First church dedicated in Europe
The General Conference session of 1886 was in progress in the United States at the time Ellen White returned to Basel in late November. * Whitney had gone to the session from Switzerland to represent the Central European Mission. Reports reached America of the success of Mrs. White's European journey, and it was obvious at the session that there was a strong demand for her return to America in time for the spring camp meetings. Naturally the American brethren would like to hear reports of the work in Europe, and would welcome her ministry, but the action taken only requested that she and W. C. White should return "whenever they feel that it is their duty."
It is not known exactly when Ellen White decided to return to the United States, but we know that on April 18, 1887, she wrote, "We are straining every power to close up our work here in Basel" (Letter 82, 1887).
A petition from Australia was also presented to the General Conference in session asking Mrs. White and W. C. White to visit that field. They were to honor the request five years later, and spend nine fruitful years in the land "down under."
Until then there was plenty of good hard work to keep her busy. At the publishing house another financial crisis was in the making. Debts had come due, and the institution was overdrawn at the bank in Basel by 30,000 francs, or $6,000. There was not even enough money to pay the office workers their regular salaries.
At the session the church leaders resolved to raise $100,000 to meet the ever-growing financial demands of the cause as it expanded in Europe, South Africa, Australia, and the West Indies, as well as in the United States. But the money was needed urgently and immediately in Basel. Willie wrote to Elder Haskell that though it was very "refreshing" to read that the brethren had resolved to raise $100,000, it was a little like the "old story of Protestants being chained in a dungeon, and starved to death, with abundance of good food just out of their reach." He was more than a little relieved when a draft for $2,000 came in mid-December.
Need of All Missionaries
In the appeal Mrs. White wrote to the leaders in Battle Creek at this time, she took a broad view of the situation and saw beyond the need for money the more urgent need for good young men.
"From time to time." she wrote. "I have felt urged by the Spirit of the Lord to bear a testimony to our brethren in regard to the necessity of procuring the very best talent to work in our various institutions." The men must be "trained men, men whom God can teach.... They must be thinking men, men who bear God's impress, and who are steadily progressing in holiness.... If they are growing men ... they will, like the sun, pursue an undeviating course, and they will grow in vision and in favor with God" (Letter 63, 1886; Selected Messages 2:190).
She appealed for excellence in every line. "Our institutions are doing a great and final work for the world," she wrote, "and should have in their employ the very best talent to be obtained anywhere" (Letter 63, 1886).
Not only ministers were needed but most able businessmen:
"I was shown the great deficiency there is in keeping the accounts in the various departments of the cause. Bookkeeping is and ever will be an important part of our work, and those who have become intelligent in it are greatly needed in all our institutions.... This branch of the work has been neglected shamefully, and altogether too long. It is a shame to allow work of such magnitude to be done in a defective, bungling manner. God wants as perfect work as it is possible for human beings to do.... Bookkeeping is a subject that needs to be studied in order that it may be done with correctness and dispatch and without worry and taxation."--Ibid.
It is not surprising that the General Conference session voted to send one of their best accountants, A. H. Mason, to Basel just at this juncture to audit the books, set up a new and better system of record keeping, and train bookkeepers to carry on when he left.
Evangelistic Team in Basel
While the financial status of the publishing work was discouraging, on the evangelistic front prospects were encouraging. Conradi and Erzberger had been holding meetings among the German-speaking Swiss for some time, and Ellen White was elated by their success: "Brethren Conradi and Erzberger are two good workmen," she testified late in December. "They have been laboring here in Basel for the last two months. The hall they have hired is filled, and some evenings a small room adjoining the hall is filled. Brother Erzberger told me last evening that sixteen had decided to keep the Sabbath. This is very encouraging to us all."--Letter 60, 1886.
Meanwhile, William Ings had discovered a new approach in the use of our literature. Accompanied by Oscar Roth, he began to canvass the better hotels, attempting to leave neatly bound copies of Adventist papers in the lobbies. To their surprise, there was hardly a hotel that refused to accept the journals. Plans were quickly laid to implement the idea in hotels all over Europe--wherever there were trusted church members who could be sure the papers were kept up to date and in good condition.
Church Dedication at Tramelan
And another milestone had been reached in the work in Europe; the first Seventh-day Adventist church building was ready for dedication in Tramelan, Switzerland.* The structure built by the Roth family for 3,300 francs (US$660) stood in the lot just behind their home. It was tiny, but it was a beginning, and Ellen White was pleased with it. She was invited to be the dedicatory speaker.
Early in the morning, the day before Christmas, she took the train out of Basel, accompanied by William and Jenny Ings. The weather was appropriate to the season:
"We passed slowly along and the trees looked very beautiful laden down with pure, fresh snow.... I was back in my girlhood in my native state [of Maine] passing through the pine forests and exclaiming with delight at the lovely picture presented, but I had seen nothing to remind me of this scene so thoroughly as this morning. Thirty years ago such scenes were familiar in the state of Maine."--Manuscript 72, 1886.
One of the Roth boys was waiting at the station with another European "first" for Mrs. White--a sleigh ride in the snow to the Roth home. She was delighted with it. Believers had gathered from several Swiss churches for this important occasion, and that night Elder Erzberger addressed the Germans among them.
On Sabbath, Christmas Day, Ellen White spoke for the official dedication of the little chapel. Appropriately she took her text from 1 Kings 8, where the dedication of Solomon's Temple is described.
"It is true that the company at Tramelan is small ... but the Lord's presence is not confined to numbers.... We are thankful that God has put it into the heart of the Brethren Roth to build this comfortable, neat house for the worship of God.... The first tabernacle, built according to God's directions, was indeed blessed of Him. The people thus were preparing themselves to worship in the temple not made with hands--a temple in the heavens. The stones of the temple built by Solomon were all prepared at the quarry and then brought to the temple site.... Even so, the mighty cleaver of truth has taken out a people from the quarry of the world and is fitting this people, who profess to be the children of God, for a place in His heavenly temple."--Manuscript 49, 1886.
Then she recalled early churches in Battle Creek history:
"The first house* built in Battle Creek was only about one third larger than this, and when we entered that building we felt happy. The meetings heretofore had been held in a private house. We all felt poor, but we felt that we must have a place to dedicate to the Lord.... In two years it had to be given up for a larger one.† It was not long before the third had to be built, and then the present one which will seat three thousand persons.... We hope that the Lord will so bless your work that this house will prove too small for you. We expect to see other houses erected by our people and in this our faith will be revealed, for faith without works is dead. This house, so small as it is, is recorded in heaven. I can come to visit you with more courage now than heretofore because the people will see that you mean business."--Ibid.
She went on to talk about reverence in the house of God, and the solemn importance of worship together. She concluded:
"Above everything else, be at peace among yourselves ... and from this place may light and truth go out, and work upon the hearts of the people, and then your testimony will be felt. We must weave the principles of truth into our character and thus we can be prepared for the temple of God and be privileged to join in the anthem, Worthy is the Lamb."--Ibid.
Future of the Advent People
Regarding the future of the Adventist people, she wrote that same year, 1886:
"Our people have been regarded as too insignificant to be worthy of notice, but a change will come. The Christian world is now making movements which will necessarily bring commandment-keeping people into prominence. There is a constant supplanting of God's truth by the theories and false doctrines of human origin. Movements are being set on foot to enslave the consciences of those who would be loyal to God. The law-making powers will be against God's people. Every soul will be tested. Oh, that we would, as a people, be wise for ourselves, and by precept and example impart that wisdom to our children! Every position of our faith will be searched into; and if we are not thorough Bible students, established, strengthened, and settled, the wisdom of the world's great men will lead us astray."--Testimonies for the Church 5:546.
The next morning as the workers were meeting to discuss church business they noticed a crowd gathering down the road a short distance. A man who had "celebrated" Christmas with too much liquor had stumbled into the deep snow the night before, and, unable to extricate himself, had frozen to death. "He had a mother living," Ellen White wrote sadly. "He had been a great grief to that mother, and now there will be mourning for this poor son who died in consequence of strong drink."--Manuscript 72, 1886.
Crowd Gathers in Large Baptist Church
That afternoon Mrs. White was scheduled to speak in the large Baptist church in Tramelan. A notice was sent to the pastor of the church, but he refused to read it to his congregation, thinking she would dwell on the Sabbath question. Nevertheless, there were nearly 300 waiting to hear her when she arrived at the church. Her sermon was on genuine faith. She was naturally interested in the responses of the people, and as they filed out, many of them greeted her with expressions like: "I shall take home that which I have heard; I see nothing objectionable in it."
The minister of the church said he was very sorry he had not announced the meeting. Had he known the subject, he certainly would have.
Returning to Basel, Mrs. White was on hand for a meeting the next evening in which the nativity story was presented. She gave a short talk. Then a fragrant evergreen tree was brought in loaded down with money gifts for the Saviour. The reason for this service during the Christmas season was to secure financial help for the colporteurs in Russia. Their ministry was made difficult by the fact that the Seventh-day Adventist Church was not recognized by the government. The threat of imprisonment hung over their heads, and their labors were performed with enormous difficulty. The Christmas tree in Basel yielded 429 francs for their support. Quite a harvest!
In the Review, Sister White had written:
"We are now nearing the close of another year, and shall we not make these festal days opportunities in which to bring to God our offerings? I cannot say sacrifices, for we shall only be rendering to God that which is His already, and which He has only entrusted to us till He shall call for it. God would be well pleased if on Christmas, each church
would have a Christmas tree on which shall be hung offerings, great and small, for these houses of worship.
"Letters of inquiry have come to us asking, Shall we have a Christmas tree? will it not be like the world? We answer, You can make it like the world if you have a disposition to do so, or you can make it as unlike the world as possible. There is no particular sin in selecting a fragrant evergreen, and placing it in our churches; but the sin lies in the motive which prompts to action, and the use which is made of the gifts placed upon the tree.
"The tree may be as tall and its branches as wide as shall best suit the occasion; but let its boughs be laden with the golden and silver fruit of your beneficence, and present this to Him as your Christmas gift. Let your donations be sanctified by prayer."--The Review and Herald, December 11, 1879.
Ellen White in her counsels about Christmas observance recognized that there was no Bible support for the celebration of the day, but she was practical enough to see that Christmas could not be passed by unnoticed by parents. The children would not understand. The wise procedure would be to direct the minds and hearts of the little ones to Christ, whose "birthday" was being celebrated. So she counseled them to bring their gifts to Jesus as the Wise Men did.
Her teaching was positive. The counsels were practical and dealt with the everyday issues the church must meet in its pilgrimage through this world.
"Let us represent the Christian life as it really it; let us make the way cheerful, inviting, interesting. We can do this if we will. We may fill our own minds with vivid pictures of spiritual and eternal things, and in so doing help to make them a reality to other minds."--Ibid., January 29, 1884.