A season of hard labor
Early in April, Ellen White testified that she was enjoying good health and the beautiful weather: "Everything is looking so green and lovely that we are sure winter is passed and spring has come."--Letter 41, 1886.
A Letter From Torre Pellice
Just at this time a letter arrived from A. C. Bourdeau back again in Torre Pellice. Interest was good in two places where he was holding regular meetings, and he urged Ellen White to come. In a few weeks the people would begin to leave the valleys to spend the summer in the mountains, so it was all the more essential that she go at once if her visit was to be helpful.
She had been writing him regularly since her last visit to the Piedmont valleys, and while his brother Daniel's problem had been that he did most of the work himself, A. C.'s shortcoming was that he didn't seem to be getting much work done at all. Ellen White described his efforts at one point as "an array of Quaker guns" (Letter 31, 1886). Evidently her prodding had taken effect, and now when he called for help she responded immediately.
W. C. White relayed the plans: "Since receiving your last letter, Mother has been thinking much about coming to Italy, and Brother Whitney [mission president] has thought that it would be well for us to go soon, and so we have decided to come at once."--W. C. White letter April 12, 1886. Ellen White, along with Willie and Mary, left Basel on Thursday, April 15, 1886, for a second visit to Italy. The train left Basel in the morning and arrived in Milan, Italy, that night.
Milan and the Great Cathedral
Since their train was not to leave until ten-thirty next morning, they improved the time sight-seeing.* The main point of interest, of course, in Milan, was the grand cathedral, the most important Gothic structure in Italy. The cathedral, begun in 1386, was just then being completed. She confessed that no one could fail to be impressed with the grandeur and immensity of the huge white-marble building, but she still looked upon it as a vast "extravagance." Some art critics have had similar reservations about the cathedral, but her judgments were colored by factors other than mere artistic taste. While she was overwhelmed by the architecture, she was favorably impressed by "the windows and walls ... adorned with high-colored pictures, painted by the finest Italian artists. These paintings represent scenes in Bible history and in traditional church history. It seemed to me that I never saw such a gorgeous combination of colors."--The Review and Herald, June 1, 1886.
But she was pained as she saw the worshipers enter, dip their fingers in a marble basin of "holy water," make the sign of the cross, and go quietly to seats in front of the altar. As she saw them bowing before the images, it seemed to her a pathetic sight not unlike pagan worship. "How I longed to lift my voice in this grand old building, and point the poor, deluded souls to God and heaven!" The sight of women kneeling before the confessional boxes was even more painful to her. "It was placing a man with like passions as themselves in the place of Christ," she said (Ibid.).
The cathedral is decorated inside and out with no less than 2,245 statues and images, and it is little wonder that Ellen White remarked later, "How the Roman church can clear herself from the charge of idolatry we cannot see. True, she professes to worship God through these images: so did the Israelites when they bowed before the golden calf" (Ibid.).
A Lesson in Contrasts
At Torre Pellice that evening, as she stood up to speak to the 20 believers who had walked through a driving rain to celebrate the beginning of the Sabbath, she could not help contrasting the plain, whitewashed walls of the building with the elegance she had seen in Milan.
"Here in this little upper chamber of a dwelling house, there was nothing in the exterior to charm the eye, nothing in the interior to absorb or attract, but we had a Guest that day, and we all felt the warmth of His love and the value of His pardon. This precious Jesus could forgive sin. There was no uncertainty here. It was a precious season. I had not one desire for the grand temple and its cold worship. I prize the warmth of Jesus' love."--Manuscript 62, 1886.
Sabbath, too, it rained, but the believers came to hear her speak just the same. Sunday morning she awoke at five. The skies were cloudy, but the peach, cherry, and plum trees were in blossom, making the air heavy with their fragrance. "I see a providence in all God's works," she wrote, and making the best of the situation, she went on to observe, "Clouds are not pleasant for present convenience, but an unseen hand is at work blessing the earth, making nature very lovely."--Manuscript 54, 1886.
In spite of the continuing rain, they hired a horse and started up the mountain for Villar Pellice, where she had an appointment for four in the afternoon. The horse they had rented would only go at a slow walk, so they were late for the appointment. They found the meeting place literally packed with people. "The peasant women were intelligent looking," Ellen White observed. She was especially charmed by the "neat blue dresses and white bonnets."
Her sermon that afternoon described Christ's triumphal ride into Jerusalem. Elder Bourdeau translated into French, and some in the audience were translating quietly into Italian for those who spoke only that language. The message of Christ's love and mercy got through to the people, and the Lord's servant noticed that some of her hearers were weeping.
Sowing Beside All Waters
She was beginning to sense more and more the difficulties of evangelistic labor in Europe. "This is a hard field," she admitted, "but we are to sow beside all waters. These valleys have been watered with the blood of the Christian Waldenses, and it must be that the seed of truth will spring up and bear fruit to the glory of God. We will work, we will pray, and we will believe. It is no harder field than Jesus found when He came to our world."--Ibid.
The next day the rain continued to fall, and Ellen White devoted the day to writing while Elder Bourdeau walked the five miles to Villar Pellice to fill his speaking appointment. Tuesday she managed to get a covered carriage to take her to St. John's, where she spoke again.
Finally on Wednesday, April 21, the sun broke through, and Mrs. White, along with Mary K., Martha Bourdeau, and Martha's daughter, Sarah, rented a carriage to ride out in the sunshine. "We drove very slowly, for the horse, although strong, had no idea of hurting his constitution," Ellen White remarked wryly!
Later that day Antoine Biglia arrived from Naples, Italy, where he had lived and worked for a number of years. Biglia, like others who had had only the most limited opportunities to learn how to be an effective minister, was in need of counsel. Of the interview Ellen White reported:
"We labored with him, and sought most earnestly to help him to take hold of the work, not as a fighter, contending and debating, as was his habit, driving people away from the truth rather than into it. He saw we talked the truth, not with storm; not pelting the people with denunciations like hailstones. We had very precious seasons of prayer....
"This brother from Naples said he had received much light, and would labor in altogether a different manner than he had done."
"We have to work with these men who are really intelligent just as we worked with them one by one in the infancy of the Seventh-day Adventist cause, separating from these precious souls their unsanctified ways and manners, talking to them about Jesus, His great love, His meekness, His lowliness, His self-denial. These rough stones we bring if possible into the workshop of God where they will be hewed and squared, and all the rough edges removed.... Thus they may grow up into a holy temple for God."--Letter 44, 1886, p. 3.
The next day was market day, and the clatter of wooden shoes woke Ellen White at 5:00 A.M. She looked out of her window on the crowds of people hurrying to market.
Then A. C. Bourdeau appeared on the scene with exciting news. The night before, his meeting place was crowded with people, and more than one hundred were unable to gain entrance. Fortunately J. D. Geymet was on hand to speak to those outside while Bourdeau took care of the crowd in the building. It was a successful evening.
On Friday the rain came again, and Sabbath also, but the meetings continued to be crowded with eager listeners.
On Sunday morning Ellen White took time to visit the young man from Switzerland who had wanted so much to marry Elise Vuilleumier. He had come to Torre Pellice just after receiving Ellen White's letter and moved his church membership there. There is no way of knowing what she said to him, but she was conscious that her earlier counsel to him was not easy to bear. Now she showed a tender interest in him and his welfare.
Up the Mountain to Bobbio
After the visit, William and Mary, Elder Bourdeau, and Ellen White went up the mountain to Bobbio to visit the cave where a group of Waldensian refugees had been suffocated in the smoke of a fire ignited by their persecutors. W. C. White was not with his mother on her first visit, so these sites of heroic martyrdom were of thrilling interest to him. As a child he had sat at his mother's knee as she read the history of the Waldenses to him and to James White, and now he was visiting the very scenes where Waldensian history had been made.
The little party ate their lunch near the cave and, after a time of prayerful consecration, descended the mountain to Villar Pellice, where an open-air meeting had been scheduled. This innovation was necessary because of the large crowds coming to the meetings.
"It was entirely a new thing under the sun for them to hear a woman speak, and yet after I had spoken a few moments there was the best attention. I spoke to about 300 people. Some were seated upon the wall of the enclosure, some on steps that led to the meeting room above. The piazza above was well filled with people. It was to all a novel meeting house. We had the canopy of heaven above us for a covering, the earth--which is the Lord's--beneath our feet."--Manuscript 62, 1886.
Early in the week there was yet another sight-seeing trip, this one to Angrogna, the valley of groans. The little group walked out over a beautiful green tableland. A white-haired Vaudois led them to a place where the plain ended abruptly, falling off hundreds of feet. The Waldenses here had been attacked by their enemies who had come from Turin to burn their village. As they fled from their homes, they were driven like cattle across this plain, and were forced off the edge of the cliff. And what was their offense? They believed the Bible and dared to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. This, Rome would not tolerate.
"We are told that thousands were driven off from this precipice to be mangled and torn to pieces or instantly killed by their descent upon the sharp and jagged rocks. Some bodies were suspended upon the pointed rocks, which fastened into their clothing, and their remains were found two or three weeks afterward."--Ibid.
Then God's messenger added soberly, "And this is the church which claims to be a successor in the direct line of Jesus Christ and the apostles!" (ibid).
Finally on Thursday, April 29, after she had spoken seven times during her visit, the White party left Italy, bound for Geneva.