The attitude of Ellen G. White towards the result of the 1901 Conference may be further clearly understood by referring to the published source in Testimonies, volume 8, pages 104 to 106. She wrote “To the Battle Creek Church” only ten days before she wrote the above letter to Judge Jesse Arthur. She says, “One day at noon I was writing of the work that might have been done at the last General Conference, if the men in positions of trust had followed the will and way of God. Those who have had great light have not walked in the light. The meeting was closed, and the break was not made. Men did not humble themselves before the Lord as they should have done, and the Holy Spirit was not imparted.”—8T 104, St Helena, Cal., Jan 5, 1903. Her verdict of this 1901 Conference was almost in exactly the same tone as made for the 1888 session: “Now our meeting is drawing to a close, and not one confession has been made; there has not been a single break so as to let the Spirit of God in. Now I was saying, what was the use of our assembling here together and for our ministering brethren to come in if they are here only to shut out the Spirit of God from the people? “—Through Crisis to Victory, pages 290, 291. The tragic misconception of Through Crisis to Victory is the assumption that “what might have been” really happened. “What might have been” is portrayed in one of the most beautiful and poignant descriptions of a Spirit-filled meeting to be found in all the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy:
We were assembled in the auditorium of the Tabernacle.. . . The meeting was marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The work went deep, and some present were weeping aloud.
... One arose from his bowed position, and . . . with great solemnity he repeated the message to the Laodicean church....
The speaker . .. made heart-broken confessions, and then stepped up to several of the brethren, one after another, and extended his hand, asking forgiveness. Those to whom he spoke sprang to their feet, making confession and asking forgiveness, and they fell upon one another’s necks, weeping. The spirit of confession spread through the entire congregation. It was a Pentecostal season.—8T 104, 105.
Absolutely beautiful! A meeting like that should certainly be called “Victory!“ with the greatest enthusiasm. Such is the fruit of genuine “righteousness by faith.” The only difficulty is that the “testimony” closes with these very sad words:
The words were spoken to me: “This might have been.” … I thought of where we might have been had thorough work been done at the last General Conference; and an agony of disappointment came over me as I realized that what I had witnessed was not a reality.— Ibid., pages 105,106.
It is true that there are beautiful statements made either at the 1901 Conference or shortly afterwards about “the stately steppings of the Lord” there (R&H, Nov. 26, 1901), “He has given His Holy Spirit” (Letter 54, 1901), “God’s angels have been walking up and down in this congregation” (1901 Bulletin, page 464), and some others. Surely the Lord blessed, and the re-organization effected was marvellous. Thank God for it. But Israel were likewise exceedingly well organized during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and Moses was on duty constantly to administer the work of God among them.
To be fair, we must consider the result of that 1901 Conference. The servant of the Lord wrote nearly two years later, “The result of the last General Conference has been the greatest, the most terrible sorrow of my life” (emphasis added). One would think that surely the author of Through Crisis to Victory read that letter, for he “studied thoroughly the records of the period as they are found in the voluminous files of the White Estate. Available to him were the Ellen G. White manuscript files” (Foreword, page 7). How then could he entitle his work, Victory... 1901? The question is even more perplexing by the support Movement of Destiny gives the volume:
His is an accurate and dependable portrayal of that special period—1888 to 1901. Fortunately his book had the advantage of painstaking checking and editing by the White Publications staff—a definite aid and safeguard.—Page 612.
This book assumes Mrs. White’s 1901 hopes were fulfilled. Recognizing that the administration problems of the 1890s were a direct outgrowth of 1888 unbelief, she hopefully said, “Many who have been more or less out of line since the Minneapolis meeting will be brought into line.” (General Conference Bulletin, 1901, page 205.) Precisely because this bright hope for reversal of the 1888 unbelief was disappointed, she later said the “result” of this Conference was “the greatest, the most terrible sorrow of my life. No change was made.” Should not and will not the Church expect a correction to be made to the world field?
In pondering the above letter to Judge Jesse Arthur, one might be perplexed about isolated one-sentence excerpts quoted frequently that speak of the prophet’s apparent satisfaction in the progress the Church was making. We have “as Bible Christians ever been on gaining ground” (2 SM 396-397); “for the past fifty years . . . the presence of the Spirit of God [has been] with us as a people (2 SM 397); and “I can say, See what the Lord hath wrought” (R&H, November 17, 1910). But one or two-sentence statements should be read in larger context. For example, the last one is significant. The very next sentence adds, “We need not feel sadness, except as we see a failure on the part of God’s people to follow their Leader step by step.” Never does Ellen G. White deny the necessity for repentance on our part as a people!
And there are two aspects of “progress:” one, that of building an ever larger and more powerful church organization, increasing in numbers, wealth, and prestige, and that can stand for hundreds of years as have the great Protestant churches; and secondly, the true progress of making a people ready for the coming of the Lord through a wholehearted acceptance of what Ellen G. White called “the message of Christ’s righteousness,” a message to prepare the harvest grain for the heavenly sickle.