Ellen White Reports from the California Camp Meeting
By James White
We are safe in California, and are happily disappointed in the country, and what we have seen of the strength of the cause in the State. With the exception of colds taken on the journey, we are enjoying an improved condition of health. Colorado was the best place on the globe for us during the excessively hot weather east, and here in California. During the months of July and August we were enjoying in that Territory a cool atmosphere, such as Michigan gives from the middle of September to the middle of October, with this difference, the atmosphere in Colorado is much more pure and invigorating. We have come to California at the right time, and we feel very much at home. We are now writing in a tent upon the California camp-ground, near Windsor, Sonoma Co., fifth-day, Oct. 3, at the close of the afternoon service. The location is good, and the weather is fine. It is as warm as August in Michigan, very much warmer than at any point since we crossed the plains the first of July. Notwithstanding the brief notice of this meeting, there are, at this early stage of the meeting, thirty-three tents upon the ground, besides the large congregation tent, and the provision stand. Three tents are marked, San Francisco; two, Green Valley; one, Sebastopol; four, Bloomfield; one, Mendocino County; three, Windsor; six, Healdsburg; nine, Santa Rosa; two, Petaluma; two, Woodland. We are very happy to meet on this ground Bro. Diggins of San Francisco, who has been an intelligent believer in the first and second angels’ messages, and now rejoices in the clear light of the third angel’s message. His father’s sister was wife of Governor Butler of Vermont, mother of Bro. E. P. Butler, and grandmother of Elder George I. Butler, President of our General Conference. We spoke in the morning upon the subject of the waiting, watching time, in answer to the question, Where are we? We think we have light upon the watches, important at this time. Positions taken were these:— 1. The exhortations to watch, recorded in Matt. 24 and 25, Mark 13, and in Luke 12 and 21, are all given in connection with the signs of the second advent, and apply to a certain period just prior to that event. 2. The symbols and prophetic measurements of Daniel and John, in connection with the signs of the times, were designed to constitute the basis of the first angel’s message, which brought the believers to the close of the prophetic periods in the autumn of 1844. 3. Since the disappointment in 1844 has been the waiting, watching time. In the direct providence of God, believers are to wait for the coming of the Lord, and in an especial sense, watch and pray, without definite time. To this period the words of our text forcibly apply. “Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is.” Mark 13:33. In the providence of God, time was the strength of the great movement of 1843 and 1844. And in the direct providence of God, the believers are brought into the watching time, to wait for the second advent without definite time. With this view of the subject, we can see a period, just prior to the advent, to which all such expressions as our text naturally and forcibly apply. 4. The figure employed to enforce the duty of watching in a special sense just before the second advent is the night, divided into four parts called watches, whether it be on shipboard, in the city, in the army, or for the safety of individual rich householders. 5. The night in the figure is a time of darkness, and represents the period of moral and spiritual darkness since the disappointment in 1844. We would say to those who are disposed to apply the first watch to 1843, and the second to 1844, that those were periods of great light. Clearer, brighter, and more hopeful daylight, believers never saw. When running to a point of definite time, in faith and hope, rejoicing in the clear light of that time, we hardly know what to do with these words, “Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is.” But since the time passed, and spiritual darkness, like the pall of death, has spread its shadows everywhere, and the waiting ones are brought into a position which demands especial watchfulness, we see the natural and forcible application of the text, and other parallel expressions. 6. In the figure, the literal night is a period when danger may come at any time, and the watchmen watch all night in uncertainty as to the hour of danger. So believers are to wait and watch without the definiteness which time gives, until this time of moral darkness shall close by the coming of the Son of man. 7. There is no such thing as a first, second, third, or fourth watch in this waiting time. Those divisions were in the figure; but there is nothing to mark such divisions in the waiting time. The watchman in the figure knew not when danger might come, in the first, second, third, or fourth watch of the night, so was required to watch all night. This fact simply illustrates the duty to watch ever, to keep awake, looking and waiting in a state of readiness to meet the Lord, until he shall come. It is absurd to talk of the Lord’s coming in the first, second, or third watch, as though there might be one, or two watches after his coming. The watching period will reach to the coming of the Lord, and there it will end. Mrs. White spoke in the afternoon, and Elder Cornell spoke in the evening. More next week.