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Captains of the Host CAPTAINS OF THE HOST First Volume of a History of Seventh-day Adventists Covering the years 1845-1900 "So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes." Deuteronomy 1:15. Captains of the Host FIRST VOLUME OF A HISTORY OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS COVERING THE YEARS 1845-1900 By Arthur Whitefield Spalding Author of Songs of the Kingdom, Pioneer Stories of the Second Advent Message, The Men of the Mountains, and other books. REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, D.C. COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY THE REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSN. WASHINGTON, D.C. PRINTED IN U.S.A. DEDICATION To the young men and young women of our faith Of every nation and kindred and tongue and people_ Who love Jesus And the blessed hope of His appearing, Who are strong, Who have endured the temptations of the evil one And the persecutions of benighted men, Who cannot be bought or sold, Who in their inmost souls are true and honest,. Who do not fear to call sin by its right name, Whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, Who will stand for the right though the heavens fall, Who have dedicated themselves to the finishing of the gospel work, And who shall see the King in His beauty. lE..) 1944. BY R. B R. I RAN KL1R BOOTH. ARTI$1 "And 1 saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the ever- lasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Revelation 19:6. FOREWORD Tuts history, frankly, is written for "believers." The reader is assumed to have not only an interest but a communion. A writer on the history of any cause or group should have suffi- cient objectivity to relate his subject to its environment without distortion; but if he is to give life to it, he must be a confrere. The general public, standing afar off, may desire more• detach- ment in its author; but if it gets this, it gets it at the expense of vision, warmth, and life. There can be, indeed, no absolute objectivity in an expository historian. The painter and inter- preter of any great movement must be in sympathy with the spirit and aim of that movement; it must be his cause. What he loses in equipoise he gains in momentum, and balance is more a matter of drive than of teetering. This history of Seventh-day Adventists is written by one who is an Adventist, who believes in the message and mission of Adventists, and who would have everyone to be an Advent- ist. To the degree that he has been successful in portraying the inward fire and the environmental fuel of this movement, he serves the interests and ambitions of his people, and, please God, the purposes of heaven. The merely curious may discover in the furnace the outlines of that historical design which will not be injured by the fervency of the narration. The special purpose of this work is to acquaint' the mature youth and the adults of the Seventh-day Adventist Church with the beginnings and the progress of the cause to which they are committed by birth or choice. This first volume, starting with the beginning of the Seventh-day Adventist people, and con- taining chiefly, therefore, accounts of the founders and those who became the early leaders of the cause, is appropriately titled Captains of the Host. As the pioneers of this movement, known to us of the middle generation, have one by one died, the living sources of knowledge have passed away. Their presence among us, the reminiscent minds of some of them, 7 8 Foreword the fervor of their spirits at which we warmed our souls, pro- vided inspiration for which the cold chronicles of the day are a poor substitute; and such of their fire as may be preserved in an account of their adventures and their ponderings is a necessity. It is not, indeed, in the annals of our fathers that we shall find the source of power that animates and must animate the soldiers of Christ's last legion: that source is the Holy Spirit, through whom the Father and the Son pour forth the abundance of their vision and energy and grace. The Word of God is the storehouse of the heavenly treasure, and in its prayerful and careful study lies the secret of translation from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. But the history of our spiritual forebears is not negligible; for not only are we given the riches of their discoveries, but we are heart- ened and incited to heavenly emulation by the accounts of their sufferings and deeds. A comprehensive history of this people, which would include every act and every worthy name, would make a work beyond the bounds of judgment or reading interest. It is rather in significant episodes of that history that the spirit and meaning of the movement may be caught, and that is the plan of this book. The student devoted to the search may find in other extant works many incidents illustrating further the faith and devotion of the pioneers; and he may know or he may learn of more than one noble servant of God whose service has no mention here. It would be impossible, especially in the last decades of this movement, world wide as it has become, to inscribe the name and the deeds of every heroic warrior for Christ. The effort is made to set forth the spirit and the power of the movement rather than to call the roster of the saints. Out of the fragmentary but vivid accounts with which the pioneers in their haste blazed the trail, I offer these volumes to the youth and their elders of this church, and to whatever public is interested in the field, as a partial but true account of the Seventh`-day Adventist denomination. ARTHUR W. SPALDING. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS OUT of the scores of helpers who have supplied information, suggested sources, given encouragement and constructive criti- cism, and assisted in various other ways in the preparation of this history, to select a few for special mention would seem almost invidious. Yet to neglect all would suggest an assumption of competence which is far from the truth. To the several writers on Adventist history who have gone before, particularly M. E. Olsen, Matilda Erickson Andross, and Emma E. Howell, I declare my sincere appreciation for leads and intelligence. Although I have gone as far as possible to original sources (which several of their books are), their writing has often pointed out these sources and provided viewpoints for comparison and discussion, and their unity of purpose has been an inspiration.' Of the friends most responsible for the inception and com- pletion of this project, my thanks are due, first, to Walter P. Elliott, former manager of the Review and Herald Publishing Association, now secretary of the General Conference Publish- ing Department, who initiated and made possible the begin- ning of the work; to Harvey A. Morrison, present manager of of the Review and Herald, who has given every aid and en- couragement to it; to Lora E. Clement, editor of the Youth's Instructor, who first made the suggestion which eventuated in the enterprise; to Francis D. Nichol, editor of the Review and Herald, and author, whose keen but sympathetic criticism has been a main force; to John D. Snider, manager of the Review and Herald book department; to Edith McClellan, librarian of the Review and Herald, and Mary Moore, librarian of the Southern Publishing Association, where much of • my research centered; to LeRoy E. Froom, secretary Of the Minis- terial Association of the General Conference; to Arthur L. White and D. E. Robinson, of White Publications; to Merwin R. Thurber and H. M. Tippett, book editors, whose steering 9 10 Acknowledgments of the book through the rugged channels of criticism has been admirable; and to T. K. Martin and his associates of the art department, for their zeal and skill in illUstration. And I bow my knees in thankfulness to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose giving and sustaining of life to the humblest of His creatures is the source and power of all the enterprises of men. A. W. S. EDITOR'S NOTE: The reader will find it profitable to study the illuminating notes in the Appendix to this volume, for much factual information and many items of human interest are contained there that were not found vital to the main narrative. Footnote references to these addenda at the end of chapters make these notes easy of access whenever they are pertinent to the better understanding of particular points in the text. CONTENTS Section I, PROLOGUE 1. The People of the Advent 15 Section II, THE BEGINNINGS 2. Captain of Pioneers 29 3. Warrior on the Field 45 4. Handmaid of the Lord 58 5. The Day of His Appointment 77 6. Vision in the Cornfield 91 7. Lift Up the Banner 107 8. There Shines a Light 121 9. The Door 141 10. Three Angels 158 11. Publish Glad Tidings 171 12. The Mighty Men 189 13. The Blessed Hope 212 14. North and West 223 15. Planted by the Rivers 239 16. Dash to Waukon 253 Section III, PUTTING IN ORDER 17.
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