Official correspondence in the Battle Creek archival files corroborates Ellen White's and Jones' testimony regarding the negative attitude of the most responsible leaders in Battle Creek. A. T. Jones said that "there was a secret antagonism always carried on" (Letter to C. E. Holmes, May 12, 1921).
The letters of the General Conference Secretary, Dan T. Jones, illustrate how this attitude functioned. Although he was deeply prejudiced against the 1888 message and the messengers, a few weeks after Minneapolis the Holy Spirit impressed him with clear evidence that Jones was a true messenger of God. He writes to a friend:
We have had good meetings here... Bro. A. T. Jones has been doing most of the preaching. I wish you could have heard some of his sermons. He seems altogether different from what he did [sic] at Minneapolis. Some of his sermons are as good, I think, as I ever heard. They are all new too. He is original in his preaching and in his practical preaching seems very tender and deeply feels all he says. My estimation of him has raised considerably since I have seen the other side of the man (Letter to J. W. Watt, January 1, 1889).
But Dan Jones becomes a man convinced against his will. It is phenomenal how good leaders could harden their hearts against what they clearly saw to be "credentials" of the Holy Spirit. We need to understand how this happened, for we today are in grave danger of repeating their history. As Luther said, we are all made of the same dough.
A year later, for some strange reason, Dan Jones has let his heart become hardened against the 1888 messengers, while during this same period Ellen White's attitude toward them has become increasingly supportive. Here we see a mysterious ferment of the human spirit. As a responsible administrative officer, he writes to the leadership of the Missouri Conference, his home area. He must communicate his mistaken judgment. Here is an underthe- table kind of influence operating, the "secret antagonism" A. T. Jones spoke of:
I think an Institute in Missouri would be a splendid thing; but I believe an institute on a quiet plan will be just as valuable to you as to make a great parade of it and get in ... Elder A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner. To tell you the truth, I do not have very much confidence in some of their ways of presenting things. They try to drive everything before them, and will not admit that their positions can possibly be subject to the least criticism.... In fact, [they] do not dwell upon any other subjects scarcely than those upon which there is a difference of opinion among our leading brethren. I do not think you want to bring that spirit into the Missouri Conference (Letter to N. W. Alee, January 23, 1890; emphasis supplied).
The 1888 messengers probably never knew why their ministry was not welcome in Missouri.
Dan Jones' informative letters to G. I. Butler regarding developments at Battle Creek reveal the "antagonism" operating. He encourages Butler in his opposition to the message:
I am glad, indeed, that you are looking at matters from the standpoint that you do, and are not getting discouraged and bowing down under the load that seems to be thrown upon you.... I have often thought of what you said to me last winter that the California fellows [Jones and Waggoner] would be on the editorial staff of the Review in less than two years. I should not be at all surprised if an attempt in that direction was made inside of that many months. But I feel sure that it would meet with very strong opposition (Letter, August 28, 1889).
The "strong opposition" he anticipated erupted like a volcano within his own soul during the following winter of 1890. Waggoner one day announced in his Bible class that on the next Monday morning he would discuss the two covenants. He had been officially invited, even urged, to leave his work in California and teach in Battle Creek. He naturally assumed that he was free to present the gospel as he understood it.
But when Dan Jones heard the news about the two covenants, he could not contain himself. He immediately took steps to stop Waggoner, appealing to Uriah Smith and even to Ellen White for support. He was so deeply stirred by the incident that he wrote about it at considerable length in letters to G. I. Butler, O. A. Olsen, J. D. Pegg, C. H. Jones, R. C. Porter, J. H. Morrison, E. W. Farnsworth, and R. A. Underwood. His letters cannot disguise official antipathy for the message and the messengers, while, of course, professing acceptance of "the doctrine of justification by faith."
We can be grateful that he was a prolific letter-writer, for he gives valuable insights into the behind-the-scenes attitudes of leadership. He discloses his inner feelings with candor. His continuing heart opposition to the message was evidently a heavy burden to his conscience like Saul's kicking against the pricks. Concerning this confrontation with Waggoner he writes to Butler:
There has never anything happened in my life that has taken me down like this. I have just felt so thoroughly upset by the whole affair that I have hardly known how to act or what to do.... When I saw what the lessons were [Sabbath School lessons on the covenants, written by Waggoner], I decided at once that I could not teach them; and after studying over the matter some, decided to resign as teacher in the sabbath-school.... 2
I have been worrying and fretting over this thing until it has hurt me worse than a half year's work (Letter, February 13, 1890).
What a spectacle--the General Conference Secretary "worrying and fretting" over what is in fact the leading of the Holy Spirit in the latter rain!
A Glimpse Behind the Scenes in Old Battle Creek
Dan Jones continues with a remarkable vignette of Battle Creek administration, frankly telling Butler of the official plan to hide the real facts from the students and to "let the matter in as easy as possible, without attracting any more of the attention of the students of the school to the change than was necessary." This would be politically astute. Waggoner spoiled his plans by telling the open truth, and "let the whole thing out; and all I could do was to say that we had thought best to ask Dr. Waggoner to postpone the covenant question for the present."
Ellen White, W. C. White, Waggoner and A. T. Jones labored to set matters right before the brethren in Battle Creek, with the result that the truth forced Dan Jones, Uriah Smith, and others unwillingly into a corner. Again, Dan Jones was candid in telling his friends of the discomfiture they had suffered:
This left some of us in rather an embarrassing position. We had been laboring under a misapprehension, and the props were taken out from under us. No one could dispute Dr. Waggoner's word or Sister White's word (Letter to Butler, March 27, 1890).
Dan Jones' humility and honesty are refreshing--almost naive, certainly so, in light of the real truth which he did not realize--that his antipathy was in fact directed toward heaven's gracious gift of the latter rain and the beginning light of the loud cry. He is dead set against this heaven-sent blessing and cannot avoid letting it be known. He is outstandingly a man convinced against his will and thus of the same opinion still.
Ellen White's famous March 16 sermon at Battle Creek (Ms. 2, 1890) contains the statement, "There was no reception" of the message, and some dozen references to the continuing unbelief and rejection among the Battle Creek leadership since Minneapolis. Writing one day later, Dan Jones laments his distress:
It seems to me that her position is evidently the correct one, and the principle will apply to other matters with just as much force as it applies to the covenant question, or the law in Galatians.... I was just as certain as I could be that certain plans and purposes were being carried out by Dr. Waggoner and others and that certain motives were behind those plans and purposes; but it now appears that I was altogether mistaken in both. It seems strange how it could be so. Every circumstance seemed to add to the evidence to prove the things true; but, regardless of all this, they have been proven false (Letter to J. D. Pegg, March 17, 1890).
Writing to Butler ten days later, his progress is reluctant, and he still is not clear. He is of the same opinion still regarding the message. As with Uriah Smith, he must blame Jones and Waggoner for creating the misunderstandings. He cannot see them in the light that Ellen White saw them, as the Lord's "delegated messengers":
Perhaps we have been mistaken in some of our opinions that we have held.... I do not see now what can be done but to accept the explanations that have been made, and act upon them.... Sister White ... thinks reports that were brought to you from the Minneapolis meeting were greatly exaggerated, and that you have not got a correct idea in reference to what was going on there. While I hold the same position on the law in Galatians, and the covenant question that I have always held, I am glad to have my mind relieved in reference to the motive and plans of some of the brethren.... Let us hope that in the future our brethren will not act in such a way as to lay the foundation for unjust judgment on their plans and purposes (Letter, March 27, 1890).
Writing to R. C. Porter a few days later, he discloses how he and Uriah Smith are still not truly reconciled to the 1888 message nor to Ellen White:
Elder Smith ... can not understand why ... Sister White spoke at one time positively against a certain thing, as she did against the law in Galatians, to Elder [J. H.] Waggoner several years ago, then turn around and practically give her support to the same thing when it comes up in a little different way.... I am trying to think as little about it as possible (Letter, April 1, 1890).3
Two weeks later, Dan Jones is still not sure, and can now bring himself to speak with some derision of what was in fact the leading of the Lord in the beginning of the latter rain. He wants to see Jones and Waggoner whittled down to size, and assures Elder Butler that he and the brethren are still nobly carrying on the fight against them. What Ellen White and history have recognized as "a most precious message" he still considers in the category of "peculiar views" that he hopes never again will be tolerated:
I know it is a little difficult in the face of the circumstancial [sic] evidence that has surrounded this matter for a year and a half, for us to come to the conclusion now that those matters that transpired in Minneapolis were all done in lamb-like innocence. But if Dr. Waggoner says that he did not have any plan when he came there, and Brother Jones says the same, and Sister White sustains them, what can we do but accept it as a fact? ... You may think that we have kicked a little up here, and then have been roped in, and swallowed whole. Such is not the case by any means. I consider that we gained every point that we were holding for, and think the other side was glad enough to be let down a little easy; and I was willing that it should be, if they have learned the lessons that we designed they should learn. I feel confident now that Dr. Waggoner will be very cautious about throwing his peculiar views before the people until they have been carefully examined by the leading brethren; and I think the leading brethren will be much more careful in their examinations of these peculiar views than they have been in the past (Letter to Butler, April 14, 1890).
These archives abundantly confirm A. V. Olson's remark that Jones and Waggoner were persona non grata at the Battle Creek headquarters (op. cit., p. 115). The tension was so sharp that it is easy to understand how Waggoner found himself sent to Britain in early 1892. His handwritten letter to the General Conference president of September 15, 1891, may have exacerbated the situation. He had been appointed a member of the book committee, but his normal participation in its work had somehow been circumvented. His letter is respectful; he makes no personal complaint; his concern is for the good of the cause:
I wish to ask about Elder [G. I.] Butler's book. I see by the report of the Book Committee that it has been voted that the Review and Herald office publish it. From this I conclude that it must be about ready for publication. If so, as a member of the Book Committee, I would like to see the manuscript. Something over a year ago, I think, I saw a list of the chapters that were to compose the book; and from that, together with what I know of the condition of things in general, I am quite sure that there is good prospect that the book will be as much in need of examination as any other book. If it is put through without examination except by a committee of three, I am sure there will be dissatisfaction.... Certainly every member has the right to examine any manuscript that properly comes before the committee at all.
Uriah Smith Defends His Rejection of the Message
Uriah Smith's opposition to the 1888 message was logical, scholarly, and apparently reasonable. He writes Ellen White on February 17, 1890 explaining why he cannot receive it. He is utterly sincere. It is a humbling experience to read his six-page letter, for he is so convincing that one can exclaim, "There but for the grace of God am I." It may be as easy for us today to consider the larger gift of the Holy Spirit a disaster as it was for him to do so. He sees the leading of the Lord as a great "calamity." We can note his arguments only briefly:
As it looks to me, next to the death of Brother White, the greatest calamity that ever befell our cause was when Dr. Waggoner put his articles on the book of Galatians through the Signs....
If I was on oath at a court of justice, I should be obliged to testify that to the best of my knowledge and belief, ... you said that Brother [J. H.] Waggoner was wrong [about the law in Galatians]. That has seemed to me ever since to be according to the Scriptures. And Brother White was so well satisfied on the subject, that, you remember, he withdrew Brother Waggoner's book from circulation.... The position that Brother [E. J.] Waggoner now takes is open to exactly the same objection.... It seems to me contrary to the Scriptures, and secondly, contrary to what you have previously seen....
The brethren in California [Jones and Waggoner] ... nearly ruined the [1888] Conference, as I feared they would. Had these disturbing questions not been introduced, I can see no reason why we could not have had as pleasant and blessed a Conference there as we have ever enjoyed....
[E. J. Waggoner] took his position on Galatians, the same which you had condemned in his father. And when you apparently endorsed his position as a whole, ... it was a great surprise to many. And when they asked me what that meant, and how I could account for it, really, Sister White, I did not know what to say, and I do not know what yet.
... When views and movements crop out ... which ... will utterly undermine your work, and shake faith in the message, I can but have some feeling in the matter; and you can imagine that it must seem like a strange situation to me, when, because I venture a word of caution on some of these points, I am held up in public as one who is shooting in the dark, and does not know what he is opposing. I think I do know to some degree what I am opposing. I probably do not know the full extent of this work of innovation and disintegration that is going on; but I see enough to cause me some anxiety. I believe I am willing to receive light at any time, from anybody. But what claims to be light must, for me, show itself to be according to the Scriptures and based on good solid reasons which convince the judgment, before it appears light to me. And when anyone presents something which I have long known and believed, it is impossible for me to call that new light (Letter of Uriah Smith, February 17, 1890).
Could it be that there are many "Uriah Smiths" in the church today, just as sincere and reasonable in their heart opposition to the light that in God's providence must yet lighten the earth with glory?
It is painful to .look over the shoulders of our Battle Creek brethren of a century ago and read their letters. But it may do us good to realize that some day others will read our letters. And angels will correctly discern our true heart attitude toward the work of God.
A deep heart enmity against the humbling message of Christ's righteousness made it possible for good brethren long ago to credit ill-founded rumors and distorted reports. Ellen White often compared the situation with the Jews opposing Christ. They too had good logic and well-reasoned arguments on their side. They thought they saw Scriptural evidence that made it impossible for Him to be the true Messiah. Had any prophet ever come out of Galilee? Did any of the leaders at Jerusalem believe on Him? ( John 7:48-52). And His personality also rubbed them the wrong way.
It's too late now for our brethren of a century ago to dig deep enough into their souls to repent of rejecting the most significant outpouring of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost.
Thank God, it's not yet too late for us to do so, for we can easily see ourselves in them.