How the visions helped
The story this book tells will be put in better perspective if we pause briefly to consider some of the steps God took to lead Seventh-day Adventists to a sense of their full responsibilities. Ellen White, as she crossed the Atlantic, must have pondered some of these.
How the Visions Gave Guidance
As fast as the early Advent believers could grasp a concept of the task before them, God had through the visions pointed the way to a world mission. Ellen White traced this back to her first vision in December, 1844. Again in the vision at Dorchester, Massachusetts, 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."--Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 125.
Then, three years before J. N. Andrews left the shores of America to sail for Europe, the Lord's messages had marked out a work of world dimensions:
"December 10, 1871, I was shown that God would accomplish a great work through the truth, if devoted, self-sacrificing men would give themselves unreservedly to the work of presenting it to those in darkness.... Angels of God are moving on the hearts and consciences of the people of other nations, and honest souls are troubled as they witness the signs of the times in the unsettled state of the nations. The inquiry arises in their hearts, What will be the end of all these things?"--Ibid., 203.
Again in the vision of April 1, 1874, the angel instructed her:
"Never lose sight of the fact that the message you are bearing is a world--wide message.... Your light ... must be placed on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in God's house--the world. You must take broader views of the work than you have taken."--Testimonies for the Church 7:35, 36.
A little later James White would say that statements like these from the Spirit of Prophecy troubled the early believers. They could not understand how, with limited time and their few numbers and small resources, they could possibly encompass the earth.
Arthur W. Spalding, Seventh-day Adventist historian, referred to the "young church" that "understood little more of its destiny and its career than babes of earth."
"They said that it must be that this gospel is to be preached to all the world in token. Here in America we meet representatives of every race and every nation. How good the Lord is to bring to our hand Jew and Gentile, Anglo-Saxon, Teuton, Latin, Slav, Indian, Negro, Mongolian! We may reach them here, and so fulfill the terms."--Origin and History of Seventh-day Adventists, vol. 2, p. 193.
By "terms" they meant the requirements of the gospel commission. They reasoned that if the third angel's message were preached throughout the United States, it would thus have been preached to all the world!
The World Concept of Missions
So in the providence of God, the concept of an international church gradually developed upon the Adventist consciousness, and J. N. Andrews was dispatched to Europe.
When Andrews arrived in Switzerland in October, 1874, clearly Providence had already prepared the way for his coming and for the extension of the Advent message on the continent of Europe. B. L. Whitney, who was sent to Europe in 1883 and who served as head of the Swiss Conference, wrote of neutral Switzerland as the natural place to locate the headquarters of the work.
"In this free republic Switzerland, so centrally situated, and so admirably adapted, by its political relations, to become a center for the great work among these various nationalities, the Central European Mission was to be established. With three tongues, the French, the German, and the Italian, as its national languages, with no sectional barrier of prejudice to stand between it and the surrounding nations which were to be united with it in the common brotherhood of truth, no other locality could have been selected so well adapted for this work as the one which, it would seem, Providence had thus prepared for it."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 14.
Europeans Begin the Work in Europe
But the work of Seventh-day Adventist had its beginnings in Europe years prior to Andrews' appearance there. James Erzberger and Albert Vuilleumier, both Swiss, were preaching the Adventist message before the arrival of the American pioneer minister. The humble instrument of their conversion was M. B. Czechowski, a Pole by birth and once a Catholic priest, but now an Adventist.
The arrival of Andrews was significant because it launched a long period of fruitful, cooperative effort on the part of Adventist from both continents.
America dispatched some of her giants to fight the battles of Europe in the early days of the message. Andrews had once been a General Conference president and also editor of the Review. The year before Mrs. White's arrival in Basel, Switzerland, in 1885, George I. Butler, then the General Conference president, attended the European Council and spent some time at the headquarters of the Swiss Conference in Basel. He gave his best efforts to prepare the way for Mrs. White's visit. He offered practical counsel on church organization and helped plan the building of the first denominational institution in Europe, the publishing house in Basel, Imprimerie Polyglotte. Stephen Haskell and J. N. Loughborough had also preceded Mrs. White. Their biggest contribution was their energetic evangelistic work in Great Britain. And now on the scene appeared the best-known Seventh-day Adventist in the world--Ellen G. White. Butler remained in Europe only for a short time. Mrs. White's stay was to stretch out for two full years.
And the local believers welcomed the newcomers, their labors, and their financial support. This workable Heaven-inspired arrangement gave vitality and strength to the infant church laboring in an old, old world where religious customs and social mores were deeply entrenched in the life-style of the people.
The work of Europe began about three decades prior to the visit of Ellen White in 1885. These thirty years were marked by much the same search for truth, the same spirit of evangelism and passion for souls, and the same sacrifice and poverty as were present in the United States during the earliest years of church work there.
Qualified to Offer Counsel
Ellen White, as one of the original founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, along with James White and Joseph Bates, had participated in the earliest experiences of the denomination. She had passed through the period of growth and expansion that followed the pioneer days. She was therefore prepared to offer guidance and to stimulate courage, faith, and unity among the brethren and sisters during her two years in the European countries. When she arrived she knew something about the problems that faced the work at that time--problems of establishing and financing institutions, locating places where workers might live, selecting sites for evangelistic services, and promoting effective co-operation among evangelistic laborers.
Indeed, Mrs. White was, strictly speaking, the only pioneer of the church still available for such guidance. Her husband had died in 1881 and Bates in 1872. J. N. Loughborough, S. N. Haskell, and G. I. Butler, who labored for short periods in Europe either as established workers or as visiting ministers, did not have the same background of experience.
But above all, the unique gift of prophecy bestowed on Mrs. White made her visit an event of importance to the European Adventist and to the development of the Seventh-day Adventist witness in Europe.
The brethren were expectant. And as she disembarked from the S.S. Cephalonia in Liverpool that August day they were eager to hear her messages. Certain it was that with the light she had received from God she would stress the rapid expansion of the message that was destined to reach the whole world!