Brief Stay in Paris

When Ellen White arrived in Paris on Wednesday evening, October 13, she doubtless wondered what would be the attitude of the French who listened to the Adventist evangelists proclaiming the message now in that country. During the next two weeks she found the answer.EGWE 227.5

The White party was met by a young man named Garside, whom D. T. Bourdeau had led to Christ just a few months earlier in Geneva. Garside had worked briefly with Bourdeau as a colporteur in Nimes, and then moved on to Paris with his trunk of books and papers. He took the travelers to a nearby hotel where, six stories up, they found comfortable lodgings.EGWE 227.6

Ellen White was fascinated by the flashing lights of the carriages as they passed to and fro on the street far below her window. The next day she would see the great city from a better perspective. Upon returning to America she would describe in her book The Great Controversy certain events of the Reformation that took place there.EGWE 228.1

At five the following morning, she was up writing by candlelight. “I seemed to be transferred back to old times when candles were the only lights used except whale oil in our lamps,” she wrote.EGWE 228.2

As we reflect upon her messages we see that there was nothing narrow or provincial in her teaching. Before the “one world” idea became so widely discussed in our time, this clear-thinking spokeswoman for God was describing how this one message of truth was to develop one church unified throughout one world. She and the church leaders were agreed on that goal! That same year, 1886, while at Basel she wrote:EGWE 228.3

“Our prayer should ascend to the throne of grace with fervor for the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His vineyard. My heart aches as I look around upon the mission fields and see so feeble efforts to get the truth before the people. No censure can be attached to our leading men. I believe, brethren, you are one with me in heart, in sentiment, in regard to our great need, and in the earnest desire and earnest efforts to meet the mind of the Spirit of God in these things.”—Letter 55, 1886.EGWE 228.4

Whether in Europe or Australia, she poured forth a stream of letters and manuscripts addressed to many parts of the world, a total of nearly 2,500 during her eleven overseas years. And now she was in France. What fruitage would develop from her labors there?EGWE 228.5