Denominational School by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 6, 1872

Denominational School.

By James White

We have long felt the want of a denominational school, for the especial benefit of those who feel it to be their duty to dedicate their lives to the cause of God as teachers of his word. One of the principal objects of such a school would be a thorough course of instruction in the fundamental principles of the faith and hope of Seventh-day Adventists. And nothing but the condition of the church at Battle Creek prevented the institution of such a school more than two years since.

In the autumn of 1869, we introduced the subject to our people at Battle Creek, and an Educational Society was formed. A circular was issued for pledges of funds to the Association. Many pledges were made, and some money was paid in. In our absence, on an eastern tour, this money was unwarrantably and injudiciously expended, and on our return, a state of things existed in the church that overwhelmed us in perplexity and discouragement, and nothing more was done.

Still feeling that our young men who are entering the ministry should have a brief course of instruction, especially in the truths of God's word, we introduced to the General Conference the subject of the Ministers' Lecture Association. This was formed, and two brief courses of lectures were given; one just following the session of the General Conference in 1870; the other following the Conference of 1871. But these could be but very brief, be beneficial to only a few, and came at a time when those on whom the Association depended to give lectures were wearied with the labors of the business of the annual sessions of our several societies. And the Ministers' Lecture Association also went down.

And still later, after the days of fasting and of prayer to the Lord of the harvest to raise up laborers, and the many responses from men in all parts of the field who felt moved to the work of the ministry, we felt the want of a denominational school more than before. We spoke upon the subject once before the church at Battle Creek, and conversed with several, Bro. Butler among the number. The subject took favorably with all. We have not hitherto been able to write. Others have spoken through the Review. We feel deeply upon the subject, and shall speak freely and in the fear of God.

The action of our brethren in Switzerland in sending a young man of their number to Battle Creek, to be educated in our language, and in the doctrines and customs of Seventh-day Adventists

of America, shows their confidence in the work, their sincerity, and the sacrifices they are ready to make for the advancement of the cause. This action on their part, and on the part of the young brother who has taken the long journey to our country for the above-named objects, should stir the heart of our people to the very depths.

Our people at Battle Creek should feel that they assumed a grave and weighty responsibility in consenting to become the instructors and guardians of the noble and Godly youthful Swiss now in their midst. Do they feel it? Do the young members of the Battle Creek church realize their responsibility? Our trusting brethren in Switzerland build their hopes for the spread of the truth for this time before the masses who speak the German and French languages in Europe upon the young men whom they drop into the arms of the Battle Creek church as confidingly as the babe rests in its mother's lap. Shall they be disappointed in their American brethren?

It is not merely a knowledge of our language, and of our religious belief, that these men need. The most important qualification attainable for the ministry of the word when they return to their native land will be a deep-wrought experience in the things of the Spirit of God. This will depend very much upon their associations and influences around them. If they are all favorable, the experience will be correctly molded. If they are unfavorable, who can estimate the loss to the cause of truth in Europe? We repeat it. Our people assumed grave responsibilities when they consented to become the instructors and guardians of young men from Europe on whom our confiding people there build their hopes of spreading abroad the truth of God.

When they sent our much-beloved brother James Ertzenberger to our country, we dare not risk him at Battle Creek. We took him to our Greenville home, furnished an interpreter for awhile, and a teacher, free of charge. He made our home his home at least nine months for the blessed privilege of having this godly youth in our family. We can never forget his fervent French, then German, and finally English prayers, which he offered morning and evening for our household, for himself, for the brethren in America, and emphatically for his dear brethren he had left in Europe. As we pen the words, God bless Bro. Ertzenberger, tears come rushing in and blind our sight.

Probably our pen would not have taken this direction had we not read these words in Review for July 16, under the caption, “The School,” “A rare chance is now offered, especially to the young, to secure just that kind of mental and moral training that will fit them for usefulness.” The writer urges attendance at the school. Now we suggest that he commences at the wrong end of the work. For several years, when our opinion and that of Mrs. W. has been asked by brethren and sisters relative to sending their children to Battle Creek to school, we have uniformly told them, that until a stronger influence could be exerted in that church in favor of health and dress reform, and to keep the youth separated from the spirit of the world, and to lead them to lives of consecration, their children would not be safe in Battle Creek. And this will be our testimony until decided changes take place.

In order to build up just such a school as Seventh-day Adventists need, the place to commence is to establish a right state of things at Battle Creek. And this never can be done, until the several State Conferences send representative men and families to Battle Creek, to whom shall be intrusted the welfare of our institutions located in that city. When this shall be done, and the benefits and blessings of a good school shall be made known, and suitable buildings and provisions be made, we warrant two hundred students within three months from the opening of the school.

Our brethren and sisters everywhere, who are able to do so, are feeling that they must educate their children. And their hearts are pained beyond expression to send them to those schools in cities and large villages where they will be surrounded with the strongest influences to lead them to perdition. But let them know, and let them feel assured, that at Battle Creek is the best school in our country, and that the influences surrounding are safe, the school being under the vigilant watchcare of men and women who have the salvation of the youth and the prosperity of the cause in full view, and the question is settled with them. With feelings of inexpressible relief they will decide to patronize the denominational school at Battle Creek.

The existing school at Battle Creek is doubtless right. And it may be proper for young men, just entering the ministry, to attend the autumn term. But we do not believe that the church at Battle Creek is composed of such material, or that it is in a condition at the present time, to warrant the establishment of such a denominational school as the cause now demands. The guardians of such a school, as well as our other institutions at Battle Creek, should be men and women of experience, firmness, and zeal, to live up to all the light that God has given us as a people. We here confess that we have not the confidence in the qualifications of the Battle Creek church, as the proper guardians of such a school, that we had in 1869. Not that the church is in worse condition now than then; but we have learned, by unhappy experience, their almost utter destitution of the necessary qualifications to guard the fort, and properly nourish our institutions.

There was a time when the removal of our institutions from Battle Creek, because of the inefficiency and instability of the church at Battle Creek, as a body, was a matter of discussion in our General Conference. But the friends of the cause consoled themselves with the adoption of the plan to let our institutions remain, and exchange many of the families of Seventh-day Adventists, then residing at Battle Creek, for others from the different States, of the right sort. The adoption of this plan, and the efforts to some extent to carry it out, have resulted in turning back the current of floating Seventh-day Adventists (of course, the most unreliable), and have reduced the numbers very much, while but very little has yet been done to bring reliable families to head-quarters.

We have a hundred times regretted that our institutions were not moved from Battle Creek three years since, before the expenditure of $25,000 dollars more in buildings at the Health Institute and the Publishing Association. The longer they remain, the more capital must be invested, and the more difficult the removal. Since that time we have completely broken down under the burdens there, the heft of which came upon us from the fact that the majority of the church seem almost destitute of moral back-bone. And we are fully persuaded that one thing, and only one thing, can save the cause from reproach and embarrassment. We do not speak of the cause in Battle Creek alone, but the cause everywhere; for when the cause at the heart of the work suffers, the whole body likewise suffers. Bring twenty families to head-quarters, as representatives from the several States, families of the right stamp, and the cause is saved. And until this can be done, we shall oppose the establishment of a denominational school at Battle Creek. The families wanted should be.

1. Those of piety, experience, and firm to stand for the principles and customs adopted by our people from the clearest light. Truth, like its divine Author, cannot be trifled with, without bringing down upon its unworthy professors the frown of God. We are a thoroughly organized people, and a unit. And as such it seems necessary, at present at least, to have one great center. Seventh-day Adventists of America should probably have but one place of publication. The work is gloriously started at Battle Creek, and it would be a terrible blow upon us to be obliged to move it. The same may be true of our Health Institute. And Battle Creek is the best locality for our first school. Then for Christ's sake, and the cause of truth's sake, let us have the right men to keep the fort.

2. They should be families of moral worth and standing in the communities where they now reside. And having made life a success, they have a double or triple competency, and can afford to spend much of their time in their riper years as counselors and directors in the interests of our institutions without pay.

The argument of Horace Greeley a few years since on the question of retrenching the salaries of congressmen was on this wise: That men were not fit to represent the people in Congress who had not sufficient breadth of intellect and energy of character to acquire a competency before being elected to the responsible office. And, therefore, the right men did not need large salaries. Greeley was right. Let his argument apply to the question in hand. Let us have men at Battle Creek of ripe years, whose past has been characterized with industry, economy, sound judgment, and success, who can give a portion at least of their time during the balance of their business life to the cause of God, out of respect of the recompense of the reward at the resurrection of the just.

The interests we represent at Battle Creek do not stand in need of families who have so little moral standing, so few friends, or so little of this world's goods, that they can pack up between sunset and dark, and start the next morning and nobody around them know it, or care for it. God pity us; we have had too many such to be perplexed with, and to care for, during the years of our sojourn at Battle Creek. We appeal to the records in Heaven, and to the worthy poor, to widows and orphans around us the past twenty-five years, if we have not always given them sympathy, and, according to our ability, shared with them the more substantial good. But we must be allowed to more than suggest that there is room for them to live, and to love, and serve God, under the broad canopy, outside of Battle Creek. Let us have men and women of God at head-quarters who can afford to take time to lift at the great wheel of progress in the cause of truth and right, and who can give a strong lift, and a long lift, and a lift all together. Amen!

We do not deny that we are warming up on this subject. And why should we not feel over one of such vast importance? Although we now sit in the open door of a Denver, Colorado dwelling, in full view of the famous mountains of the “Switzerland of America,” on whose sides are a thousand visible stripes and rings of snow, thirteen hundred miles from the place which is the principal subject of this article, we look back to its institutions, and associations, with which have been connected our toils, and hopes, and prayers, and sorrows, and tears, and joys, with feelings which may be expressed by these words of David, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem to my chief joy.” Ps. 137 : 5, 6.

On reviewing the matter we find it impossible to separate our feelings of interest from our institutions located at Battle Creek. We remember when they were not. We distinctly recollect our feeling on that happy morning when we took the first number of our paper to the post-office at old Middletown, Conn., in a carpet bag. We trace along our history of poverty, toil, discouragements, hopes, sorrows and joys, as the publishing work has come up to its present prosperity, and we find our feelings inseparably connected with it. It is a part of our very being. God has wonderfully prospered this part of the work. In point of means, at present the condition of the Publishing Association cannot be improved. The publishing work has increased the past two years to that degree that the two buildings are more crowded in 1872 than the one was in 1870. The next want of the Association will be another building, which will be the main one in which the work of printing, binding, and mailing, will be done, leaving the existing ones for offices and store houses. Such a building will cost at least $30,000. And, thank God, when we get ready to put it up, our people will have their free-will offerings ready.

And, thank God, that our Health Institute is free from debt, and in a most prosperous condition. We now need a good denominational school. Let matters be as they should be at Battle Creek, and we will warrant $50,000 for school building, and two hundred students.

We close this article without a single apology for our plainness of speech. If some, or even many, choose to entertain a different opinion, and give rise to, and succor, a feeling of murmuring at our plain statement of the facts in the case, it will be no more than we have met at every struggle to introduce each enterprise for the advancement of the cause. While we propose to stand from under the crushing loads of labor and care which others in times past have let fall upon us, we design to keep a good look-out, and fearlessly and seasonably sound the note of warning to our people, should we see them being blindly led into danger. Let us have a Denominational School, brethren! But we should also let the short-sighted recklessness of inexperienced leaders at Battle Creek, during the years 1866–1868, admonish us to lay a good foundation, and humbly follow the providence of God.

JAMES WHITE.

Denver, Col., July 24, 1872.