Locating in Washington

The testimonies had instructed us to locate in or near Washington. As our brethren studied these words and as they looked over the places available, they decided after some time to place the office of the General Conference and the Review within the District of Columbia, that is, in Washington, and the institutions a little farther into the country outside the District. After careful investigation in every section of the city, they all agreed that they would choose Takoma Park, one of the best suburbs of the capital. In a booklet published by the city we are told that Takoma is an Indian name meaning “high up, near heaven.” Takoma is the highest point around Washington.FSG 389.1

When the Adventist headquarters were located in Takoma Park in 1903, it was only a small village, with houses scattered here and there on the hills and in the forests. “The streets were generally covered with black cinders with only a sidewalk here and there and kerosene lamps showing the way home at night.” Now it is a large, well-kept suburb, with thousands of prosperous people living in it. The first time we saw Carroll Avenue, it was a winding dirt road sliding down toward Sligo Creek. The hills on which our large sanitarium and college are now located and where we had our first Washington General Conference, in 1905, were described in a booklet as a “jungle with deep ravines.” When the men came in to the General Conference session that year, some of them felt very dubious about the wisdom of locating on such poor soil out in the country far from town.FSG 389.2

The people of Takoma Park have always been considerate and friendly toward the Adventists. They are proud of the fact that the Adventist Church has, as they claim, made Takoma Park known in all the earth. On this we quote from their city history:FSG 390.1

“Through the influence of this ‘beacon light for the entire denomination,’ as leaders in all lands look upon it, the name ‘Takoma Park’ is spoken as freely in cities, towns, and hamlets—be they in the heart of China, Africa, and South Pacific savage islands, or in warring Europe as it is in innumerable places in the United States because the members of the faith everywhere are having placed before them constant reminders that come from the center of all these activities. Without any desire to boast, the denomination has representatives in more remote places of the earth than do some of the governments of earth.”FSG 390.2

We read in the same history that the coming of the Adventist General Conference “proved to be of immense benefit to Takoma Park.”FSG 390.3

Adventists have never regretted that they chose Takoma Park, Washington, as the location for their headquarters. Their gratitude for the light on this given them by the Spirit of prophecy has indeed grown with the years. In the beginning, however, things did not look promising. Many inquiries came in from the churches all over America, and it was decided to have the next General Conference after the choice was made in 1905—in tents and on the tract of land bought for our sanitarium and school. When I came to attend that conference, in May, there was not a little criticism of the place. As a young, newly elected president of the Illinois Conference, I was expected on my return to give a report on the place. Feeling perplexed, I spoke to one of our sturdy old pioneers, rather an independent man in his thinking, who said, “Come along and I will show you something. I have located a big beech tree and have made it my ‘prayer tree.’ When others talk I come out here alone to pray an hour every day.”FSG 390.4

The tree, by the way, was standing just below the present nurses’ dormitory of our large sanitarium. He had carved his initials on the tree.FSG 391.1

“The delegates are grumbling,” he continued, “especially those from the central prairie States, with their rich soil. The place, they think, is too far out from Washington and will never be built up. Vegetables will not grow, so no one will settle here. The creek is too stony, and the soil is gravel.”FSG 391.2

“Yes,” I said, “they say it is a mistake of Mrs. White’s.”FSG 391.3

“Precisely,” he chuckled. “It is one of Mrs. White’s mistakes. We oldsters used to laugh at that from way back. She made a mistake when seventeen years ago she urged Adventists to begin religious liberty work. I heard them say it. She made another mistake when she took such a strong stand for righteousness by faith in 1888 at the Minneapolis Conference though that mistake gave us the biggest revival we have ever had. But at first even our dear old George I. Butler thought she was wrong—he changed his mind, though, for he was loyal and a strong believer in the Testimonies. She made a mistake when she began to warn against pantheism—but her mistake saved this advent movement. Many infidels have written books on the ‘mistakes of the prophets’ but Israel thrived on those ‘mistakes,’ and we have done the same on Mrs. White’s mistakes.”FSG 391.4

“My brother,” he continued, “I will not live long, but someday you will see this hill covered with a pretty lawn, a school, and a sanitarium, and I am not sure but that some Adventists will even dare to build houses out here to live in. But remember this word: Every mistake of Sister White’s, as they call it, has been a real blessing, because it wasn’t a mistake at all. God taught her what to say. Our people will see that more and more. We didn’t move to Washington to farm, so what difference does it make about the soil, anyway? The important thing is that we believe the messages God sends us. Down through the years our best leaders and members have done so, and they always found prosperity in following the light sent by the Lord.”FSG 391.5

Many, many times have I thought of the words of that devoted man of God with his unwavering faith. Today we see and know that as God led Israel by the pillar of cloud through the wilderness so Christ has guided His church by the prophetic gift until now, and will guide them by the same messages through to their final triumph. The move to Washington is but one instance of that divine guidance. The fact is that just as the decisions made by the Adventist Church in the United States during the Civil War earned us a clear-cut standing in our country, so the transfer to the nation’s capital in 1903 gave us a world-wide prestige as a church with a message and a mission task for all mankind.FSG 392.1