There Shines A Light

Chapter 9—“Into All the World”

Seventh-day Adventists are noted as a missionary-minded people and church. In proportion to their numbers they have a higher rate of employed church workers than any other body of people. One twentieth of their membership are employed by the church organization in evangelistic and institutional work, and the remainder are, almost completely, self-supporting missionary workers. Their annual per capita contribution of funds to the work of the church is $73.60. Of the 230 countries—political units—in the world, they have entered and maintain work in all but thirty-six, and they are carrying on mission activities in 716 languages, with printed literature in 197. Their aim and effort is to fulfill to the letter the command of the Lord Jesus: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” ⁵⁶ TSAL 75.1

But they did not start out with such a vision. A mere handful in the beginning, and but three and one-half thousand at the time of their organization, they saw the stupendous enterprise of covering the earth with the message of the soon-coming King as an impossible task. They looked at the shortness of time, they counted their few men, they inventoried their slender resources; and they said that it must be that this gospel is to be preached to all the world in token. Here in America, said they, we meet representatives of every race and every nation: Jew and Gentile, Anglo-Saxon, Teuton, Latin, Slav, Indian, Negro, Mongolian. We may reach them here, and so fulfill the commission. Even though there be only ten Chinese, three Hindus, and one Malay, let them but hear a sermon on the coming, or read a tract on the Sabbath, and the message has gone to their nations! It was a comforting rationalization, to bring the supernal down to the practical. How otherwise could they compass the world in the short time given them? Should a giant’s work be assigned a child? TSAL 75.2

Ellen White was of her people. She shared their experiences and their thoughts; but it cannot be said that she shared their fears. She feared not, because she believed God; her courage was born of her faith. And her vision was cleared, her hopes enlarged, the plans she recommended wise, because of the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. TSAL 76.1

The messages she received from God went beyond her own horizons. Like the prophets of old, she pondered what was spoken through her. She was ever stretching the resources and urging on the slender forces of the church, confident that, like the widow’s meal and oil, they would be multiplied to cover the needs. This vision she succeeded, in time, in imparting to her people, and it is that vision which animates them today when the demands upon their treasury of men and money still swamp their visible resources. TSAL 76.2

Mrs. White consistently urged her people to reach beyond, to plan largely, to venture greatly. While they sought to strike roots in the northeastern United States, they were urged to launch out into the new West of the Lake States. When they were seeking to consolidate their gains in this Middle West, they were pointed to California, then almost a foreign land, to be reached only by a tedious and dangerous overland journey or by sea around Cape Horn or over the Isthmus route. When California and the North Pacific States had been added to their roster, they were urged to consider Europe. No sooner had Europe been entered and begun development, than Australia, Africa, India were pointed out. Answering to calls as far and as fast as they could, they yet found ever new horizons and new missions. TSAL 76.3

Some of Mrs. White’s earliest utterances indicated this worldwide mission. Of her first vision, in December, 1844, she long afterward said: “And then the world was spread out before me, and I saw darkness like the pall of death. What did it mean? I could see no light. Then I saw a little glimmer of light and then another, and these lights increased and grew brighter, and multiplied and grew stronger and stronger till they were the light of the world. These were the believers in Jesus Christ.” ⁵⁷ TSAL 77.1

Again, in the vision at Dorchester, in November, 1848, she was instructed to tell James White to start a paper, and “from this small beginning it was shown to me to be like streams of light that went clear round the world.” ⁵⁸ In December, 1871, she gave a message on “Missionary Work,” which included such exhortations as these: “Young men should be qualifying themselves by becoming familiar with other languages, that God may use them as mediums to communicate His saving truth to those of other nations.... Our publications should be printed in other languages, that foreign nations may be reached.... Missionaries are needed to go to other nations to preach the truth.... Every opportunity should be improved to extend the truth to other nations. This will be attended with considerable expense, but expense should in no case hinder the performance of this work.” ⁵⁹ TSAL 77.2

A light had been kindled in Europe by advance literature, and the new adherents there pleaded for a living teacher. The issue came to a head at the General Conference of 1874, and it was voted to send a representative. “Whom shall we send?” was the question. “Send the best,” was the reply. Most of the front-rank men were unavailable. Joseph Bates was in his grave. James White was again, in 1874, elected president of the General Conference. John Loughborough was engaged in developing the young work in California. J. H. Waggoner was being called to edit the new missionary paper, Signs of the Times. A number of younger men were in harness, and some were wheel horses; but the mission in Europe demanded special qualifications of experience, judgment, learning, and zeal. The finger pointed to John N. Andrews, and he was called. “We sent you the best man among us,” said Mrs. White afterward to the European believers. TSAL 78.1

Andrews, the first overseas representative of Seventh-day Adventists, led the van of the army who were, in the last quarter of that century and particularly in the first quarter of the twentieth, to reach to every continent and the islands of the sea. But age and death were taking toll of the pioneers. TSAL 78.2

In August of 1881 James White laid down his leadership and his life. Stricken to the heart, Mrs. White, seriously ill herself, yet rose from her sickbed to declare at his funeral: “At times I felt that I could not have my husband die. But these words seemed to be impressed on my mind, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ Psalm 46:10. I keenly feel my loss, but dare not give myself up to useless grief. This would not bring back the dead. And I am not so selfish as to wish, if I could, to bring him from his peaceful slumber to engage again in the battles of life. Like a tired warrior, he has lain down to sleep. I will look with pleasure upon his resting place. The best way in which I and my children can honor the memory of him who has fallen is to take the work where he left it, and in the strength of Jesus carry it forward to completion. We will be thankful for the years of usefulness that were granted to him, and for his sake, and for Christ’s sake, we will learn from his death a lesson which we shall never forget.” She had labored with her husband for thirty-five years; she was to carry on for as many more without him. TSAL 78.3

In 1883 John N. Andrews, laboring valiantly in the burgeoning cause in Europe, laid down his life. Joseph H. Waggoner, who took his place, fell six years later. Younger men were taking the places of the fallen veterans. Two of the three founders, and several of their earliest helpers, were gone. It left even more prominent in the constitution of the church the one remaining founder, Mrs. White. She who had in the beginning been physically “the weakest of the weak” outlived them by many years, continuing in her work of encouraging and instructing. TSAL 79.1

In 1885, responding to a pressing invitation from the European believers, she ventured upon her first transoceanic voyage. Her son, W. C. White, had also been asked to come, because of his experience in the publishing work, which was now assuming promising proportions in Central Europe, Scandinavia, and England. Several other helpers accompanied them. TSAL 79.2

They first attended the European Council at Basel, Switzerland. At these meetings the addresses of Mrs. White were both highly practical and deeply spiritual, showing a wisdom in their counsel concerning attitude and operation which came from the True Witness. Their coverage of the problems involved in this new field, so strange to most of the workers, and of the spirit and power of Christ in the meeting of them, was penetrating and comprehensive. ⁶⁰ TSAL 80.1

Mrs. White and her helpers spent many months in most of the several fields—Scandinavia, England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France. To the counsel and inspiration of her labors there may be ascribed in great part the solid progress, under many trials and hindrances, of the work in Europe, which became in time the second great stronghold of the Adventist cause. She maintained the possibility of the colporteur work and of tent meetings against the doubt of disappointed experimenters; and the events proved the correctness of her vision. Her visit also served to inform and broaden her own concepts, and reinforce her appeals for the worldwide mission of the church. She and her son returned to the United States in 1887, in time for the General Conference of that: year. TSAL 80.2

In the same year, 1885, that Mrs. White went to Europe, Stephen N. Haskell, one of the pioneers, and the father of the missionary literature work among Seventh-day Adventists, was sent with a company of workers to Australia. He and his co-workers carried the message not only to that continent but also to New Zealand, a thousand miles to the southeast. A publishing work was started, and both evangelistic and literature work were pressed. In 1890 Arthur G. Daniells, a young and promising minister, was sent to Australia, and he immediately shouldered great responsibilities, the beginning of a career which was to take him to the presidency of the General Conference and a leadership which measured with that of James White. TSAL 80.3

In 1891 Mrs. White, responding to urgent appeals, gathered about her a small band of helpers, and with her son sailed for Australia, where she was to remain for nine years, developing important agencies and seeing the church constituency increase from half a thousand to four times that number. Her presence on the scene in that southern continent had a decided molding influence on the work—evangelistic, publishing, medical, and educational. TSAL 81.1

She was far from America, the heart of the work, as far as she could physically be; but her pen was employed in those messages which, appealing to loyal and spiritual hearts, still held incalculable power. It was during this period that, besides all her other labors and writings, she spoke forth those urgent, glowing, vital messages which constitute the educational section of Testimonies for the Church, volume six, and prepared much of the matter which later appeared in that compendium of pedagogical wisdom, Education. These messages were having their effect not only in the land of her adoption but also in America and over all the world. TSAL 81.2

She had scarcely touched the soil of Australia when she began to ensure the establishment of a school. Small as was the constituency, there were among them many youth, whose only chance for an education under church auspices was to take the long journey to America—for most of them an impossible project. There must be for them in their own land a school of advanced grade. At the same time she urged the Christian education of the children; and it was here, in the land “down under,” that she wrote those compelling testimonies which resulted in the beginning, in America, of the elementary church school work in 1897. TSAL 81.3

The audacity of this educational program took the breath of the Australian members, but it also took hold of their imaginations and their spirit of enterprise. America had had seven thousand believers when it established the first school. Here was young Australia with less than a thousand, already supporting a publishing enterprise, and she was called upon to lengthen her cords, strengthen her stakes, enlarge the place of her tent, and start an educational program more extensive, compared to constituency, than America had even yet tried. But there were loyal hearts and strong. Australian Adventists were thankful that Mrs. White had come to live with them and had elected them to be the spearhead in the educational reform and expansion. TSAL 82.1

Yet there were obstacles great and forbidding. The constituency was small and, while liberal, not wealthy. The population of Australia was, beyond that of any other land, concentrated in the cities: Sydney and Melbourne held from a third to a half of the inhabitants of their states, and together with other cities made the urban population exceed the rural three to one. One of Mrs. White’s educational principles was that the school should be located on the land and teach a variety of industrial subjects. To many of the constituency the idea of getting a large tract of land far from city centers was repugnant. They held that the purchase of thirty or forty acres near Sydney or Melbourne would be much more sensible. But Mrs. White held firmly to the ideals which had been thwarted in Battle Creek College, of ample room under rural, even pioneer, conditions, and she supported her belief through messages which became a part of basic instruction in education. TSAL 82.2

A country estate was located in New South Wales at Cooranbong, seventy-five miles north of Sydney, at a low price. To some of the investigators it seemed a forbidding site, mostly covered with virgin forest, towering eucalyptus trees, patches of scrub, and swamp. The soil they thought was poor; and in this idea they received ready support from government experts, who said it was more than poor, it was worthless. It “wouldn’t support a bandicoot.” Mrs. White declared that they bore false witness against the soil; subsequent history proved her right. TSAL 83.1

Relying upon the testimony of Mrs. White, the leaders stepped out by faith, purchased the land, went in with their axes, set up a sawmill, called the youth of Australia to come. And the youth responded. City-bred though most of them were, with the characteristic ardor of youth they hailed the opportunity as a great adventure for God. Space will not permit a recital of the pioneering work done in this Avondale School, as it was at first called from the many flowing streams on the place. There were times of distress, times of discouragement, times when the work lagged. But Mrs. White moved to the place with her family, built a cottage for their home, and, like Elisha of old, made the iron to swim when it was lost. Some of the most inspiring messages come out of this period of stress and hardship. TSAL 83.2

The Avondale School developed into the present Australasian Missionary College, a fountainhead of workers who have covered the continent and reached out into the great and small island groups of the South Seas. There today a most notable work has developed and is still developing in the coral isles and in the hinterland of the great islands like New Guinea and Borneo. Native savages, devil worshipers, and cannibals have become some of the most devoted missionaries to the people of their own and other lands. TSAL 84.1

Late in 1900 Mrs. White returned to America, in time to attend the General Conference of 1901. There, under her inspiration, great and significant changes in administration and missionary direction were made. Arthur G. Daniells was elected president of the General Conference and for twenty-one years led the denomination in an unprecedented crusade which quadrupled its membership and spread the gospel of the second advent, the Sabbath, and kindred truths throughout the world. TSAL 84.2