T
he Seventh-day Adventist movement began under divine guidance, with James White, Ellen White, and Joseph Bates as its primary leaders. James was the main leader and organizer of the emerging church during both its embryonic and growing stages. He stood side by side with his wife as a “faithful warrior” for 36 years “in the battle for truth.”1 This year marks the 200th anniversary of James’s birth. His story must be remembered. W. C. White described his father as a man who “prayed with earnestness and with solemn reverence.”2 James’s niece Lillian Belden remembered him often going away by himself and praying in “lonely attics or haylofts” when the “sun was dropping down . . . wringing his hands,”3 pleading with God until he received an answer. James considered prayer to be a sacred duty; however, it “was never designed to take the place of justice, benevolence, true repentance, and mercy.”4 To him, prayer and action went hand in hand.
Discovering the Spirit of Prophecy
James White A Man of Prayer and Action
EARLY DAYS
James was born on August 4, 1821, in Palmyra, Maine. Raised by active and devout Christian parents, he learned to be a man of prayer and action. He experienced true conversion when he was 13. Feeling “pressed with the weight” of his sins, he cried to Jesus for forgiveness and acceptance,5 and was later baptized into the Christian Connexion Church. James was unable to go to school during his childhood because of cross-eyed vision and a digestive disorder. When he was 16, his physical impairments resolved. He began a brief course of study and, three years later, achieved his academic dream of becoming a teacher. Unfortunately, he traded time with God for his studies and lost the taste for Bible study. During that time William Miller’s clear arguments and powerful exhortations convinced James to go back to the Bible. James’s hope of secular prosperity was replaced by spiritual convictions, and he began working enthusiastically for the Millerite cause.6 James was changed from a secular man to a spiritual leader. He identified as a Christian Connexion minister during his Millerite preaching in the fall of 1842. BEGINNING OF SABBATARIAN ADVENTISM
After the 1844 disappointment, James did not abandon his faith in the soon coming of Jesus, but immersed himself in Bible study. Along with other dedicated followers of the Bible, he helped to organize the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1863. As a man with “a burning zeal in activity, in harmony with an overmastering faith,”7 James dedicated his life to preaching the Adventist message. Image: Ellen G. White Estate
