A Critic Comments

Yes, in 1849 she said that “the nations are now getting angry.” No, said statesmen on every side, the nations are discovering ways of increasingly living together in harmony. No, said all the churchmen and other wise men, not war, but peace lies ahead, increasing peace, until ultimately righteousness will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Often were Mrs. White’s words held up to ridicule, for Adventists were frequently the objects of ridicule in the nineteenth century. In 1887 lived D. M. Canright, whose critical writings are the source for most subsequent critics of Mrs. White. After quoting her statement that the nations are now getting angry, Canright added immediately., with great contempt: “That was 38 years ago. It takes a long time for them to get fighting mad! Pshaw!“—Michigan Christian Advocate, Oct. 15, 1887.WBEGW 96.1

What this critic forgot, of course, was that the validity of a prophet’s words cannot always be measured in terms of thirty-eight years. Indeed, if a prophet did not speak of impending wars by angry nations until the event was almost upon us, then the opposite criticism would be heard, namely, that the prophet could already see developing what he was predicting. In other words, it is never possible to please the critic. What this particular critic did not seem to know was that in the nineteenth century there was growing in Europe something new in its history—large standing armies. Just under the surface were developing forces that within the lifetime of some of those who had heard Mrs. White’s words would break forth in terrible conflict.WBEGW 96.2

Let us turn now to the year 1900 and listen to her describe impending events. There she declares, not that the nations are “now getting angry” but that “the nations are angry.” A few lines further on she adds: “While already nation is rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, there is not now a general engagement. As yet the four winds are held.”—Testimonies for the Church 6:14. How true were her words, as we look back on those years! There was some rising of nation against nation. The Russo-Japanese war was to break forth shortly, and then the Balkan wars, but they could not be described as “a general engagement.” Indeed, the world at large, which was by now hopelessly committed to the idea of increasing progress and peace, refused to see in this or that military encounter anything more than the last death throes of an old order. They had no time whatever for what they declared was the farfetched idea that worldwide conflict, devastating and terrible, impended.WBEGW 97.1

It was in 1911 that President Taft wrote an article under the title, “The Dawn of World Peace.” And in 1913 Dr. David Starr Jordan, one of the leading figures at that time not only in the educational world but in the World Peace Movement, declared: “What shall we say of the great war of Europe, ever threatening, ever impending, and which never comes? We shall say that it will never come. Humanly speaking it is impossible.” If the reader can stand a little more of such foolish forecasts, we would add this. In December, 1913, President Wilson said in his message to Congress: “Many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and sense of community of interests among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good will.” Eight months later, when war was declared, Woodrow Wilson could only exclaim, “Incredible!“—Quoted by Kirby Page in The Christian Century, March 31, 1937.WBEGW 97.2

Now we would ask this simple question: What if Mrs. White had been swayed in her thinking by the dominant views of those around her, as some mistakenly have charged? She would have said in 1849 and on through the years till 1914, that the nations were becoming ever more peaceful, so that soon wars would vanish. But then, how would Adventists today be able to make even a shadow of a claim that her declarations, and particularly her predictions, were directed of God? What made her the object of high ridicule in the nineteenth century now proves to be one of the best reasons for our believing that God did illumine her mind as He illumined the minds of holy men of old who possessed the gift of the Spirit of prophecy.WBEGW 98.1