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    Chapter One—She was at Camp Meeting

    When I was a little boy I heard a great deal about a lady who was very good and very kind and very wise. Her name, folks said, was Sister White.SWhite 7.1

    Of course we called every lady “sister” who belonged to the church, whether she was older than my big sister, or younger. There was Sister Dickson, who made the most delicious bread, with butter and honey on it for hungry, small boys. There was Sister Bristol, who had three lovely daughters, one of whom was Sister Effie, who taught my Sabbath school class. And there was Sister Moulton, my mother’s best friend, who was also Sister Lottie, and who lived so far away—all of twenty miles—that it was a holiday to visit her and Brother Moulton and their several children, maybe once a year. For in those days we had no cars, and we either went on foot or on horseback or in a buggy or, for long journeys, on the train. It was wonderful to think of so many brothers and sisters scattered around the world.SWhite 7.2

    But Sister White was someone special, oh, very special. She preached, they said, and the sermons she preached were more moving than any other person’s sermons. And she wrote books. Some of her books told the stories of old times—Bible times and martyr times and missionary times. And one of them told of her own times—about when she was a little girl and when she was a maiden messenger and when she was a young mother, and how she and her husband, James White, and Brother Bates, and Sister Annie Smith and her brother Uriah, and Brother Andrews, and Brother Loughborough all went out to tell the glad tidings of Jesus’ coming and the blessed Sabbath. She gathered together stories for children too, and made four little books of them, called Sabbath Readings, which mother read to us on Sabbath, or we read ourselves. They were very good stories, almost as good as Bible stories, and I remember some of them yet.SWhite 7.3

    My mother told me that Sister White knew all about boys and girls, and all about their fathers and mothers too, and how they should train their children. She talked to parents, and she wrote to them, about the teaching of their little ones and bringing them up in the ways of the Lord. She said they should be told Bible stories and be taught to read and love the Bible, and so my father and mother did. She said they should be taken for Sabbath walks and be taught to know the flowers, birds, animals, woods, and sky. Mostly our big sister did this for us, because she was strong and well, whereas father and mother could go with us only once in a while. Sister White said children should be taught to be useful and have chores and duties to do; and how our father and mother did put that instruction to work with us three boys! Garden, chickens, cow, horse—each took its turn at training us. And then there was the woodpile and washday and berry-picking—you’d be surprised how useful we could be! But there was time too for swimming in Bibbins Lake, as well as boating, sledding, skating, and playing games. We were pretty busy boys!SWhite 8.1

    Mother said Sister White loved boys and girls. By this time I thought Sister White was very important; but I didn’t want her to be so important that she’d look right over our heads. So she loved boys—h’mmm!SWhite 10.1

    “Do you think she’d love me?” I asked mother.SWhite 10.2

    “Of course she would, Artie, if she knew you.”SWhite 10.3

    “Well, I want to see her.”SWhite 10.4

    “Of course she’s very busy,” my mother replied. “But I’ll tell you what. I hear she’s going to be at our camp meeting this year; and father and I will see if we can’t take all you children to camp meeting. I’m sure you can see her then, even if you can’t get very near to her. Maybe you can’t come to know her as you know me, but anyway she might smile at you.”SWhite 10.5

    So to camp meeting we went. Father hitched up Charley, our horse, to the wagon, and packed in bedding, clothing, a little stove, and a few handy things; and mother and sister worked for a week, baking, canning, and cooking—why, you would have thought we were going on a trip to Europe. But three hungry boys and three fairly hungry big folks can do away with a great deal of food at a week’s camp meeting.SWhite 10.6

    In those days we didn’t have everything right up to the mark at camp meeting, as we have now. There was Sabbath school, all right, on Sabbath, with classes for boys and girls as well as older people. But there were no children’s meetings on the weekdays, though sometimes a good sister would gather the children together and tell them stories. Children were supposed to go to meeting with their parents, and sit there dangling their feet and listening to the sermon. There was a good deal we could understand too, for some of the preachers, like Elders Van Horn, Loughborough, and Lane, told some interesting stories, and made the gospel very clear, even to the children.SWhite 10.7

    And then there were the great big prophetic charts hung up against the wall, with pictures on them of curious beasts and of Nebuchadnezzar’s image of a man with head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet part of iron and part of clay. I began to learn history right then, about Babylon and Medo-Persia and Grecia and Rome and the ten kingdoms.SWhite 11.1

    But the main attraction to me, and I guess to most others, was Sister White. At the first meeting, or maybe the second, I saw her up there on the platform, talking to us down below. She seemed to be a nice old lady. She was only seventeen years older than my mother, but oo-oo-oh, that seemed almost like Methuselah! But now that I am seventeen years older than she was then, I’d say she was a fairly young woman. I could understand her very well; for she had a clear, thrilling voice, strong enough to reach everybody in the tent and outside too. And what she said about home and the Bible and God’s handwriting in nature and keeping the Sabbath and doing our duty and loving everybody was plain Christianity. Well, I loved everybody—except that Henny Perkins; and who would love him?SWhite 12.1

    I got to thinking about Henny Perkins, with his snub nose, his freckles, his big mouth, and the way he said mean things and threw stones. I wanted to be good and love everybody, but I wished Henny Perkins would be good first, so I could love him. Just how would you go about loving a brat (we didn’t say “kid” in those days, any more than we’d say “Daddy” for father; we thought those words were disrespectful)—a boy with freckles and pig eyes and a mouth speaking great things? I thought maybe I’d ask Sister White about Henny Perkins. So next day I was standing around when she came along with a lady, going to the meeting. She passed real close to me, and I just stood and gazed at her. I couldn’t say a word. But she looked down at me—she wasn’t very tall, but I was littler. And she put out her hand and smoothed my cheek.SWhite 12.2

    “What’s your name, little brother?” she asked.SWhite 13.1

    And I said, “Artie.”SWhite 13.2

    She didn’t ask me, “Artie who?” She said, “Do you love Jesus, Artie?”SWhite 13.3

    “Yes, oh, yes,” I said. And truly I did love Jesus.SWhite 13.4

    “And obey your father and mother?” she went on.SWhite 13.5

    “Yes’m,” I said.SWhite 13.6

    “And love your playmates?”SWhite 13.7

    “Uh, uh—yes’m,” I said. I couldn’t tell her about Henny Perkins. It would take too long. She didn’t have time; she was going to meeting. And then, I didn’t know just what to say about Henny. He wasn’t so bad, I guessed. And it’s a fact that after camp meeting Henny Perkins seemed to grow good. I didn’t have any more trouble with him—not much, anyway.SWhite 13.8

    So that was the first that I knew Sister White. She was in middle age then, and for thirty-five years she had labored with her husband, James White, in the work of the Lord. A great and good man was Brother White, who with Sister White and Joseph Bates started our church of Seventh-day Adventists, now more than a hundred years ago. But he died about this time; yet she bravely carried on, though sorrow struck her, for there was yet much to do in the vineyard of the Lord. She was to live and work on for another thirty-four years. In that time she traveled to the far ends of the earth and taught the people and wrote some of her greatest books.SWhite 13.9

    I suppose that on that dreadful day when, as a little girl, she was struck down by a stone that was thrown at her, and during those weeks that followed, when she lay unconscious, and in the next few years, when she was so sick and frail and weak, no one then, not even her mother or herself, could guess at the great work she was to do. Though she had to leave school, she was taught by the greatest of teachers, even Jesus. She studied hard, and she prayed much, and she forsook all things evil, and God made her very wise. She lifted up the brokenhearted, and spoke words of cheer to the downcast, and nursed the sick, and helped the poor, and God made her heart to be most kind. She wrote books that taught the ways of Jesus and the truths of healthful living and the means of training the children and the youth. She lived what she taught, and so God made her to be. like her Master, Jesus, very good.SWhite 14.1

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