A Personal Testimony
In concluding this book, that indeed has been a journey the author and the reader have taken together, I would like to share my personal testimony. For almost forty years, it has been my privilege to serve the church as a pastor, evangelist, and administrator. During all those years, the Word has been my working “tool” and source of inspiration. The testimonies have also been invaluable in their function of explaining, confirming, and leading toward the Word.VOTS 117.1
During the last ten years I have had an additional privilege: serving the church in a ministry directly related to the publications of Ellen G. White. Every day I have the opportunity of reviewing original manuscripts, reading through the pages of her early books, and going back in imagination to the early years of the Advent movement and watching its development and growth.VOTS 117.2
In my daily work, I have not found any so-called “secrets” under lock and key in the White Estate vaults, nor have I seen any undiscovered, unrevealed “prophecies.” I have not found any attempt to hide data or to deny facts. Just the opposite. I have seen a group of ministers and their associates willing to respond to all questions, to investigate, and to share the results if they don’t know the answers.VOTS 117.3
This privilege has reaffirmed my faith and confirmed my assurance that God has directed this Adventist movement through the gift of prophecy. In reviewing the way in which God led our pioneers to the knowledge of biblical truths, in analyzing the way in which the Lord resolved crises in the church in the past, and in examining the wonderful way He has guided the church’s growth and development, I can do no less than share Ellen White’s astonishment and admiration at the results:VOTS 117.4
In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what the Lord has wrought, I am filled with astonishment and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us and His teaching in our past history. VOTS 118.1
This volume of short, descriptive essays attempts to provide the essential historical background for understanding Ellen White’s writings. Although a general history of the United States during Mrs. White’s lifetime would have provided some of this information, we have chosen to explore selected elements of the past that were either of significance to this shaper of Adventism or place her concerns within the context of the larger society. Thus the writers respectively address such subjects as eating and drinking habits, travel conditions, and entertainment, among other things. One chapter looks at Australia during the period that Ellen White lived there.VOTS 118.2
It is hoped that the themes of her work will take on increased meaning as this social background is sketched in. For those who are interested, the authors have suggested readings in both Ellen White’s writings and standard historical accounts.VOTS 118.3
Finally, a word about what this volume is not. First, Ellen White is not the subject of this volume; hence, she appears only occasionally in these pages. Second, these essays do not address the critical interpretive questions regarding Ellen White’s relationship to her milieu. Instead, they have the more limited task of simply establishing the nature of the milieu itself.VOTS 118.4
Third, with some notable exceptions—the chapters on Portland, the Sunday law movement, Michigan during the Civil War, and, to a lesser extent, the overland railroad—the authors do not provide information new to the scholarly world. Rather, they attempt to synthesize present historical scholarship for a more general audience.VOTS 118.5
It is the belief of the writers of these essays that historical knowledge is essential to understanding the present. Thus, awareness of our denomination’s history is necessary to anyone seeking to understand its current situation. The church and Ellen White did not develop in a vacuum. In the next several pages you will discover what the world of early Seventh-day Adventism, particularly that of its prophet Ellen G. White, was like.VOTS 118.6
—From the PrefaceVOTS 118.7
ISBN 0-8280-0395-5VOTS 118.8