The Narrow Way Ministries Homepage
Forum Home Forum Home > The Family > Raising Children
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed: Letter to Edson White
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Calendar   Register Register  Login Login

Letter to Edson White
 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Message
  Share Topic Share Topic  Topic Search Topic Search  Topic Options Topic Options
thenarrowway View Drop Down
Admin Group
Admin Group
Avatar

Joined: 09 Jan 2008
Location: Kingsville, OH
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7905 		Post Options Post Options   Quote thenarrowway Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Letter to Edson White
    Posted: 31 Jul 2010 at 1:46pm
MR No. 1125 - Edson White and Health Reform

     (Written May 25, 1869, from Battle Creek, Michigan, to "Dear son Edson.")


     My writing will not be very good, for one eye is bandaged because of acute inflammation. But as Brother McDearman is going, I can send by him. I will say a few words.  {14MR 312.1}  
     We feel very anxious for you. We are desirous that you should form a good, Christian character, and be approved of God. We hope that new scenes will not interest and engross your mind so that you will neglect the great salvation dearly purchased for you by the Son of God. We hope you will show true principle [even though you are] now away from us. We have in diet been strict to follow the light the Lord has given us. You are acquainted with that light, and we trust you will have the fear of the Lord continually before you and will respect the light He has given and be no less strict than we have been.  {14MR 312.2}  
     I have feared for you as I have marked how little control you have had over your appetite and your desires. I have mourned in secret over it, and have prayed the Lord to enlighten your mind and quicken your conscience that it might be sensitive and tender, susceptible to the influence of the Spirit.  {14MR 312.3}  
     We have advised you not to eat butter or meat. We have not had it on our table. I should hope you would feel that we had advised you for your good and not to deprive you of these things because of any notions of your own.
 You have lessons of self-control to learn [that] you have not yet experienced. You should have rules to regulate yourself, your diet, your labor, your hours. All this you need to do now to discipline yourself. Have fixed principles. Represent the health reform. All know that we do not put butter on our table. If they see you, our son, eat the things we have condemned, you weaken our influence and lower yourself in their estimation. They see at once that appetite is stronger with you than principle, that notwithstanding all our labor to bring the people of God up to denial of appetite, we have no influence with our own children. When they can get meat or butter, they will eat it, or Edson will. . . .  {14MR 313.1} 
     It is time you set to work to redeem the past and to now turn about squarely. You now are forming new associations in a new church. God will prove you now to see what character you will develop in the new relations in which you stand. Stand for the right. Maintain it manfully. You will be watched to see if you carry out our teachings to others. Will you dishonor us or honor us by regarding the instructions we have borne from the mouth of the Lord to His people and to you? Oh, my son, get up from the low, selfish, indolent, slothful position you have been occupying where the curse of Meroz could come upon you, and work from a higher standpoint than self-gratification and merely to please others and be passable in the eyes of poor, erring mortals. Oh, my son, my dear son, my love for you is strong, and my love for you will not die but increase as dangers thicken.  {14MR 313.2} 
     Don't let yourself down to talk cheap talk and be unguarded. Watch, watch, watch, and pray lest ye enter into temptation. Oh, be where you can subdue your desires and will, and be controlled by the will of God, submissive
to His Spirit. Do not act as though the services of Christ were irksome, but leave your will submerged in the will of God. Eat and drink to His glory. Oh, Edson, I want to hear you yet speaking the truth to others, but it must be in you before you can teach and practice it.  {14MR 313.3} 
     It is so dark I cannot see to write. Good-by. May the Lord bless you, my son. Your Mother who loves you, Ellen White.--Letter 5, 1869, pp. 1-4.
 

I found this letter encouraging....for those who have tried their best to teach their children the truth, and have lived it before them....

We must never give up....keep praying and working for our children....
When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. {COL 69}
Back to Top
newbie View Drop Down
Senior Member
Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: 29 Feb 2008
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4716 		Post Options Post Options   Quote newbie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2010 at 12:52am
I remember reading that letter and it touched my heart as well.
Back to Top
EL View Drop Down
Full Member
Full Member
Avatar

Joined: 03 Sep 2008
Location: Missouri
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 610 		Post Options Post Options   Quote EL Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Oct 2010 at 5:35pm
 

James Edson White

1849-1928

 

Edson was the second and oldest surviving son of James and Ellen White. He started working at age 15 in the Review and Herald Publishing Association and became proficient in all aspects of printing. That skill was coupled with an astute business sense inherited from his father. In 1870 he married Emma MacDearmon, whose sister later married F. E. Belden, a noted early Adventist musician.

In 1877, he was asked to got to Oakland, California, to serve as secretary for the recently established Pacific SDA Publishing Association. In his three years there, managed the business of this enterprise. While there, he became deeply involved in and worked closely with F. E. Belden and D. S. Hakes in the production of Song Anchor and Temperance Songs, a Sabbath school songbook.

After returning to Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1880, he became connected with the Sabbath school work, serving for over six years in developing this aspect of the shurch's work. In 1886, he assisted in producing a second Sabbath school songbook, Joyful Greetings for the Sabbath School.

During this time he also began the J. E. White Publishing Company, which in the mid-1880’s did the typesetting for both music and words for Hymns and Tunes, the second official hymnal of the Adventist church which was released in 1886.



Edited by EL - 30 Oct 2010 at 5:36pm
I can't even walk without Him holding my hand.
Back to Top
EL View Drop Down
Full Member
Full Member
Avatar

Joined: 03 Sep 2008
Location: Missouri
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 610 		Post Options Post Options   Quote EL Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Oct 2010 at 5:42pm
 

Edson White

James Edson White (28 July 1849–3 June 1928), known as "Edson", was an author, publisher and the second son of two founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church – James White and Ellen G. White.[1]

In 1870 he married Emma McDearmon, but did not have any children. After being detached from his parents and their church for a couple of decades he had a spiritual change of heart when he was 44 years old, at the time he lived in Chicago.

[edit] Mission to African Americans

He found a booklet written by his mother titled Our Duty to the Colored People. This encouraged him to set up a mission to spread the Adventist message to colored people in the south of the United States.[2] He set up mission schools for black people along the Mississippi River. The first school set up was on a boat called the Morning Star. This boat had a library, a chapel, a photography lab, a print shop, and accommodation for staff. Schools were created at Vicksburg, Mississippi, Yazoo City, Lintonia, and Nashville, Tennessee.[3] The mission built up to 50 schools, building an organisation called Southern Missionary Society. This became part of the Adventist Southern Union Conference.

The publishing organization that Edson established was originally known as the "Gospel Herald Publishing Company". It was taken over by the church[2] and renamed to "Southern Publishing Association" in 1901, which subsequently merged with the Review and Herald Publishing Association in 1980.[4]

He started the "J. E. White Publishing Company"



Edited by EL - 30 Oct 2010 at 5:44pm
I can't even walk without Him holding my hand.
Back to Top
thenarrowway View Drop Down
Admin Group
Admin Group
Avatar

Joined: 09 Jan 2008
Location: Kingsville, OH
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7905 		Post Options Post Options   Quote thenarrowway Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Oct 2010 at 5:58pm
Originally posted by EL

 

Edson White

In 1870 he married Emma McDearmon, but did not have any children. After being detached from his parents and their church for a couple of decades he had a spiritual change of heart when he was 44 y


I never realized he had pretty much left the church and his family for 20 years....
When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. {COL 69}
Back to Top
EL View Drop Down
Full Member
Full Member
Avatar

Joined: 03 Sep 2008
Location: Missouri
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 610 		Post Options Post Options   Quote EL Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Oct 2010 at 4:07am
Strange, I found both of the above articles by goggling his name.  If you figure the time line suggested in the second article---he left the church approx. 1873AD.  Does not seem to figure with the dates he worked for the  church, ---Apparently he was away from the church from 1873 until 1893.  Look at the dates of employment of the first article.  Doesn't it seem that he was still active in working for the church during the time he was away from parents and church for 20 years?  Can't figure it all out. 
I can't even walk without Him holding my hand.
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down



This page was generated in 0.395 seconds.