August 4 - The End of An Era

All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. 1 Peter 1:24, 25, NRSV.

between 1872 and 1881 the Seventh-day Adventist Church would see two of its three founders laid to rest. The first was Joseph Bates, who died at the Helath Reform Institute in Battle Creek on March 19, 1872, shortly before his eithtieth birthday. The old reformer had kept a strong program going until near the end. The year before his death he held at least 100 public meetings besides those at his local chruch and the conferences that he attended.

The aged warrior attended one of his last General Conference sessions a year before his death. "The annual meeting," he exuberantly reported, "was one of deep, stirring interest to the cause. It was encourging to hear what has been accomplished the past year, and to learn of the wide oepenings for missinary work field." Bates desperately desired to answer the call, but couldn't.

he attended his last session two months before his passing, closing with a prayer: "O Lord, in Jesus' dear name, help us, with this dear people, to fulfill our sacred promise, and may all thy remnant, waiting people also enter into covenant with thee."

Whereas Bates was in good health right up to the end, the same cannot be said of James White. Overwork had triggered a series of debilitating strokes beginning in teh mid-1860s. Given his health condition, it is absolutely amazing how much he continued to accomplish. He would die two days after his sixtieth birthday on August 6, 1881.

Whereas Bates was in good health right up to the end, the same cannot be said of James White. Overwork had triggered a series of debilitating strokes beginning in the mid-1860s. Given his health condition, it is absolutely amazing how much he continued to accomplish. He would die two days after his sixtieth birthday on August 6, 1881.

Ellen was shattered. "I am fully of the opinion," she penned to her son Willie, "that my life was so intertwined or interwoven with my husband's that it is about impossible for me to be of any great account without him"(Lt 17, 1881).

Sixteen years later she wrote: "How I miss him! How I long for his words of counself and wisdom! How I long to hear his prayers bleinding with my prayers for light and guidance, for wisdom to know how to plan and lay out the work!"(2SM 259).

That's where the Advent hope comes in . Along with Ellen we also await the greeting on that resurrection morning of not only her husband and Bates, but our own beloved ones.