Ms 5, 1853

July 1853, n.p.1EGWLM 382.1

Extract From a Vision Regarding James White.1EGWLM 382.2

Previously unpublished.1EGWLM 382.3

James White's depression, summer 1853.1EGWLM 382.4

I saw that James [James Springer White] has been sinking since he returned home. He looked on the dark side too much, looked at appearances too much, and did not trust so fully in God as he should.¹

The setting of this manuscript fragment is the weeks following the Whites’ return from their first journey to Michigan on June 21, 1853. James White's “sinking” feelings and tendency to look on “the dark side” led him to write some uncharacteristically self-pitying lines to “Brother Abraham” on July 31: “This moment most of my whole frame is in pain—worn out—while others go in ease, free from care. … I sometimes fear I shall murmur and be lost. Oh, that God would work, I will be reconciled. … If I die, don't weep for me but for those whose course has worn me out.”

See: James White to Abram Dodge, July 31, 1853.

I saw that God's ways are not as our ways, that He works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; that although James was worn from his journey, yet God had upheld him on the journey, and he was better when he returned than when he went to Michigan,2

For a poignant account by Ellen White of James's precarious state of health at the start of their trip to Michigan, see Spiritual Gifts [vol. 2], pp. 179, 180.

and had he remained at home his health would have sunk beneath sickness, and now at the present time he would have been more feeble than he now is. I saw that he must have faith and look up. I saw that the Lord had raised him up help so that he could have a change of mental labor, and talk the truth.3

By the summer of 1853 the Review publishing house employed a staff of 15. The most recent recruit had been Uriah Smith, who had joined the staff some weeks earlier on May 3, 1853, and who would rise to the position of resident editor before the end of 1855. His sister, Annie R. Smith, had joined the staff already in 1851. “She is just the help we need,” wrote Ellen White. “She takes right hold with James and helps him much. We can leave her now to get off the papers and can go out more among the flock.”

See: Eugene F. Durand, Yours in the Blessed Hope, Uriah Smith, p. 24; J. N. Loughborough, The Great Second Advent Movement, p. 320; Ellen G. White, Lt 8, 1851 (Nov. 12).

I saw that trials caused by some affected James's courage and health, and he had looked at it as though the Lord had dealt hard with him, when He was dealing in mercy and compassion.1EGWLM 382.5