My husband went through the streets of Brunswick, [Maine], with a bag upon his shoulder in which were a few beans and a little meal and rice and flour to keep us from starvation. When he entered the house singing, “I am a pilgrim and I am a stranger,” I said, Has it come to this?PPP 63.2

Has God forgotten us? Are we reduced to this? He lifted his hand and said, “Hush, the Lord has not forsaken us. He gives us enough for our present wants. Jesus fared no better.” I was so worn that as he said this, I fainted from the chair. The next day a letter came asking us to go to another conference. We had no money. When my husband went to the post office for his mail, he found a letter containing five dollars. When he returned he gathered the family together and offered a prayer of thanksgiving. This is the way the work began.PPP 63.3

At one time light came that we should go to Portsmouth [New Hampshire]. But we had no money. We got all ready and were waiting when a man came riding very fast to our door. Jumping from his wagon, he said, There is somebody here that wants money. I have come fourteen miles at the highest speed my horse would go. Said my husband, We are all ready to start to attend an important meeting, but were waiting for money. We shall not have time to catch the [train] cars now unless you take us. He did so, and we had just time to reach the cars, step upon the platform without purchasing tickets when the car started. This was the way the Lord educated us to trust in Him. In this way the truth has entered many places. Our faith and trust in God have been tested and tried again and again. For years we labored constantly to carry forward the work under the pressure of feebleness and great poverty.—Manuscript 19, 1885 (Ellen G. White manuscript written in Basel, Switzerland, September 21, 1885).PPP 63.4

Traveling despite povertyPPP 64.1

While at Topsham [Maine] we received a letter from Brother E. L. H. Chamberlain, of Middletown, Conn., urging us to attend a conference in the State in April, 1848. We decided to go if we could obtain means. My husband settled with his employer, and found that there was ten dollars due him. With five of this I purchased articles of clothing that we very much needed, and then patched my husband’s overcoat, even piecing the patches, making it difficult to tell the original cloth in the sleeves. We had five dollars left to take us to Dorchester, Mass.PPP 64.2

Our trunk contained nearly everything we possessed on earth; but we enjoyed peace of mind and a clear conscience, and this we prized above earthly comforts. In Dorchester we called at the house of Brother Otis Nichols, and as we left, Sister Nichols handed my husband five dollars, which paid our fare to Middletown, Conn. We were strangers in Middletown, having never seen one of the brethren in Connecticut. Of our money there was but fifty cents left. My husband did not dare to use that to hire a carriage, so he threw our trunk upon a high pile of boards in a near-by lumberyard, and we walked on in search of some one of like faith. We soon found Brother Chamberlain, who took us to his home.—Ellen G. White, Life Sketches, pp. 107, 108.PPP 64.3

All we have including clothes, bedding, and household furniture we have with us in a three-foot trunk, and that is but half full. We have nothing else to do but to serve God and go where God opens the way for us.—James White, letter to Brother and Sister Hastings, April 1848, written from Middletown, Connecticut.PPP 65.1

Mowing HayPPP 65.2

It is rainy today so that I do not mow or I should not write. I mow five days for unbelievers and Sunday for believers and rest on the Seventh day, therefore I have but very little time to write. My health is good, God gives me strength to labor hard all day. I have mowed eight days right off and felt hardly a pain. Brother Holt, Brother John Belden and I have taken 100 acres of grass to mow, at 87 cents per acre and board ourselves. Praise the Lord. I hope to get a few dollars here to use in the cause of God.—James White letter to “My Dear Brother” [Stockbridge Howland], July 2, 1848.PPP 65.3

In the summer of 1848, we received an invitation to hold a Conference with the few friends in Western New York. I was destitute of means, and with feeble health entered the hay-field to earn the sum necessary to bear our expenses to that meeting. I took a large job of mowing, and when fainting beneath the noonday sun, I would bow before God in my swath, call upon him for strength, rise refreshed, and mow on again. In five weeks I earned enough to bear our expenses to the conference. Bro. Bates joined us at this meeting. The notice had been given to all the Empire State who were in sympathy with our views, and there was [a] general rally; yet there were not more than forty present.—James White, Life Incidents, p. 274.PPP 65.4

12. The Indefatigable “Captain Bates”

14. Commitment of Early Pioneers