The clouds and cold drizzle that dampened the Bay cities of northern California on New Year's Day, 1876, in no way betokened the spirits of James and Ellen White, who were residing in Oakland. It was the Sabbath and a special day, a day for the edification and building up of the church, a day set apart by the General Conference Committee to be spent in prayer, fasting, and humiliation before God.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church had grown to a membership of just a little more than ten thousand. A well-established publishing house functioned near midcontinent in Battle Creek, Michigan, and another was in its first year of operation in Oakland, California. A medical institution in Battle Creek, which would in a few months have its tenth birthday, was now just getting well supplied with professional personnel. Across the street from it was the Battle Creek College, a year old and enjoying a good patronage. J. N. Andrews was pioneering the work of the church in Europe, pleading for someone to help him, and the prospects were encouraging.
James White, president of the General Conference, was 54 years of age. Having suffered several strokes resulting largely from overwork, he was not well at times. Ellen was 48 and in quite good health, considering her medical history. She was eager to continue her writing, especially on the life of Christ. They owned a home in Oakland adjacent to the newly erected publishing house, on the plot of land purchased for the new publishing venture. This home was now up for sale, for they were building a new one nearby, on Eleventh Street, near Castro. Their family included Willie (who was about to be married and set up his own home), Mary Clough, Lucinda Hall, and May and Addie Walling, two of Mrs. White's nieces for whom they were providing a home. Edson, who was married, lived nearby.
The Whites did not intend that Oakland be the place for their permanent residence, for they must keep close to Battle Creek and its many interests there. Wrote James White:
There our first college, our Health Institute, and our main printing house are located. There is a church of more than two hundred members who regard us as their pastor, though we are from them six months at a time, and are with them only a few Sabbaths in a year. We can never have as much interest at any other point as at Battle Creek.--The Signs of the Times, November 11, 1875.
The One-Hundredth Birthday of the Nation
The nation was preparing to celebrate its one-hundredth birthday. What progress had been made during that century! And much of it during the lifetime of James and Ellen White. It was a period matched by none for advancement in knowledge and in the development of a workable democracy.
New inventions followed each other with breathtaking rapidity and ever-broadening scope. Candles and whale-oil lamps had given way to the brighter and more convenient and efficient kerosene lamps, and lights powered by electricity were on the verge of being used. Power looms were taking the place of the spinning wheel and hand looms. The sewing machine lightened the task and shortened the time it took to make clothing. The telegraph now speeded communications, and that wonder, the telephone, would soon obliterate distances. Quill pens gave way to pencils and the fountain pen. The invention of the typewriter gave promise of a revolution in literary work, but for James and Ellen White, this was yet almost a decade away. Photography had developed to the point that from a glass photographic plate multiple prints could be made. The steam engine was employed to propel railroad cars, riverboats, and oceangoing vessels.
Little wonder that the great Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1876 was looked upon with awe for its massive buildings and exhibition of inventions, arts, and wares from all parts of the world.
Ministry in the Bay Area
In January, February, and March, James and Ellen White ministered to the churches in Oakland, numbering eighty members, and San Francisco, with somewhat less.
The San Francisco church had moved ahead in the erection of a house of worship on Laguna Street. O. B. Jones, the very capable builder whom James White had brought from Battle Creek to erect a building for the Pacific Press, was asked to construct the San Francisco house of worship. The outlook was encouraging. J. N. Loughborough, president of the California Conference, wrote in describing the progress in San Francisco:
This church one year since regarded it almost an impossibility to build a house of worship; but the house is now erected, and the basement rented for a sufficient sum to meet all the interest on the money it was necessary to hire to complete the house.--Ibid., January 6, 1876.
The Publishing Interests
The publishing interests loomed large as the new year opened. The Signs of the Times was to be published every week instead of an issue every other week. This called for bold plans to fill its eight almost newspaper-size pages every seven days. In his editorial column in the January 6 issue James White promised, "Our friends may depend upon the Signs weekly," and added:
We commence the series of articles setting forth the reasons of our faith and hope ...with the article ...upon the millennium. These articles will continue in proper order quite through the year. Sketches of the life of Mrs. White will also continue, and will be very important to those who should know the facts in her remarkable experience.
The first article of that issue followed immediately, under the title "Mrs. Ellen G. White, Her Life, Christian Experience, and Labors." It was written with the general public in mind:
The name of Mrs. Ellen G. White is widely known in consequence of her writings and her public labors as a speaker in nineteen of the States and in the Canadas. Her books in print amount to about four thousand pages which have had an extensive circulation. And her labors as a speaker cover a period of more than thirty years.
But in the last ten years the providence of God, in harmony with the wishes of the people with whom she has been connected, has moved her out to speak to the crowds at our annual conferences and camp meetings in the several States where they have been held. Newspaper reporters have given sketches of her addresses, and have made statements of their effects upon audiences which have given her prominence in the minds of thousands who have neither read her books nor heard her speak....
In view of the situation, we have for several years felt that it was due the public that the life, Christian experience, and labors of Mrs. White be brought out in a humble volume for circulation as extensively as her name is known.
James White then introduced his plan of letting Ellen White speak for herself by drawing matter from her biographical volume, Spiritual Gifts,, volume 2, published in 1860. The material was edited and somewhat expanded, particularly as the series continued over a period of many months.
E. G. White Articles
This January 6 issue of the Signs also carried an article by Ellen White. It was a reduction of a personal testimony that formed a part of the 208-page pamphlet Testimony No. 26, then on the press.
As adapted for the Signs of the Times with its non-Adventist readers, however, all reference to the fact that Ellen White was shown certain things, and all personal references, are left out. The material begins thus:
Sympathy and Love
Many need more human sympathy. This is a quality of our natures which God has given us to render us charitable and kind to those with whom we are brought in contact. June 6, 1876.
The article fills three full columns and is signed "E.G.W." The testimony from which this material is drawn, almost word for word, with the exception of personal references or applications, fills eleven full pages. The wording of the closing paragraph of the testimony and the Signs article are identical.
This procedure was not new. In 1875 the Signs carried twenty-nine articles, eight of which were drawn from the Testimonies. In 1876 twenty-nine of the forty-one articles were selected from Testimonies material then running through the press.
The Pattern of Work in Early 1876
A few diary entries provide a picture of Ellen White's work through the first four or five months of 1876.
Sabbath, January 8, 1876:
In company with my son Edson and his wife, I crossed the bay to San Francisco. Sabbath school was reorganized. Edson was chosen superintendent, and Brother Chittenden assistant superintendent. I opened the services with prayer and spoke to the people one hour and a half in regard to Christian sympathy and love.... I spoke forenoon and afternoon with great freedom. The Lord blessed the word spoken. About four o'clock I returned to Oakland.
Sunday, January 9, 1876:
I spent most of the day in writing. Felt quite weary and in need of rest from yesterday's labor. In the evening I spoke in Oakland church to an interested audience. A large number of outsiders were present and showed the most respectful attention. I had a good degree of freedom in speaking in regard to the lost sheep--the parable our Saviour gave to His disciples. My husband spoke to a good congregation in San Francisco. He returned at about eleven o'clock.
Monday, January 10, 1876:
I arose at 5:00 A.M. Wrote four pages notepaper to Sister Ings. Sister [Lucinda] Hall and my niece Mary Clough accompanied me in a walk about daylight. We purchased some things to eat. The air was cool and bracing. Read revised pages of Testimony No. 26. Wrote several pages of private testimony. After dinner my husband, Miss Clough, and myself walked to town. Purchased two pairs of scissors for Addie and May Walling, and diary for myself.
Tuesday, January 11, 1876: I devoted my time to writing, filling in the broken links in the history of my life. In the afternoon walked to the city. The Review came in the evening.--Manuscript 2, 1876.
Plans for the Summer
James White had in mind to return to the East soon. The November 11, 1875, issue of the Signs had carried a note in which he informed the readers:
The condition of our Pacific Association, and to avoid eastern cold winters, make it necessary for us to remain in Oakland until early spring when we shall return, and make timely arrangements for the round of camp meetings for 1876. Mrs. White and the writer think we shall fill up the entire warm part of the season with meetings, one each week, and that we shall be able with the help of Elders Smith and Canright to attend all the Eastern camp meetings. These are meetings of the greatest importance to our people, and each should be held at the proper time, and should have a full force of laborers.
With the help of Mary Clough, Ellen White was, by early 1876, getting along so well with her writing on the life of Christ that she was beginning to think she should stay by the writing in Oakland through the late winter, spring, and summer, and skip the camp meeting for the coming season.
Counsel for James White--a Symbolic Presentation
The Advent cause in its infancy called for positive direction and surely would have faltered without it and James White was a forceful leader. But as the years passed he was inclined to overemphasize, in his own mind, the importance of his position in relation to the work. The several strokes he suffered and the failure of his associates to be as intense as he in their approach to the work, aggravated the situation. James White became sensitive and touchy, and Ellen tactfully and calmly tried to encourage him to be low-key and take a more rational approach to problems. The Lord, too, had something to say about it. The entry penned in her diary on Thursday, January 6, is enlightening:
Last night I dreamed of being in a schoolhouse. My husband was teaching. He was standing by one of his pupils who was writing. The teacher would direct, "Put your pen there. Make a heavier stroke here and a finer stroke there." "There you are, commencing wrong again!" Then, "Put your pen there."
The copy proved to be a miserable affair. The teacher took up the book and after looking at the copy threw it down impatiently. "That copy is an entire failure, a botch work. I have taken particular pains to tell you just what to do and after all my care this is the work you have to show. If this is the best you can do you might as well leave school at once." The young man [the student] was angry and with flushed face arose and left the room.
The young man that I had often seen in my dreams seemed to be by the side of the teacher. He said to the teacher, "You are to a very large degree responsible for that miserable copy; the best of writers would have failed under similar circumstances. If the boy had been left to himself and written without so much dictation, he could have produced a fair copy. He could not follow your directions without being confused and spoiling the copy. That poor boy has had too little encouragement and love, and too much censuring for mistakes that are common to all.
"You make mistakes. You are an erring man. As you wish others to judge you mercifully, do the same to the erring. Give sympathy, give love, and you will find this power will soften and subdue the most wayward and the greatest good will be realized upon your own heart and life. You will feel the subduing influence of the power of that love you exercise and cultivate toward others. You are a teacher. You should represent the great Teacher in your sympathy and tender, pitying love. As you love, you will be loved; as you pity, you will receive the same. 'With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.' Love is power. It will have a transforming influence, for it is divine."--Manuscript 2, 1876.
Just how Ellen White may have conveyed the message of counsel and caution is not a matter of record. It was not easy to be the messenger of the Lord, as she wrote years later:
It has been hard for me to give the message that God has given me for those I love, and yet I have not dared to withhold it.... I would not do a work that is so uncongenial to me if I thought that God would excuse me from it.--Letter 59, 1895.
Testimony No. 26
From time to time, over a period of twenty years there had come from the press messages for the church published in pamphlet form. After the first, which consisted of sixteen pages issued in 1855, they were numbered as published and varied greatly in the amount of pages. The Signs of the Times, February 10, 1876, announced:
Testimony for the Church No. 26 is ready. Orders will be filled as fast as possible.... The book has 208 pages, and is the most important of the kind ever printed.
It was advertised for thirty cents and soon reached out to members in both the East and West. It was from the material of this book that the early 1876 Signs articles were drawn.
As the series of articles on Ellen White's life continued, the need was soon felt for more detailed information concerning certain events. Many details had been forgotten. James White, who was handling the details of the biographical series while Ellen White was occupied in writing on the life of Christ, ran the following note on the back page of the February 10 issue of the Signs:
In the preparation of Mrs. White's life, her numerous letters will be a fruitful source from which to draw. Her friends are, therefore, urgently invited to forward all letters that remain in their hands. Please address Mrs. E. G. White, Oakland, California, care Signs of the Times.
From week to week the paper served as the means of communication between James and Ellen White and the church on the Pacific Coast. Through the back page of the issue of March 3, under the title of "Brief Report," White declared:
Having completed the work for which the committee of the California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists called us to the State, and feeling that duty calls us to the more general interests of the cause, we wish to briefly report what has been done, and the present financial condition of the association. A full report can be given at the time of the annual meeting in April.
He noted that the Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association had been incorporated in April, 1875, with Adventists providing capital in stock in the amount of $15,000. The lot and building had cost $16,000. Friends in the East had invested $11,000 to purchase equipment and supplies, and there was a debt on the enterprise of only $2,000 (Ibid.). The plant was located in the city of Oakland, "the pride of California," and the publishing house was a two-story building with a good basement for storage and a good attic. It was in the form of a Greek cross, sixty-six by twenty-six feet east and west, and forty-six by twenty-six feet north and south. In the rear was a "brick engine house eleven feet from the main building," in which was housed "the New York Safety Engine," used to power two fine presses (Ibid., November 11, 1875).
White described Oakland as a rapidly growing city of some twenty-one thousand. He declared:
The climate of Oakland is delightful. The water is good. The people attend to their own business and respect those who in a proper manner mind theirs. Probably there is not a city on the globe where the rights of men are regarded more sacred and where property and human life are safer than in Oakland.--Ibid.
His comments on the location of the office in the city, on Castro Street between Eleventh and Twelfth, reveal what was anticipated in the way of working conditions and prospective work:
We are five blocks from the noise of Broadway, in a quiet part of the city. And as we do not covet common printing, our retired position is desirable for our own work and fine book and music printing from the outside, which is already pressing in upon us before we are fully ready for such work.-- Ibid.
The March 9, 1876, Signs carried the information that the board of directors of the Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek had decided to put up a large main building and had invited James White and O. B. Jones to direct the carrying out of these plans.
One week later, after reviewing what had been accomplished in "preaching by steam" in Battle Creek and Oakland, White introduced a challenging proposition:
Just as the Pacific Press is completely established, the advancing cause in Europe demands that there should be an office of publication in Switzerland.--Ibid., March 16, 1876
Still a week later, in the issue of March 23, J. H. Waggoner, working on the Pacific Coast, announced:
An extra session of the General Conference has been appointed to convene March 31. Subjects of great importance are to be considered, which demand that an extra session shall be held.
Brother James White, president of the General Conference, left Oakland yesterday morning, the twenty-second, for Battle Creek, Michigan, to attend this conference. We are happy to say that Brother White left California in good health and with good courage. He has labored very hard here for nearly six months past under circumstances which might have discouraged one of less faith and less consecration to the cause of truth. The work of the publishing house has prospered wonderfully under his careful management.
In a last-page note on March 30, under the heading "Meeting House in Oakland," Waggoner reported:
By the assistance of Brother White, the Oakland church have secured a building site at a cost of $4,000, in a desirable situation, and the work of building a house of worship has already commenced. At a meeting of the church on the evening of the twenty-third, Brother O. B. Jones was requested by a unanimous vote to take charge of the work.
When James White left for Battle Creek, Ellen remained in their Oakland home; she was looking forward to making great strides with the help of Mary Clough, in writing on the life of Christ. Fortunately for the biographer, the distance between husband and wife necessitated much correspondence, rich in the story of day-by-day happenings.