The Divine Call to Print

The printing of Seventh-day Adventist literature began in the midst of the severest poverty. There were not many members, and few of them had means. James White was in a most precarious state of health. But this experience, gained in sickness and economic distress, turned out to be most helpful, not only then, but for later years. When our publishing work began in the various lands overseas, the obstacles appeared insurmountable. Canvassers could not meet their expenses, and therefore were hard to obtain. In 1885 the Lord’s messenger visited Europe. In September of that year a special mission council convened in Basel, Switzerland, with representatives from every country in which work had begun. They gave special attention to our publishing situation, but they were a disheartened group of leaders. Mrs. White tried to cheer them on, claiming that God had told her that the literature mission would succeed in Europe. The best report was given by J. G. Matteson from Northern Europe, but even he doubted that colporteurs would really succeed and be self supporting. Then one day the servant of the Lord took the morning worship hour to recount the early experiences of poverty and opposition, years before in America. She said in part:FSG 343.4

“We know best how this cause started. We have studied in every way, ways and means in order that we might have something to take us from place to place in the cause of truth. To reach the very first conference that we ever had in the State of Connecticut, my husband worked at cutting cordwood at twenty-five cents a cord. He was not used to work and the rheumatism came in his wrists so that night after night he was unable to sleep because of the pain. Our prayers ascended night after night that God would relieve him from pain....FSG 344.1

“I have fainted on the floor with a sick child in my arms more than twice for the want of food to eat. Then the word came, ‘Cannot you come and hold a meeting with us in Connecticut?’ When my husband settled with his employer he had ten dollars, and with that we made our way to that Conference.FSG 344.2

“It was there that the work began to branch out, and there it was that he began to do his first publishing. He was a lame man, caused by cutting the ankle bone in his youth, but he walked nine miles to the printing office to carry his paper. At another time he took his scythe and went into the field to mow grass in order to get means to take us to the conference in New York. And so the truth of God began to spread in New York, and this is a little sample of the way in which we first introduced the truth into different places.FSG 344.3

“For months my husband worked, handling stone until the skin was worn off his fingers and the blood dripped from the ends of his fingers. This was in the very places where he had spoken in the desk before thousands. Even then he did not obtain the money for his hard work. Do you know the remembrance of this is the very best part of my experience? He went through the streets of Brunswick, Maine, with a bag upon his shoulders containing a little rice and meal and beans to keep us from starving. When he came into the house singing, I said, ‘Have we come to this, husband? Has the Lord forsaken us and our work?’FSG 345.1

“He lifted up his hand and said, ‘Hush, hush, the Lord has not forsaken us.’FSG 345.2

“I was so faint that as he said this I fell from my chair onto the floor. The next day we received a letter entreating us to go to another place to hold a conference, but, said he, ‘I have not a penny. What shall I do?’ He went to the post-office and came back with a letter containing five dollars. We felt very grateful for that. We called the family together and bowed down before the Lord and gave thanks. That night we took our passage for Boston. This is the way that we commenced this work.”—MS. 14, 1885.FSG 345.3

In reporting this effort to revive and build the colporteur work in old Europe with all her state churches and inflexible prejudices, D. T. Bordeau wrote in the Review of November 10, 1885, that the servant of God told those assembled that “God will soon do great things for us if we lie humble and believing at His feet.... More than one thousand will soon be converted in one day, most of whom will trace their first convictions to the reading of our publications.” Many have spoken of this statement as a prediction of large future revivals. That may be true, yet we incline to the thought that it has already been fulfilled to a greater extent than we may realize.FSG 345.4

She also told them how she and her husband sought God for wisdom, and how she was given a vision at Dorchester, Massachusetts, in November, 1848, concerning the sealing message and the duty of the people of God to publish the light. As she came out of vision she said to her husband:FSG 345.5

“I have a message for you. You must begin to print a little paper and send it out to the people. Let it be small at first; but as the people read, they will send you means with which to print, and it will be a success from the first. From this small beginning it was shown to me to be like streams of light that went clear round the world!”—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 125.FSG 346.1

The words “streams of light that went clear round the world” are indeed significant, and when we today think of our literature mission, that prediction has had a most remarkable fulfillment.FSG 346.2

To us now with our large and prosperous publishing work all that seems easy. But to James White and others the task appeared impossible. They still waited and weighed the matter nearly a year before they ventured out. In Europe, too, in 1885, the future of our literature endeavor looked dark and hard. However, the leaders believed the messages sent them from the Lord and decided with much prayer to try again. And from that meeting in Basel our publishing mission has prospered beyond our fondest expectation in all lands across the sea.FSG 346.3

A call to print creates a need to write. When Mrs. White told her husband, both of them young, that the Lord wanted him to begin printing, her message included the inference that someone must write. The reception of Seventh-day Adventist writings was like that of a child not wanted. It was born in most trying poverty and with no neighbors among other Adventists to bid it welcome. Indeed, there were bitter and determined opposition and ridicule. The first piece of Seventh day Adventist literature was written by Ellen G. Harmon (the maiden name of Mrs. White), and dated Portland, April 6, 1846. It was printed on the whole side of one sheet of paper, and was addressed “To the Little Remnant Scattered Abroad.”FSG 346.4

The next literature for Seventh-day Adventists was written and published by Joseph Bates, so well known in the early days of our history. It was a vision by Mrs. White, in which she spoke of some of the stars, that led him to print this pamphlet, dated May 8, 1846, and called The Opening Heavens or a Connected View of the Testimony of the Prophets and Apostles.FSG 347.1

Captain Bates wrote two other booklets: The Seventh Day Sabbath a Perpetual Sign, dated August, 1846, and another, Second Advent Way marks and High Heaps, in April 1847. All three were printed at New Bedford, Massachusetts. The first two had forty pages, and the third eighty pages, in small pocket size. That same month he also printed a large one-sheet publication which contained “A Vision,” and a statement from himself concerning his faith in the messages of the Lord. Captain Bates’ publishing activities were only introductory, and soon ceased, though his writings were most helpful. The real impulse and plan to publish Adventist literature came from the Spirit of prophecy messages through the Lord’s servant. Mrs. White and her husband were for thirty years the guiding spirits in our publishing activities.FSG 347.2

In May, 1847, the best known of our early publications, called A Word to the Little Flock, was printed. It was a collection from different writers selected by Elder White. In 1849 and the beginning of 1850, eleven numbers of a paper called Present Truth were printed, followed in August by another paper Advent Review and a pamphlet by the same name. One must go back and read those early pamphlets and papers to learn how carefully they were thought through, and especially how their contents bore the marks of the prophetic gift. Indeed, they were only gotten out as God directed. The first number of our church organ, the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, is dated Paris, Maine, November, 1850.FSG 347.3