Is it right that we as a people humble our hearts before the Lord? Does the watching universe see our present position in this light? Do they see our denominational history as a clear call to denominational repentance?
Movement of Destiny says emphatically, “No.” It presents the post-1888 administration of O. A. Olsen as “chiefly” the “determinative evidence” supporting the “acceptance” and “revival/reformation” view. It also affirms it has the support of “some sixty of our ablest scholars,” “experts,” “key Bible teachers,” “editors,” and “veteran leaders.” Could all these be mistaken in endorsing this popular view? Humanly speaking it would seem any volume with such “magnificent prepublication support” must be correct (see page 8). Yet we would earnestly ask, “What saith the Lord? What is the testimony of the Spirit of Prophecy?” Did the post-1888 denominational leadership truly accept that message which was said to be the “beginning” of the Latter Rain and the Loud Cry?
Through the last twenty-two years retired ministers and scholars, some of whom lived through this post-1888 era, have placed in our hands rare unpublished Ellen G. White material. Because we have known that it has not been policy to permit much of this highly pertinent material to be generally known, we have refrained from publishing it. But Movement of Destiny now says that “the facts are accessible. They are neither hidden nor ambiguous. The records of the time are open and available.” Since this book now charges us with the duty of making “an explicit confession” publicly, the time has fully come to disclose what the Lord’s servant said. Again we consult a private letter written near the close of Elder Olsen’s nine-year term of office:
I do not find rest in spirit. Scene after scene is presented in symbols before me, and I find no rest until I begin to write out the matter. I think we will institute, at least once each day, a season of prayer for the Lord to set things in order at the center of the work. Matters are being shaped so that every other institution is following the same course. The General Conference is itself becoming corrupted with wrong sentiments and principles. In the working up of plans, the same principles are manifest that have controlled Battle Creek for a long time. . . . There will be no material change for the better until a decided movement is made to bring in a different state of things.—Letter, “Norfolk Villa,” Prospect Street, Granville, N.S.W., Sept. 19, 1896.