James White took heed to the counsel given in vision in early April by the "celebrated physician." He was cheered by the promise "God would have you live." "You can arise. You can throw off this invalidism," he had been told (Letter 22, 1878). He set out to do what he could for himself and began to make steady progress toward recovery. As a part of the program he placed himself under the care of Dr. Kellogg at the newly enlarged Battle Creek Sanitarium. The results were very encouraging, and he became involved in the activities in Battle Creek. As president of the General Conference, how could he do otherwise?
Ellen White turned her attention to the Oregon camp meeting to be held at Salem, June 27 to July 2. She would travel there by ship, for California and Oregon were not yet linked by railroads. With others traveling from California to the camp meeting, she boarded the steamer Oregon in San Francisco on Monday afternoon, June 10. She was not at all well, but was optimistic in embarking on the four-day voyage. Her friends thought her presumptuous, but she thought she could rest, and even arranged to do considerable writing while on the voyage.
The Oregon was a good ship, and Captain Conner was attentive of the passengers, but the passage was very rough.
For the first few days after the voyage she rested and wrote some letters to members of the family. To James she confided:
I have felt very lonely since you left, away from husband and children, but when engaged in active labor I shall not feel this so keenly.... I am pleading with God to be qualified to do my work, looking to Him to guide me and not to be turned aside or diverted from it by any circumstances. God will help me.--Letter 31, 1878.
To her close friend Lucinda Hall, in Oakland, she wrote:
I miss James oh, so much. I have feelings of indescribable loneliness, but yet I am among kind friends who do all for me that they can.--Letter 29, 1878.
Before closing her letter, she expressed her great concern:
I feel the deepest interest in the cause and work of God for this time. My yearning heart's cry is for entire conformity to the will of God. I am not content. I must know the length, the breadth, the height and depth of perfect love. I cannot rest unless I know that God is working through me. I must be imbued with His Spirit. I am hungering and thirsting after righteousness.--Ibid.
The letters give a glimpse of the struggle she went through, torn between her understanding of her duty and the ties that bound her close to James. A few days later she wrote to him:
I am feeling more and more deeply that I must accomplish my work. I feel a preciousness, a nearness to God, and although I miss you very, very much, and love you, yet I feel at present I belong to God to wait for and do His will. I tell you freely it is a great sacrifice to my feelings to have you separated from me as you are, and yet it seems to be that it is as God would have it, and I must be reconciled. It has been hard, so hard. I wept and prayed and pondered and wept again, and the steady conviction forces itself upon me that it is right as it is. God's work is great. It demands our first attention. Separated as we are, we shall not be influenced by each other, but we shall look to God separately and do our work in His fear and to His glory.--Letter 32, 1878.
The Oregon Camp Meeting
By the time the Oregon camp meeting opened she had regained her strength. The first meeting was on Thursday, June 27, at 6:00 A.M. She was present and bore her testimony. The camp meeting site was three miles from the city of Salem. Loughborough described it as "a grove of about thirty fir trees of 150 feet in height, interspersed with those of smaller growth" (The Signs of the Times, July 4, 1878). There was a nice contrast among the green foliage, the white tents, and the yellow carpet of straw on the ground. By Friday, in addition to the two large tents for men and women, respectively, there were twenty-four family tents arranged in a semicircle around the large preaching tent--Ibid., July 18, 1878
Given a Vision While Speaking
At the nine o'clock devotional meeting Friday morning, she was the speaker. Compared with others, it was a rather small camp meeting, and in her heart there was a sense of intimacy with the congregation. She sensed the blessing of God resting on her in great measure. While she was speaking to the people, a very brief but reassuring vision was given to her, of which she wrote to James:
My mind was for a moment carried to Battle Creek. I spoke of my husband, his work and present affliction. He seemed to be distinctly pictured before me with a divine light above and around him, his countenance expressing peace and inexpressible happiness. I shall never forget this sight presented to my imagination, for I know that God had a care for His servant and His love was toward him, His everlasting arms beneath him.--Letter 40, 1878.
With this vision her heart was at rest. But on the part of her husband and children and the leading brethren in Battle Creek, there was considerable concern for her, especially after receiving her letter describing the ocean trip and sickness, suffering, and weakness. Unbeknown to her, at sunset on Friday evenings, her husband, her family, S. N. Haskell, D. M. Canright, and the Battle Creek church were taking her case to the throne of grace. "Please unite with us," James wrote to his wife. "God will hear us pray, and let us live to act some humble part in His great work."--JW to EGW, June 25, 1878. "Don't be worried about me, for I am doing well."--The Signs of the Times, June 27, 1878.
But back to the vision given while she was speaking that Friday morning. In her account of the experience as given in the Testimony article, she wrote first of how James White's "face bore the marks of health, and he was apparently very happy." She described the scope of that very brief vision and just what took place:
His [God's] goodness and glory impressed my mind in a remarkable manner. I was overwhelmed with a sense of His unparalleled mercies and of the work He was doing, not only in Oregon, and in California and Michigan, where our important institutions are located, but also in foreign countries. I can never represent to others the picture that vividly impressed my mind on that occasion.
For a moment the extent of the work came before me, and I lost sight of my surroundings. The occasion and the people I was addressing passed from my mind. The light, the precious light from heaven, was shining in great brilliancy upon those institutions which are engaged in the solemn and elevated work of reflecting the rays of light that heaven has let shine upon them.--Testimonies for the Church, 4:291.
But this was not the only vision given to Ellen White while in Oregon. Of this she wrote:
All through this camp meeting the Lord seemed very near me.... Just before the camp meeting commenced, in the night season, many things were opened to me in vision; but silence was enjoined upon me that I should not mention the matter to anyone at that time. After the meeting closed, I had in the night season another remarkable manifestation of God's power.--Ibid.
After the Oregon Camp Meeting
On Sunday, people came in droves from the surrounding country. Two thousand people heard subjects relating to the faith and hope of Seventh-day Adventists. At two in the afternoon Ellen White spoke on her favorite subject for such occasions--true temperance (Letter 38, 1878; The Review and Herald, July 18, 1878).
The closing service was held Tuesday morning, July 2. Ellen White reported, "Brother [William L.] Raymond was ordained. It was a precious hour with softened hearts."--Letter 40, 1878. His name will be mentioned again in a chapter reporting other journeys Ellen White took to Oregon.
Sunday afternoon, July 7, she spoke to 250 in the public square in a beautiful grove of evergreens. Her subject was "The Simplicity of Gospel Religion." "I have been treated with the greatest courtesy and kindness by denominational ministers and people," she wrote to her husband in Battle Creek. "That bigoted feeling we have had to contend with in the Methodist church [in---] does not exist here to any great extent."--Letter 39, 1878. She spoke again on Tuesday evening in the Methodist church.
This was really a follow-up appointment, for upon arriving in Oregon, she had been requested to speak on temperance in that church. On the Sunday before the camp meeting she had done so, addressing an unusually large audience. On that same day she had visited the State prison and in a morning service spoke to 150 inmates. "I was surprised to see so fine a company of intelligent men," she wrote. As her heart went out to the men she talked to them on the love of God and the reward to be given to the final overcomer (Letter 32, 1878). The warden's wife (who had been present), when introduced to Ellen White, exclaimed:
I would not have lost this opportunity to hear what I have heard for anything. It was all so clear, so simple, and yet so elevating. Women can do far more than men in speaking to these convicts. They can come straight to their hearts.--Ibid.
Telling the experience to her husband, Ellen said, "I tried to imagine the youth around me as my boys, and to talk with them from a mother's heart of love and sympathy."--Ibid.
As Ellen White left Oregon, there were three ordained ministers--Van Horn, Raymond, and Alonzo T. Jones--and six licensed ministers in the conference (The Signs of the Times, July 18, 1878; Letter 40, 1878).
One family, the Donaldsons, particularly impressed Ellen White. They were new believers and "pillars in the church," attractive and promising. Their teen-age daughter was eager for a Christian education, and both the family and Ellen White felt that she should attend Battle Creek College. Accordingly, arrangements were made for Edith to accompany Ellen on her return to California en route to Battle Creek. "She is an only daughter," Ellen wrote James. "I want her to board at our house and receive all the attention she needs." She described her as "a girl of rare promise," one they could take into their home and heart as a daughter (Letter 40, 1878).
Return to California
With Edith Donaldson, Ellen White boarded the steamer Idaho on Wednesday, July 10, bound for San Francisco for a trip that turned out to be not quite as tempestuous as the one going to Oregon. The captain allowed her to keep her porthole open, and she relished the fresh air until a huge wave washed into the cabin, soaking everything. The steward who set things in order closed the porthole, and thus, commented Ellen White, "ended the fresh air I was to have in my stateroom" (Letter 40a, 1878).
She wrote of the pleasure she received by watching a school of whales, and commented on "these monsters of the deep spouting the water high up from the ocean," a little diversity in a monotonous journey. She took pleasure in sharing with fellow passengers some of the publications on present truth.
She anticipated remaining in California, pressing on with her writing, visiting the churches, and then attending the California camp meeting, scheduled for mid-September. But on June 27 the General Conference Committee, with her husband as chairman, urged her presence at the forthcoming General Conference session scheduled for early October. She had felt that her presence was unnecessary, but in the face of the formal and urgent request she quickly adjusted her plans to enable her to attend not only the session but some of the Eastern camp meetings as well. Responding on July 27 to a telegram from her husband, she wrote:
When your telegram reached us, we were packed. My appointments had gone to Sacramento and Reno.... I must speak [in the] East if I cross the Plains this fall. I shall attend all the camp meetings I can and shall do my uttermost to arouse the people of God from this stupor and lethargy.... My soul feels to the very depths the necessity of a close walk with God if anything is done to resist and press back the moral darkness that is crowded in everywhere.--Letter 42, 1878.
The next Sunday, July 28, she, Edith Donaldson, and Emma White were on the train headed for the East, with stopovers planned for Reno, Nevada, where J. N. Loughborough was holding an evangelistic effort, and in Colorado, where she was to meet vacationing James and other members of the family.
James White had arrived in Battle Creek on June 5, intending to go into the Sanitarium for a month or two, for rest and to receive treatments (The Signs of the Times, May 30, 1878). In Battle Creek he found W. C. White and Mary and soon had interviews with them and Dr. John Kellogg. Learning the facts concerning the Sanitarium, he wrote for the Review:
We are surprised at the prosperity of the institution. The building is completed and completely furnished. It has capacity sufficient to treat three hundred patients. There are one hundred and twenty here today. The reputation of this institution is such abroad, and especially in this city and State, and the people have such confidence in the integrity of Seventh-day Adventists, that three hundred can be gathered here as well as one hundred.--The Review and Herald, June 13, 1878.
By June 24, James could write to his wife, "I report myself very much improved."
He found he could employ Willie Cornell to write in shorthand his letters and manuscripts for books and articles. In two days he could do what would take a whole week alone, and he reported that he was doing a great deal of writing. In this letter he assured Ellen that he had written to her each day since leaving Healdsburg on May 31, except one day. Not all these letters were preserved.
Plans for the Dime Tabernacle
By Thursday, June 27, all three members of the General Conference Committee, S. N. Haskell, D. M. Canright, and James White, were in Battle Creek, and they could hold a meeting. The principal item for study was the "enlargement of the work in all of its departments," as called for at the special session of the General Conference held in early March, and to devise ways to take advantage of the providential openings.
A second item was the proposition of providing in Battle Creek a more adequate house of worship. Now in late June the General Conference Committee laid plans for the construction of a new building. It authorized the publication in the Review of an "Address and Appeal," setting forth the circumstances under which the committee felt justified calling upon the whole denomination for financial support. The argument was this: The present Battle Creek church was adequate for the local congregation. But the college, which drew in more than four hundred students, and the Sanitarium, capable of housing three hundred guests and calling for fifty employees, threw unusual demands upon the Battle Creek church. Also, a place of adequate size was needed for sessions of the General Conference, with delegates from all the States.
The suggestion was an edifice capable of seating two thousand persons. If this was in the form of a tabernacle rather than a formal church building, it could most likely be constructed for about $10,000 or less. The cost of materials and labor was at a low point, which would make building at once attractive and possible, but to do so, the churches must rally to the project. The Battle Creek church could be responsible for only half the proposed investment (Ibid., July 4, 1878).
At a meeting of the General Conference Committee held July 3, plans for building were crystallized. There would be an immediate beginning, on the site of the present church, where believers had worshiped for twelve years (Ibid., July 25, 1878). The building should be capable of seating three thousand persons on special occasions. As to financing the project, the proposal ran:
That the funds to build this house be raised by monthly contributions from any and all persons, men, women, and children, who shall esteem it a pleasure to contribute to such a house.
That the amount of these monthly contributions be ten cents from each contributor....
That these, and all others who can do so, pay one dollar or more each, in advance, during the month of July, 1878....
That the proposed house of worship, on account of the manner of raising funds for it, be called the Dime Tabernacle.--Ibid., July 11, 1878
The Tithe
Another matter receiving consideration at the time was the basis for calculating the tithe. In 1858, a plan known as "Systematic Benevolence" had been recommended as a means of providing support for the work of the ministry. It called for regular contributions and the tithe. The tithe was to be figured on the basis of the church member's property holdings. It was thought that property should yield 10 percent income per year, and this amount should be regarded as the amount to be tithed. But more and more, church members were working for pay rather than farming their own land, and Canright and White saw that to ascertain the tithe on the basis of property holdings, namely 1 percent of property values per year, excused those who had incomes other than from property.
Through 1877 and 1878, articles in the Review canvassed the subject. Four extended editorials signed J. W. appeared in the Review during August and September, 1878 (August 29 to September 19). In these articles James White cited several cases of attitudes toward personal possessions and the support of the cause of God, representing both liberality and stinginess, giving only initials as identification of persons concerned.
Off for a Vacation in Colorado
With plans for building and financing the Dime Tabernacle, and with a move well under way to lead the members of the church to understand their responsibility in the matter of the tithe, James White was ready to leave for Colorado for the long-anticipated few weeks' period of rest and relaxation in the Rocky Mountains. But first there was one more task in Battle Creek, a pleasurable one. It was the baptism of Addie Walling, one of the girls James and Ellen White were caring for and educating. In touching words he presented the situation and its involvements in the Review of July 4, 1878, under the heading "Baptism."
Sabbath afternoon, June 29, 1878, we had the pleasure of burying four precious souls by baptism in the Kalamazoo River, at Battle Creek. A large audience gathered at the riverside, where we have probably, during the last thirty years, baptized more than one thousand persons. Not that the Battle Creek church numbers that, but as our General Conference in times past has almost always been held here, and as at such annual meetings there are more or less to be baptized, and as the brethren have usually given us the pleasure of being administrator, we think we have not stated the number too high.
The next Thursday evening, July 4, at eleven o'clock, James White, accompanied by Canright and Mary White, left for Colorado. William White, who delayed going on account of the promotion of the Dime Tabernacle, expected to join them soon. Ellen hoped that she might also spend some time there on her anticipated journey east (Ibid., July 11, 1878). On reaching Colorado, the traveling party took up residence in their mountain retreat, a cabin at Walling's Mills. This was near Rollinsville, some thirty miles west of Denver and about fifteen miles southwest of Boulder. Mr. Walling operated several sawmills in that general area.
Reports and letters through July and August indicate that James White benefited much from the stay in the mountains. But the time was not altogether spent in rest. While there he and his companions were able to lend support to an evangelistic series of meetings conducted in Boulder by M. E. Cornell.
Ellen White, accompanied by Emma, Edson's wife, and Edith Donaldson, reached Boulder, Colorado, on August 3. Even before getting to the vacationing family she was pressed into service in a temperance meeting Sunday afternoon in the evangelistic tent. Her address awakened a new interest in the subject, and she was asked to speak again the next Sunday evening on the same topic. The tent was filled that evening with "a very fine congregation." She reported on the results:
My speaking in Boulder City gave a spring to the work and silenced the opposition in a great degree. I speak again next Sunday.--Letter 43, 1878.
As to James White's health, she observed in a letter to Lucinda Hall:
I find Father every way improved. It is cool here all the time.... Father is himself again in almost all things. He is always cheerful.--Ibid.
Pressing on to the Eastern Camp Meetings
But her stay with the family in the mountains of Colorado was short-lived. On Tuesday, August 20, with Edith Donaldson as a traveling companion, she was on her way east. She would meet James White again in Battle Creek at the Michigan camp meeting in late September. On a postcard to James she expressed her feelings:
We feel that we will get through all right. I feel that I am in the way of duty, although I am very tired.... I hope you will ...go over to the park and have a pleasant camping trip. You may never have as good a time again to make this trip.--Letter 45, 1878.
She arrived at Battle Creek late Friday, and as she stepped off the railroad car Dr. Kellogg greeted her warmly. Early Sabbath morning and again Sabbath afternoon many of her old friends called to greet her, and some to visit. Among these were Uriah Smith, Canright, and Professor Sidney Brownsberger. As they talked over situations and needs they decided that Ellen White should go with Smith and Eugene Farnsworth to New England. They would leave for the Ballard Vale, Massachusetts, camp meeting the coming Monday.
When Ellen White wrote to her husband and the children in Colorado late in the day, she not only reported the happenings since arriving in Battle Creek but also gave a bit of advice, and she did it with zest:
We hope you will be cheerful and happy while you are in the mountains. This precious opportunity of being all together as you now are may never come to you again. Make the most of it. Do not regard this time of recreation as a drudgery or a task. Lay aside your work; let the writings go. Go over into the park and see all that you can. Get all the pleasure you can out of this little season. I sometimes fear we do not appreciate these precious opportunities and privileges until they pass, and it is too late.
Father, our writing can be done in the winter. Lay it aside now. Throw off every burden, and be a carefree boy again. Will and Mary, if they stay in the mountains a few weeks longer, should neither study nor write. They should be made happy for this season, that they may be able to look back to this time as a season of unalloyed pleasure.... The few days you now have together, improve. Roam about, camp out, fish, hunt, go to places that you have not seen, rest as you go, and enjoy everything. Then come back to your work fresh and vigorous....
Father needs to be a boy again. Roam all around. Climb the mountain steeps. Ride horseback. Find something new each day to see and enjoy. This will be for Father's health. Do not spend any anxious thought on me. You will see how well I will appear after the camp meetings are over.... Strive to make each other happy. Then angels will look on and smile, and they will write for you a record that you will not be ashamed to read.--Letter 1, 1878.
The next day, Sunday, Ellen White was pressed on short notice, into taking the night meeting in "the mammoth tent" pitched on the grounds of Battle Creek College (Testimonies for the Church, 4:298). Then, with Mary Abbey as a traveling companion (Ibid., 4:298), she was off to the camp meetings in Massachusetts and Maine.
The Michigan Camp Meeting
What was billed as "the national camp meeting" was held on the fairgrounds in Battle Creek October 2 to 14, combined with the General Conference session. All reports were to the effect that this was the largest gathering of Seventh-day Adventists ever held (Ibid., 4:301The Review and Herald, October 17, 1878). There were 135 tents on the grounds, and of course, because it was held in Battle Creek, many who attended stayed in their own homes. On Sabbath, October 5, 2,500 Sabbathkeepers were on the grounds. Some forty ministers were present, including J. N. Andrews and D. T. Bourdeau from Europe and Loughborough from California.
As to the participation of James and Ellen White, she reported:
The Lord gave me strength to speak to the people nearly every day, and sometimes twice a day. My husband labored very hard. He was present at nearly all the business meetings, and preached almost every day in his usual plain, pointed style.
I did not think I should have strength to speak more than twice or three times during the meeting; but as the meeting
progressed, my strength increased. Upon several occasions I stood on my feet four hours, inviting the people forward for prayers. I never felt the special help of God more sensibly than during this meeting. Notwithstanding these labors, I steadily increased in strength. And to the praise of God I here record the fact that I was far better in health at the close of that meeting than I had been for six months.--Testimonies for the Church, 4:302.
She characterized the meetings as of "solemn power and of the deepest interest," leading to conversions to the truth; "infidels were convicted, and took their stand under the banner of Prince Immanuel." "This meeting," she wrote, "was a decided victory. One hundred and twelve were baptized before its close."--Ibid.
The Vision of Wednesday, October 9
A vision of far-reaching consequence was given to Ellen White during this important meeting. She described what took place:
On Wednesday of the second week of the meeting a few of us united in prayer for a sister who was afflicted with despondency. While praying I was greatly blessed. The Lord seemed very near. I was taken off in a vision of God's glory and shown many things. I then went to meeting, and with a solemn sense of the condition of our people I made brief statements of the things which had been shown me. I have since written out some of these testimonies to individuals, appeals to ministers, and in various other articles given in this book [Testimony 28].--Ibid.
One of the testimonies to individuals, delivered most likely only in oral form, was addressed to James White--a reproof for his course of action just before the combined camp meeting and General Conference session. He and Uriah Smith held conflicting views on the prophecy of the "king of the North" pictured in Daniel 11, and the power presented in verse 45 that would come to his end with none to help him. White, in his Sabbath morning address September 28 in the newly pitched camp-meeting tent, countered Smith's interpretations. He felt that Smith's approach, indicating that the world was on the verge of Armageddon, would threaten the strong financial support needed for the rapidly expanding work of the church.
Ellen White's message to her husband was a reproof for taking a course that would lead the people to observe differences of opinion among leaders and to lower their confidence in them. For the church leaders to stand in a divided position before the people was hazardous. James White accepted the reproof, but it was one of the most difficult experiences he was called to cope with, for he felt he was doing the right thing. At no time did Ellen White reveal which man was right in the position he held. That was not the issue. The crux of the matter was the importance of leaders presenting a united front before the people.