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Times of Volume Two
vii
At the beginning of the period of time covered by volume 2 Elder
and Mrs. White were in partial retirement in Greenville, Michigan,
due to the condition of Elder White’s health. They soon resumed
their activity in traveling and holding meetings with the believers in
states adjacent to michigan. In November, 1868, they returned to
Battle Creek to make their home there
.
Two months earlier, in September of 1868, a camp meeting was
held in Wright, Michigan. This gathering, the first of its kind, proved
such a great blessing to those who attended that the following years
witnessed the establishment of camp meetings as a regular part of the
program for the state conferences. Elder and Mrs. White’s presence
was called for, and so it came that the summer months in succeeding
years were largely spent by them in these annual gatherings. In
the latter part of volume 2 may be found counsel regarding such
“convocations.”
During the three-year period covered by volume 2 there was en-
couraging advance in the cause of present truth. The Health Institute
at Battle Creek, having passed through a discouraging depression,
now emerged into a period of prosperity. In the latter part of 1868
Elders J. N. Loughborough and D. T. Bourdeau lighted the torch
of Seventh-day Adventism on the Pacific Coast. The same year
a company of fifty Sabbathkeeping Adventists in Europe entered
into correspondence with the General Conference brethren in Battle
Creek, and the next year sent a representative across the ocean to
plead for missionaries to be sent to them
.
But, with all these gains and advance moves, the adversary con-
tinued to work earnestly to lower the spirituality of church members,
to cause them to love the world and its attractions, to leaven the
church with the spirit of criticism, to dry up the springs of benevo-
lence, and especially to bring
[7]
the youth into his ranks. Against these dangerous trends Mrs.
White, as God’s messenger, was faithfully and earnestly delivering
her messages by voice and pen, calling the members of the church
to God’s standard of integrity and righteousness
.
On some occasions Mrs. White was given revelations pertaining
to the experience of a number of individuals in one church. Having
delivered these individual testimonies in meeting, she afterward