Counsel for James White—a Symbolic Presentation

The Advent cause in its infancy called for positive direction and surely would have faltered without it and James White was a forceful leader. But as the years passed he was inclined to overemphasize, in his own mind, the importance of his position in relation to the work. The several strokes he suffered and the failure of his associates to be as intense as he in their approach to the work, aggravated the situation. James White became sensitive and touchy, and Ellen tactfully and calmly tried to encourage him to be low-key and take a more rational approach to problems. The Lord, too, had something to say about it. The entry penned in her diary on Thursday, January 6, is enlightening:3BIO 16.5

Last night I dreamed of being in a schoolhouse. My husband was teaching. He was standing by one of his pupils who was writing. The teacher would direct, “Put your pen there. Make a heavier stroke here and a finer stroke there.” “There you are, commencing wrong again!” Then, “Put your pen there.”3BIO 17.1

The copy proved to be a miserable affair. The teacher took up the book and after looking at the copy threw it down impatiently. “That copy is an entire failure, a botch work. I have taken particular pains to tell you just what to do and after all my care this is the work you have to show. If this is the best you can do you might as well leave school at once.” The young man [the student] was angry and with flushed face arose and left the room.3BIO 17.2

The young man that I had often seen in my dreams seemed to be by the side of the teacher. He said to the teacher, “You are to a very large degree responsible for that miserable copy; the best of writers would have failed under similar circumstances. If the boy had been left to himself and written without so much dictation, he could have produced a fair copy. He could not follow your directions without being confused and spoiling the copy. That poor boy has had too little encouragement and love, and too much censuring for mistakes that are common to all.3BIO 17.3

“You make mistakes. You are an erring man. As you wish others to judge you mercifully, do the same to the erring. Give sympathy, give love, and you will find this power will soften and subdue the most wayward and the greatest good will be realized upon your own heart and life. You will feel the subduing influence of the power of that love you exercise and cultivate toward others. You are a teacher. You should represent the great Teacher in your sympathy and tender, pitying love. As you love, you will be loved; as you pity, you will receive the same. ‘With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.’ Love is power. It will have a transforming influence, for it is divine.”—Manuscript 2, 1876.3BIO 17.4

Just how Ellen White may have conveyed the message of counsel and caution is not a matter of record. It was not easy to be the messenger of the Lord, as she wrote years later:3BIO 17.5

It has been hard for me to give the message that God has given me for those I love, and yet I have not dared to withhold it.... I would not do a work that is so uncongenial to me if I thought that God would excuse me from it.—Letter 59, 1895.3BIO 18.1