James White was overjoyed to receive Ellen's telegram that she, with Mary Clough, would meet him at the Melvern, Kansas, camp meeting, which was due to open on Thursday, May 25. He hastened off twenty postcards to as many points in Kansas, giving the welcome word. He had summoned J. H. Waggoner to come from California to assist him, for he felt the need of help through the camp meeting season. This he now canceled, for Ellen would be taking many of the meetings.
He assured Willie and Mary, in Oakland, that he would be on the grounds with ample preparations made, and he was, but Ellen White's train was delayed; instead of arriving on Friday, she was driven onto the grounds early Sabbath morning. She was weary after six days of travel, including a twenty-mile trip by farm wagon over bad roads, a journey broken by a stop for the night at the home of a friend.
"Weary, of course," reported James White, "short of sleep, and trembling with nervous headache, she takes the speaker's stand at half past ten and is wonderfully sustained in her effort."--The Signs of the Times, June 8, 1876. She was the speaker that evening also to a congregation increasing in numbers. James White described the encampment, first as things looked on Friday, before Mrs. White and Mary arrived:
The weather is fine, the grove pleasant, and besides the two large tents, one seated for the congregation, and the other parted with cloth for families, there are on the ground seventeen family tents, besides several covered wagons used for lodgings....
By the assistance of many with cheerful hearts and ready hands, our tent is pitched, board floor is laid, and the tent is furnished with chairs, table, beds, bedding, et cetera, ready to receive Mrs. White and her niece from California and other expected friends.--Ibid.
Continuing his report, he wrote of Sunday:
It is our turn to speak. The audience is large and attentive. Mrs. White speaks in the afternoon, and calls forty or more forward for prayers. This is an excellent move. We often lose ground on First-day before the crowd for want of moral courage to keep at our work for the advancement of the church and the conversion of sinners. But at this meeting decided advancement is made on First-day.
Before the evening discourse we hold a meeting for the special benefit of those who are seeking the Lord. Near fifty come forward. The interest of this social meeting increases until the last. Many speak for the first time.--Ibid.
Monday was a full day and concluded with a meeting of which he wrote:
In the evening, Mrs. White speaks with great power upon progressive sanctification as expressed by the apostle, on the plan of perpetual addition, until an abundant entrance is given into the immortal kingdom. 2 Peter 1:5-11. At the close of the meeting eight or ten rise up as candidates for baptism.
Third-day morning. The camp has arisen at four, and we are enjoying a precious social parting meeting. This moment Mrs. White is making closing remarks, exhorting the brethren and sisters to watch lest they lose Jesus by the way in returning home, as Joseph and Mary lost Christ in returning from Jerusalem.--Ibid.
Ellen White, writing from the campground, declared, "Children, I believe it was my duty to attend this meeting. I am coming out all right as far as health is concerned if I rest and do not labor too hard."--Letter 30, 1876. She spoke of her pleasure at the healthy condition of the conference, which promised to become one of strength. She told of how "several young men came to this meeting unconverted and careless, sought the Lord earnestly, and took the baptismal vows."--Ibid. As James and Ellen departed for the railroad depot they observed the train of wagons on their way to the water for the second baptism over the weekend, bringing the number to thirty-eight in all.
As he brought his report of this, the first camp meeting of the season, to a close, James White made this enlightening comment:
This excellent meeting, with all its labor of preparation, anxiety, preaching, hearing, exhorting, confession of sins and want of Christ, its tears, deliverances, and joys, is now past. Those parents who brought their children to the meeting and saw them converted, and take the baptismal vow, are now glad that they brought them. Those who did not bring their children regretted their mistake. These annual feasts of tabernacles are gatherings of the greatest importance; and there should be a general turnout of all who may be benefited.--The Signs of the Times, June 8, 1876.
At the special session of the General Conference that had been held in late March, James White had participated in laying plans that called for one meeting to follow another, week by week, usually with a parting meeting Tuesday morning. The first was now in the past; as listed in the Review and Herald of May 25 and July 13 there were thirteen more yet to attend: Missouri, Iowa, two in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Indiana, Michigan (including the General Conference session), and Illinois.
En route to the Missouri camp meeting at Holden, they had a few hours to visit Ellen's sister Caroline Clough, as well as her nieces. They arrived at the campground in ample time for the opening of the meeting on Thursday. In describing the surroundings, she stated:
It is a beautiful picture of loveliness that is presented to the eye, in the trees covered with green foliage, the waving grain with the sunlight and shadows resting upon it, the cultivated soil, the varied scenery in the high hills covered with verdure and adorned with trees, and the broad, rich valleys under cultivation. All is fresh and green.--Letter 31, 1876.
Knowing that it seldom rained in California in summer, she commented, "I suppose you are drying up in Oakland and looking burned and seared. But Oakland is the home of my choice."
The Kansas City Times carried a good report of the meeting, which was held in a beautiful grove. There were seventeen family tents and a large congregation tent. The paper stated:
The plan of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is to hold great annual camp meetings in most of the States. These are attended by their prominent ministers. Elder White and wife are here and are expected to make the tour of the United States. They open the summer's campaign with the Kansas and Missouri meetings. They are both indefatigable workers, preaching once or twice a day, and also writing editorials and reports for their church papers, published at Battle Creek, Michigan, and Oakland, California.--In The Signs of the Times, June 15, 1876.
Ellen White reported fifteen hundred people attending her Sunday meetings, morning and evening (Letter 31, 1876). James White regretted that this and the Kansas meetings were held at points distant from the railroad. If properly located, he felt, they could well have been attended by "five or ten thousand" (RH, June 15). He commended the conference for electing laymen for the conference committee.
James and Ellen White were not enthusiastic about camp meetings held at an inconvenient distance from the railway stations. Of their experience in getting off to Iowa, she wrote to their children in Oakland:
Yesterday we arose early and rode three miles over rough road to see the train move grandly out of the depot, leaving us behind. We then went to Brother O'Brien's and waited till the next morning.--Letter 31a, 1876.
The remedy proposed by James White was that the meetings be properly located the next year. The next meeting was in Iowa, just outside the city limits of Marshalltown. Uriah Smith reported that "Brother and Sister White arrived from the Missouri meeting on Thursday P.M. bringing a good report from that meeting and being themselves in good health and spirits."--The Review and Herald, June 15, 1876. There were forty family tents and two large tents. Friday morning, June 9, James White wrote Willie:
We are well, and having fine weather, and a crowd of brethren, a quarter larger than ever before--1,200 out last evening to hear me speak.
A week later he wrote:
Mary [Clough] is splendid on reports. The Iowa camp meeting was a great victory. We sent reports to eight different papers in the State.--James White to WCW, June 16, 1876.
Smith was at the next meeting also, held at Sparta, Wisconsin. Note his interesting report:
Here, as in Iowa, the presence of Brother and Sister White constituted, in a large measure, the life of the meeting, their counsel and labors giving tone to the exercises and progress of the work. Sister White, especially, was at times called out in powerful appeals, and most forcible descriptions of scenes in the life of Christ from which lessons can be drawn applicable to everyday Christian experience. These were of absorbing interest to all the congregation.
These servants of the church, though now of so long and large experience, and notwithstanding all their wearing labors, are still growing in mental and spiritual strength.--Ibid., June 29, 1876
Effective Use of the Public Press
At Ripon, the second camp meeting to be held in Wisconsin that year, inclement weather kept the weekend crowds at home, but many were reached through the public press. Ripon, said to be "quite a wealthy and aristocratic place" of some four thousand residents, was at first not too friendly toward the idea of an Adventist camp meeting being held there, but their attitudes changed as they read the Ripon Free Press. That paper, normally a weekly, ran a daily during the meeting. Smith reported that the space in these daily issues was devoted largely "to an account of the meeting as it progressed, and to a publication of those leading points of our faith which would best give the people an idea of what position we as a church, maintain." Of the reporting he noted:
Miss M. L. Clough, a niece of Sister White's who is traveling with them as reporter, furnished full and graphic accounts of each day's meetings for the Free Press, with a synopsis of all the sermons delivered. Besides these accounts, there were published in this series of dailies the fundamental principles of our faith, the sketch of the rise and progress of Seventh-day Adventists, "Which Day Do You Keep and Why?"and "Forty Questions on Immortality."
And right here we take occasion to mention what we have not before referred to, that is, the reports of these western camp meetings that have been furnished to the dailies of the different States. Miss Clough, with indefatigable industry, with great versatility of thought and felicity of expression, has given a full daily report of every meeting, stating all particulars, suffering no point of interest to pass unnoticed, but grasping all the salient features of the occasion, and producing the whole in a style pleasing to the popular reader, while it gave a very accurate representation of the meeting.
In Iowa eight daily papers were furnished with these daily reports. At the Sparta meeting three dailies of Wisconsin and the Chicago Times were thus furnished. At the Minnesota meeting, one daily and several weeklies. And at the present meeting, three leading dailies of Wisconsin, besides the Free Press of this place already mentioned. These reports, we learn, have been and are being quite extensively copied into other papers, and thus are Seventh-day Adventists and their work brought before the people as they never have been before.--Ibid., July 13, 1876
When we consider that all this was done without typewriters or carbon paper, the proportions of such a task of reporting loom large.
One man at the Ripon meeting testified that he had come on foot sixty miles to attend the meeting; another walked seventy miles to do so.
In a letter Ellen White wrote to her children, she reported that James was so "fearfully worn" that she took the principal burden through the meeting (Letter 34, 1876).
A Breathing Spell Between Camp Meetings
With this the sixth camp meeting coming to a close on Tuesday morning, July 4, James and Ellen White had a breathing spell until August 10, when the Ohio meeting would open. They hastened back to Battle Creek, hoping to get some rest and pick up several lines of work. She wrote to Willie and Mary, eager to report and hungry for news:
Battle Creek,
July 17, 1876.
Dear children,
We arrived here the evening of the fourth.... We were just in time to witness the procession of the birds of paradise. The leader was represented as an Indian warrior; then followed the continentals--the signers of the Declaration of Independence dressed as they dressed, powdered hair, short breeches, and leggings. Some things were really interesting and some ridiculous, but I cannot write. I have kept on the strain so long I am now finding my level and I am not very intelligent. We cannot, Father, Mary, or myself, do anything now. We are debilitated and run down like an old clock.--Letter 33, 1876.
After getting some rest, Ellen White picked up her work of writing on the life of Christ. Financial times were hard, and James labored diligently to secure means with which to carry on the various interests--the school, the publishing house, and evangelistic campaigns. He also saw the new church hymnal, Hymns and Tunes, through the press, and oversaw the designing of charts for evangelists to use.
In a day or two they left for New York State and then on to Philadelphia. They had hoped to get some articles off to the Signs, but were just too worn. Yet she could write:
We never have attended a round of camp meetings with such satisfaction as these last thus far.--Letter 34, 1876.
The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
Friday morning, July 28, they arrived at Philadelphia where they were met by John Kellogg, who was just completing his medical training. A horse car took them to a depot where they caught a train for the twenty-six-mile trip to Wilmington, Delaware. Here at a boarding house, John had rented a large, pleasant, well-furnished room for them. Mary Clough had a "cozy little room" just above. They felt fortunate to find such a pleasant place to stay.
On Sabbath they found a beautiful grove on a hill overlooking Wilmington. There with Dr. Kellogg and Will Fairfield, they rested and conversed on religious subjects including the life of Christ and health reform. Ellen White wrote to Edson and Emma:
John takes a very sensible view of health reform. I find him in a very good, healthful state of mind on these subjects upon which we have conversed. We see the need of more earnest, active effort in reference to the great subjects of health reform. Our Health Institute is sinking for the want of proper physicians and proper workers, interested workers.
We have sought to make Dr. Kellogg feel it is his duty to go into the institute, and take hold with Willie Fairfield and Brother Sprague and with zeal and interest bring up the institute. We have taken our luncheon on the green grass, and now conversation again. Important matters are to be considered and decisions made.--Letter 35, 1876.
Now our business is to visit Centennial grounds every day, see what we can, and [let] Mary make reports. We shall take our dinner with us from our landlady.--Ibid.
The Review and Herald reported on August 10 that "Elder White is spending a couple of weeks in Philadelphia, and is improving the present opportunity to publish second editions of the engraving, entitled 'Way of Life,' and of the Lecturer's Charts [both prophetic and Ten Commandments]. With efficient helpers he has greatly improved them, and will have them ready for the Michigan camp meeting and General Conference in September."
The Centennial Exhibition, James White felt, was magnificent in its greatness, gorgeousness, and perfection, such as the newspapers could not tell it (Ibid.). By courtesy of the publishing association, Seventh-day Adventists had an exhibit there showing denominational books and health works. This was located in the main building in the American Book Trade Department (The Review and Herald, August 17, 1876).
Camp Meetings Again
The program for the Eastern camp meetings was much the same as the six already finished. The reports gave little glimpses of joyous and sometimes awkward situations, and of course, of triumph as God blessed in the work. The late-summer meetings opened in Ohio at Norwalk. James White's older brother John, a Methodist minister, resided in Ohio, and they managed to get in a little visit en route.
On Sunday the morning was cold and rainy, but before noon the clouds had dispersed, and fair weather smiled upon the encampment. In the afternoon, by actual count, 551 teams came through the gate of the campground, averaging four persons to each team. These, with the Sabbathkeepers upon the ground, made a congregation of 2,500 to whom Brother White spoke with great liberty on the reasons of our faith and hope.--Ibid., August 1, 1876
Ellen White gave one evening discourse, but she was confined much of the time to their tent, and for two days to her bed. "Your father and mother are worked down," she wrote to Willie.
We work hard. Your father does the work of three men at all these meetings. I never saw a man work so energetically, so constantly, as your father. God does give him more than mortal energy. If there is any place that is hard, your father takes it. We pray God that we may have strength to do the work necessary to be done in these special occasions.--Letter 39, 1876.
The thought of advancing age and waning strength appalled both of them. "We see a very great work to be done in the world and we cannot endure the thought of failing in physical strength now," wrote Ellen White in another letter to their children in the West. She continued:
I look all over the field and I see none who could fill your father's place. His head to plan and his life of experience to balance the inexperienced is very essential. God has a work for us to do and we need the help, the encouragement, and confidence of our people to do this work.--Letter 41, 1876.
The Groveland Camp Meeting
For attendance, the camp meeting held at Groveland, Massachusetts, reached an all-time high. It opened Thursday, August 24, and ran for five days. The grounds, near Haverhill, some thirty miles north of Boston, were easily reached by train and river excursion boats from both Boston and Haverhill. There were fifty-five tents, including the three pavilions--forty-five, fifty-five, and sixty-five feet in diameter--pitched in the beautiful grove. The weather was so fine the meetings were held under the trees and the three large tents used for sleeping quarters. The women occupied one and men the other two. Five hundred camped on the grounds. The "auditorium" swept up in a natural amphitheater from the speakers' stand, the well-cleared grove affording delightful shade.
River steamers ran twice a day from Haverhill, four miles away, and every hour on Sunday. Eighteen trains ran each day, all stopping at the campground. The Sabbath meetings were well attended, but Sunday brought its surprises. Mary Clough reported:
Sunday was a lively day on the campground. Special trains were run from the cities of Lawrence, Newburyport, Haverhill, et cetera, and at 9:00 A.M. the auditorium was filled with intelligent people to whom Elder White preached about one hour.
Still the people poured in from the towns about, and the trains came loaded with their living freight. After an intermission of thirty minutes, Mrs. White ascended the platform, amid the profound stillness of that vast multitude, and addressed the people on the subject of Christian temperance. Her original and comprehensive manner of handling this subject elicited the highest commendation of all that heard.
The morning trains were crowded, but the noon trains flooded the grove, and the two-thirty train from Lawrence brought fifteen cars literally packed with people, the platform and steps were full also, and the conductor was obliged to take the roof in order to signal the engineer. He reported that it would have taken twenty-five cars to bring all the people who were waiting at the depot to take passage for the campground.--The Signs of the Times, September 14, 1876.
Of the experience Ellen White wrote:
What a scene is before me! It is estimated that twenty thousand people are assembled in this grove. The third train, of fifteen cars, has just arrived. Every seat was filled and every foot of standing room, also the platform and the steps. A sea of human heads is already before me, and still the cars are to come. This is to me the most solemn sight I ever beheld. Hundreds in carriages are driving away because they cannot get within sound of the speaker's voice.--Ibid.
All standing room throughout the entire enclosure was taken, and some, like Zacchaeus, climbed trees to get sight of the speaker. The vast throng gave good attention; Ellen White, speaking slowly with a low, well-supported voice, made them hear. Many took trains home for the noonday meal, others swarmed down on the foodstand "like an army of grasshoppers on a Kansas cornfield," and according to the "reporter," "made quite as clean work." Many had brought their lunch baskets. They were the fortunate ones.
Temperance Meeting in Haverhill
No sooner was Ellen White finished with her afternoon discourse than the officers of the Temperance Reform Club of Haverhill approached her, inviting her to speak the next evening in an auditorium in the city; they promised an audience of one thousand. Although weary, she consented to fill the appointment. She reported that leading men from the city were on the platform. She wrote:
The Queen of England could not have been more honored.... One thousand people were before me of the finest and most select of the city.
I was stopped several times with clapping of hands and stomping of feet. I never had a more signal victory....
Never did I witness such enthusiasm as these noble men leading out in temperance reform manifested over my talk upon temperance. It was new to them. I spoke of Christ's fast in the wilderness and its object. I spoke against tobacco. I was besieged after the meeting and commended, and I was urged, if I came to Haverhill, to speak to them again.--Letter 42, 1876.
A Banner Camp Meeting Year
As D. M. Canright reported in the Signs of the accomplishments of the Illinois camp meeting, the last of the season in the East, he gave particular attention to the work of Mary Clough as a press secretary. He noted the results of her labors in introducing the denomination to the general public through her reports of the work of the church furnished to the public press. He observed:
Our indispensable reporter, Miss Mary Clough, was also on hand with her genial good nature and ready pen, keeping a half-dozen copyists busy sending the reports each one copied by hand of our meetings to papers in all parts of the State. If anyone in the Northern States doesn't know who Seventh-day Adventists are by this time, it is not because the papers haven't done their duty in the case! So closes another camp meeting season, by far the best we have ever had.--The Signs of the Times, October 19, 1876.
The issue of the Review and Herald of the same date carried James White's appraisal of this new method of outreach.
Our camp meeting reporter, Miss Mary L. Clough--Mrs. White's niece, much respected and beloved by our people, not only for her ability as a writer, but for all those qualities and accomplishments which make her a refined lady--has done a work with her pen which but few of our people comprehend.--The Review and Herald, October 19, 1876.
When the camp meetings were over and the Whites and Mary Clough returned on Wednesday, October 4, to Battle Creek, they were utterly worn and exhausted. They had succeeded, but for it they paid a price--the price mortal man pays for overwork, a price paid gladly to see the cause of God prosper.