Ellen G. White in Europe 1885-1887

Opening of the Council Delayed

Willie White arrived in Grimsby on Wednesday, September 22. The European Missionary Council was scheduled to begin on Friday, but when the day came, most of the leading workers had not arrived. Whitney, Olsen, Oyen, Matteson, and D. T. Bourdeau were all absent. W. C. White advised those who were there to spend their time in study and preparations for the Sabbath. EGWE 219.1

But if the prospects for the council were somewhat dismal, one factor that must have encouraged the workers was the excellent public response to the tent meetings they were conducting three nights a week in connection with their workers’ meeting and annual council. When Ellen White rose to speak on Sunday evening, September 26, the tent was packed, and many were standing outside. She gave a very practical sermon, spending part of her time on the subject of child rearing and again adding interesting insights from her own personal experience: EGWE 220.1

“I have said that if God would accept my work in training my children for the future immortal life, I will say I have not lived in vain. But this cost me labor and tears. I have had no time to put on the extra dress, to decorate myself. My time must be spent to prepare these children for the future life.... EGWE 220.2

“This is our work, mothers, but not that they should go out into the pleasures of the world. I have had people say to me, ‘Why, Mrs. White, your children will not know how to act in society.’ Said I, ‘I am educating them for the society of heaven. I want them to be educated to do right because it is right, and well pleasing to God!”—Manuscript 84, 1886. EGWE 220.3

After the meeting, the man on whose ground the tent was pitched stepped in front of Ellen White to clear a path through the crowd as she went home. His action was hardly necessary, but he was trying to help in every way he could. EGWE 220.4

Since Whitney, the president of the European Mission, and Oyen, its secretary, had still not arrived by Monday morning, September 27, W. C. White and J. H. Durland were chosen to fill in and get the meeting under way. Elder White and his mother were official delegates to the council. By now they were not merely American visitors; they were, according to the minutes of the council, from Central Europe. In his introductory remarks Elder White reminded the workers that forty years earlier, when the Seventh-day Adventist Movement began, there were no more believers in the whole world than were gathered together for the present meeting. Then he sketched briefly the development of the work. The rest of the time was taken by S. H. Lane's report of the progress of the work in Britain. EGWE 220.5