginning. The experience of the past should be told them again and again; for they are to carry forward the work with the same humility and self-sacrifice that characterized the true workers in the past.” GSAM 311.2

Again, in Testimonies for the Church, Vol. VII, these words are found: “We are nearing the end of this earth’s history, and the different lines of God’s work are to be carried forward with much more self-sacrifice than has yet been manifested.” ² GSAM 311.3

The circumstances under which Elder Bates was moved out, in 1845, to write and publish his first book on the Sabbath question, have already been referred to. Also reference has been made to the trying situation of Elder James White, when, in 1849, he began the publication of the paper called The Present Truth. GSAM 311.4