His Messenger
Chapter 18—A Child is Lost
The next spring after the printing press was moved to Battle Creek, a general meeting was appointed for that place. It had been announced in the Review and Herald that all were invited to this conference and that the church members of Battle Creek would entertain, as well as they could, all who came. HMes 101.1
Every Sabbathkeeper in the town was busy setting his house in order and putting up extra beds, even making places to sleep in the big haymows and in the carriage houses. In the White home every preparation possible was made to accommodate guests. HMes 101.2
Willie, the youngest son of Ellen and James White, was less than two years old, and he played about the house, getting in the way as all babies do when extra work is being done. Someone was getting ready to mop the floor, and a large tub of water had been placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. The girl who helped with the housework and cared for the baby hurried through the kitchen, but a gurgling sound attracted her attention and she turned to look back. A little foot was sticking out of the tub of water. She ran across the room, pulled the baby from the water, and rushed with him to his mother. “He’s drowned! He’s drowned!” she screamed. HMes 101.3
Ellen White took her baby and ran into the yard with him and laid him on the grass. “Call James White and send for the doctor,” she said. The girl ran to the front of the house, where she saw one of the pressmen who happened to be passing by. She called to him, “Run for the doctor.” But this she felt was not enough to do; so she ran after him, hitting the surprised man on the back at every step and shouting, “Run, run, run.” Of course, the man ran with great speed, and the girl came back to see what more she could do to make up for her neglect in not watching the baby. HMes 101.4
Ellen White cut off his wet clothes and laid Willie on the grass and rolled him back and forth. Neighbors who gathered told her it was of no use, that the baby was dead, but with a constant prayer on her lips she kept on working over the child. Finally she took him in her arms, and as she kissed him, his eyelids flickered and he puckered his little lips to return her kiss. With a glad heart she took him into the house and laid him in his little crib and put warm cloths around him. And before the doctor came, he was breathing naturally again. HMes 102.1
That night Ellen White lay in her bed with her little one in her arms. She rejoiced that God had spared his life and returned him to them again. With a thankful heart she praised her Saviour. Suddenly on the clear night air sounded the sharp ringing of the bells and a cry, “Lost! Lost! A child lost!” HMes 102.2
She held her little one closer as she thought of how that day he had almost been lost, and of the vacant place there would have been in his little cradle and in their own hearts if he had not been restored to them. The meaning of the word lost came home to her with a force it had never had before. HMes 102.3
“Never shall I forget the incidents of that night,” she wrote later. “It was just one little life that was at stake; but it seemed as though the whole city of Battle Creek was stirred to go out in search of the lost child. Lights were glimmering everywhere. They flashed through the streets, along the river-bank, and through the adjacent woods, and the cry resounded, ‘A child is lost! A child is lost!’ After a long search, a shout was raised, ‘The child is found!’ HMes 102.4
“Yes, the child was found; but it might go astray on the journey of life and be lost at last. HMes 103.1
“I knew, too, that death might come to the little one that was saved to me; and that should he live, he would have the evils of this life to battle with. And the thought with me was, Will this little child, whose life I hold so dear, be finally lost, or will he be saved to praise God forever in His kingdom? HMes 103.2
“There was no sleep for my eyes that night. I thought of the lost sheep that Jesus came from heaven to earth to seek and to save. I thought of Christ as He looked down from heaven upon a world of lost sinners, lost without hope, and of the sympathy that led Him to leave His high and exalted place upon His Father’s throne, and make the infinite sacrifice necessary to lift man up from the degradation of sin, and bring him back to the fold of God.” HMes 103.3