Large public meetings in Christiania
Mrs. White's major assignment in Scandinavia now loomed before her--a little more than two busy weeks in Norway. Sweden had more Adventists at this time, but Norway could claim the only Adventist institution in the Northland, the publishing house in Christiania,* as well as the largest single congregation--120 members in the headquarters church.
Observant of the features of the country, Mrs. White wrote of its characteristics and its hospitable people:
"It is hard to realize that in Christiania we are as far north as the southern point of Greenland and Alaska. The winters here are not severe. But the days at this season are very short. The sun rises as late as half past nine, and sets about three.
"In the summer, of course, the days are correspondingly long. At midsummer it is so light all night that one can see to read print. Children are often playing in the streets till midnight. At the North Cape the sun does not set from May 15 to July 29.
"Norway has about two million inhabitants; the people are remarkable for their independent, liberty-loving spirit."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 220.
It was noon, Friday, October 30, when the White party arrived at Christiania. Elder and Mrs. A. B. Oyen welcomed them at the station and took them to their suburban home at Akersvejen 2. The Oyens were Americans who had come to Norway in the summer of 1884 to help supervise the publishing work there. It was a great joy for both Ellen and Willie White to be able to talk freely in English again. "Although we were welcomed and treated with every attention by our Danish and Swedish brethren and sisters," Mrs. White wrote at this juncture, "we felt all the time crippled because we could not converse together.... But we are again in America, as it were!"--Manuscript 27, 1885.
After what Willie described as "a good square meal," the Whites were no doubt eager to hear of the progress on the new Norwegian publishing house. Matteson had purchased the building on Akersgaden six years earlier, but a portion of the building had to be torn down when a new street, ThorOlsensGade, was put through by the city. Matteson seized the opportunity to rebuild the publishing house and meeting hall with help from the General Conference. The construction had begun in May of 1885, but would not be completed until the next March.
Shortly after arriving in Christiania, perhaps that same afternoon, Mrs. White visited the new institution along with Elder Matteson. W. C. White, in recounting the incident, tells how as they entered the partially renovated building, she exclaimed: "This place seems familiar to me. I have seen this before." Then, as they reached the pressroom, she said, "I have seen these presses before. This is one of the places shown me years ago where publications were being issued in countries outside the United States."
Her reference here was to the vision of January 3, 1875, of a broadening work. At the time the vision was given, the church had only one publishing house, although they are contemplating a second one in California. But now, in 1885, Mrs. White was seeing again what had been so vividly shown to her by the angel of God.
Meetings in the Good Templars Hall
While their meeting place was being renovated, the 120 members of the Christiania church were meeting in the Good Templars Hall. Not only was this the largest Seventh-day Adventist church congregation in Scandinavia at the time, but when they came together to hear Mrs. White preach on practical godliness Sabbath morning, many of their friends and neighbors joined them, swelling the audience to more than 200.
As the week progressed, the Christiania church would discover that in the visions God gave her, Mrs. White had seen more than just printing presses in her visions. She related:
"When the mission fields in this new country were opened before me, I was shown that some things in every branch of the mission needed a different mold; there was need of exalting the standard in this church, before a correct and saving influence could go forth to other places."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 211.
The distribution of membership in Norway at the time bore out the validity of the vision. Although the Christiania church had 120 members, there were only about 80 other Adventists in the whole country. For some reason, the truth had not been proclaimed to any extent beyond the confines of the one city.
On Sabbath afternoon one hundred took part in the ordinance of humility and the Lord's Supper, and all through Mrs. White's visit in Norway crowds continued to be surprisingly large. On Sunday morning a workingman's hall was rented. Every seat was taken, every standing space occupied, and scores of people were turned away for lack of space. An estimated 1,400 heard Mrs. White speak on the love of God. What a contrast this was to the small meetings she had just held in makeshift halls!
The Little Flock at Drammen
About 20 miles southwest of Christiania lay the town of Drammen. On Tuesday, Mrs. White took the train for a visit to the little congregation of Adventists there. The best hall that could be secured was still not very representative, but though the Drammen church had only 20 members, 700 turned out to hear her speak. She used John 3:16 as the text on which she based her remarks.
She describes the hall as a room "used for balls and concerts, about thirty-six by eighty feet in size, with a narrow gallery on each side, and a huge stove in each end. There was no pulpit nor place for one. Six beer tables, brought in from an adjoining room, served to make a platform. A square carpet was thrown over this platform, and another table set on top for light-stand and pulpit, while steps were made with chairs and stools. We doubt if the hall or beer tables were ever put to so good use before."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 207.
The next morning Mrs. White made her way back to Christiania. This time, however, the fog that had obscured her view on the trip to Drammen had lifted.
"The scenery is very fine. The country is broken. There are high bluffs and rocky mountains, lakes and islands. In summer this would be a very pleasant place to live in."--Manuscript 27, 1885.
Busy though she was with her tasks at this center of the work in Norway, she did not forget the needs of the cause back in America. She was writing newsy, encouraging letters to her niece, Addie Walling, who was learning to set type and read proof at the Pacific Press in Oakland. She was corresponding with Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in Battle Creek and already warning him that the sanitarium was getting too big. She was also concerned that the doctor was working too hard.
In Healdsburg, California, where a new college was beginning, a revival was under way. There was danger of extremism on the one side and danger that the Spirit of God would be quenched on the other. She was writing letters of counsel to leaders on both sides to keep things in balance! And often her letters of counsel would arrive just in time to meet some critical situation.
On Thursday, November 5, she continued her writing and made up for the rainy, disagreeable weather with a "very pleasant, profitable visit" with Brother L. Hansen. Hansen, a building contractor who had become an Adventist, was a key figure in the Christiania church at this time. He was in charge of the construction of the new publishing house and meeting hall, and he had also been the architect for the publishing house in Basel. As he and Mrs. White chatted through their interpreter, she shared with him some of her own pioneer experiences in the work. She also told him of her early health-reform visions and how these visions had led her to alter her eating habits.*
Problems in the Christiania Church
Two evening meetings were held during that first week, both attended by 500 people, but on Sabbath, November 7, Ellen White's work for the Christiania church began in earnest. Two serious problems plagued this important church: a lax spirit in regard to Sabbath observance, and fanatical criticism over matters of minor importance. In place of the true test of loyalty, the church members had manufactured tests of their own on dress and photographic pictures. Interpreting the second commandment to apply even to photographs, some had burned pictures of their friends.
"Thus a spirit of criticism, fault-finding, and dissension had come in, which had been a great injury to the church. And the impression was given to unbelievers that Sabbath-keeping Adventists were a set of fanatics and extremists, and that their peculiar faith rendered them unkind, uncourteous, and really unchristian in character."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 211.
"It is true," Ellen White told them during the course of her visit, "that altogether too much money is expended upon pictures; not a little means which should flow into the treasury of God is paid to the artist. But the evil that will result to the church from the course of these extremists is far greater than that which they are trying to correct."--Ibid., 212.
Mrs. White was not a stranger to the business of handling extremists, She wrote:
"Years ago, we had to meet this same spirit and work. Men arose claiming to have been sent with a message condemning pictures, and urging that every likeness of anything should be destroyed. They went to such lengths as even to condemn clocks which had figures, or 'pictures,' upon them.
"Now we read in the Bible of a good conscience; and there are not only good but bad consciences. There is a conscientiousness that will carry everything to extremes, and make Christian duties as burdensome as the Jews made the observance of the Sabbath....
"The second commandment prohibits image worship; but God Himself employed pictures and symbols to represent to His prophets lessons which He would have them give to the people, and which could thus be better understood than if given in any other way. He appealed to the understanding through the sense of sight. Prophetic history was presented to Daniel and John in symbols, and these were to be represented plainly upon tables, that he who reads might understand."--Ibid. See also Selected Messages 2:319, 320.
Sabbathkeeping and the School Authorities
But the question of Sabbath observance was the one she took up on that second Sabbath she spent with the Christiania church. The problem was complicated by the fact that school attendance was required (but not compelled) on Sabbath. Some tried to justify sending their children to school on the basis that Christ said it was lawful to "do good" on the Sabbath day. But such an argument, she pointed out, proved too much, because under that defense even common labor would be acceptable--after all, wasn't a man doing good when he worked to support his family?
Instead, she urged that some arrangement be worked out with the school authorities. "If this fails, then their duty is plain, to obey God's requirements at whatever cost."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 216. She was not unaware that some Adventists in Central Europe had been fined and imprisoned for not sending their children to school on Sabbath. In one place, she revealed, when the authorities came to take the children to school the youngsters took their Bibles with them instead of the textbooks they usually carried, and spent the day studying God's Word.
Recounting in her diary that night what she had told the people, she wrote:
"There is in the Sabbath of the fourth commandment a test. It is God's test. It is no man-made test. This is to be the separating line to distinguish the loyal and the true,--him that serveth God from him that serveth Him not....
"He has made precious promises to those who keep His Sabbath from polluting it. His infinite wisdom and power and love are engaged in our behalf. The heavenly host are registering our names as among the loyal and the true. It is safe always to be on the Lord's side."--Manuscript 27, 1885.
Mrs. White knew she was speaking very plainly about a very serious problem, and at the close of her sermon, she "invited those to come forward who felt they were sinners, not in harmony with God, and who needed His converting power." About fifty responded. Mrs. White came down in front of the pulpit and knelt there with the people. She prayed while Elder Matteson interpreted. When opportunity was given for testimonies, "quite a number confessed that they had about given up the truth and separated from God, and now wished to repent and come back with God's people." Although the leaders attempted to close the meeting, it was impossible. Two and three people were on their feet at a time, waiting to give their testimony. Finally, the meeting drew to an end. It had lasted three hours. But Sister White wrote in her diary: "The work must go deeper yet."--Ibid.
The Largest Audience in the Military Gymnasium
On Sunday she addressed the largest crowd she was to encounter in any of her public efforts in Europe. The president of the local temperance society had invited her to make a temperance address at the soldiers' military gymnasium, the largest hall in the city. The hall was packed with 1,600 people for the occasion. Obviously the interest in temperance reform was high.
When she arrived, Mrs. White found an American flag placed as a canopy above the pulpit, "an attention," she remarked, "which I highly appreciated."
In the audience to hear her were many prominent citizens, including the Bishop of the State Church and a number of other clergymen.
Her approach to the subject was a surprise to her hearers, who had expected a rousing campaign address, full of garish stories and startling statistics. Instead, Mrs. White chose to present temperance from a religious point of view. "When they saw that the subject was to be argued from a Bible standpoint, they were at first astonished, then interested, and finally deeply moved."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 211.
Her analysis of the audience reaction at various stages of her address is indicative of how closely she observed them, even as she was speaking. Just a few weeks before, as she was addressing the European Council in Basel, she had recommended this approach to all the ministers:
"When Christ was teaching on earth, He watched the countenances of His hearers, and the kindling eye, the animated expression, told Him in a moment when one assented to the truth. Even so should the teachers of the people now study the countenances of their hearers."--Ibid., 147.
As she found her words falling on attentive ears, Mrs. White proceeded to show the importance to temperate habits by citing warnings and examples from Bible history.
"Nadab and Abihu were men in holy office; but by the use of wine their minds became so beclouded that they could not distinguish between sacred and common things. By the offering of 'strange fire,' they disregarded God's commands, and they were slain by His judgments."--Ibid., 208.
After drawing lesson after lesson from one Bible character after another, she concluded with a challenge:
"There is need now of men like Daniel,--men who have the self-denial and the courage to be radical temperance reformers. Let every Christian see that his example and influence are on the side of reform. Let ministers of the gospel be faithful in sounding the warnings to the people. And let all remember that our happiness in two worlds depends upon the right improvement of one."--Ibid., 211.
At the close of her lecture Dr. Nisson, the president of the temperance society, stepped forward and addressed the audience. He called attention to the fact that the prosperity of the American temperance movement was based on its support by religious zeal and appeals to Bible truth. Then, as the crowd was dismissed, other local temperance leaders pressed forward to greet the gifted lecturer. Dr. Nisson introduced her to each one. Some of them urged Mrs. White to come and address them again, but she politely declined. She felt her help was needed more by the Christiania church.
The weather remained foggy and damp, and to be more comfortable, Ellen White arranged to have a Norwegian shoemaker measure her foot and make her a new pair of shoes. She also purchased a cloak to protect her from colds.
"I am very grateful that I can have so comfortable a garment," she wrote (Manuscript 27, 1885).
Melting the Ice of Indifference
But Mrs. White had far greater concerns than just protecting herself from colds. She was laboring hard to melt the ice of indifference that had chilled the Christiania church, both workers and laity. Her thoughts were expressed in writing:
"God calls upon the workers in this mission to reach a higher, holier standard. Christiania is an important point in our mission fields; it is the great center of the work for the Scandinavian people. From this place the publications are sent out, and the laborers go forth to proclaim the commandments of God, and it is of the greatest importance that a right influence be exerted by this church, both by precept and example. The standard must not be placed so low that those who accept the truth shall transgress God's commandments while professing to obey them.... If this people will conform their lives to the Bible standard, they will be indeed a light in the world, a city set upon a hill."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 218, 219.
Every evening during her second full week in the city she spoke earnestly to the people, and testimony meetings followed. Some held back "as if in doubt and questioning," her diary indicates, but others testified that they "were unhappy and troubled and wished to return to the truth" (Manuscript 27, 1885).
In the early mornings the servant of the Lord would awaken at three, too burdened to sleep longer. Summarizing the experience later, she wrote:
"During our meetings, the dear Saviour came very near to us again and again. A good work was begun. We called them forward for prayers several times, and though this was a new experience to them, there was a quick and hearty response. Earnest, heartfelt confessions were made. Several had become discouraged and backslidden because of the
accusing spirit manifested, and the lack of love for God and for one another. These humbly confessed their own wrong in allowing their faith in God and the truth to become weakened. Some had yielded the Sabbath through fear that they could not support their families. Others acknowledged that they had indulged a critical, fault-finding spirit. Many said that they had never realized as now the importance of the truth and the influence that it must have upon their life and character. Not a few testified with gratitude that they had received God's blessing as never before."--Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 218.
Meanwhile, W. C. White, Matteson, and Oyen were spending their days laying plans for the publishing house. On Tuesday, November 10, a letter came from the Review and Herald Publishing Company in Battle Creek refusing some requests that had been made in behalf of the Christiania Publishing House. For three weeks W. C. White had been convinced that he should go to the General Conference session that was about to begin in Battle Creek. He was now familiar, to a degree, with the problems of Europe and could speak out in committee meetings and on the conference floor.
At first, as he presented this proposal, Mrs. White opposed his going, but she wrote the next day that "careful, calm consideration of the subject" had changed her mind.
"I thought he could serve the cause of God and especially His work in these mission fields better by going to America, so that from his own lips the Conference could hear of the necessities of the case for laborers and for money, rather than to read the same arguments in letter form. I now think it is right that W. C. White should go, although I shall miss him very much and his counsel and advice seem to be almost a necessity at this time here."--Manuscript 27, 1885.
So it was on Friday, November 13, that W. C. White left Christiania. He knew there was no way to reach Battle Creek by the opening session of the conference,* five days hence. But even though he knew he would arrive a week late, the needs of the cause in Europe compelled him to make the attempt.
Sabbath was another important day in Christiania, the last she would have with the church. "The hall was filled," she wrote, "and we hoped that deep impressions were made."--Ibid. At quarter-to-six Monday morning the White party arrived at the station to begin the return journey to Basel. The Hansens, E. G. Olsen and his wife, the Oyens, and several others were there to see them off.
"Shall we meet again in this life," Ellen White wondered as the train pulled slowly away, "or shall we meet no more until the judgment? It is a solemn thing to die, and a far more solemn thing to live."--Ibid.