Ellen White's arrival back in the United States had been eagerly awaited. For two years she had been overseas, and the hearts of Seventh-day Adventists were made glad when they read the notice in the Review and Herald that she was back in the United States.
As early as July 12, the readers of the Review had been informed that Mrs. White might return to this country in time to attend some of the later camp meetings. The July 19 issue carried an announcement that the New England meeting had been advanced a week so they might be "favored with the presence and labors of Sister White, which can be secured at no other date."
As she entered on camp meeting work, she wrote to Mrs. Ings, still back in England, telling her that she was doing well, that her health was "never better," and that she was doing much work.
After the New England meeting in Massachusetts, she attended in rapid succession camp meetings in Ohio, Illinois, and New York. Then she had a week in Battle Creek before the opening of the workers' meeting that preceded the camp meeting at Grand Rapids. As usual, the Sabbath intervening (September 17) was a busy day for her, with the Tabernacle service in the morning and an address to the college students in the afternoon.
With Sara she went on to Grand Rapids to attend the Michigan camp meeting, which opened September 27. According to Uriah Smith's editorial report, two thousand people were camping on the grounds, in 350 family tents. The presence of Ellen White, W. C. White, and O. A. Olsen, just returned from Europe, added interest.
The preaching was free, and well received by the people. Sister White spoke fifteen times. There were about six thousand out to hear her on Sunday afternoon.--The Review and Herald, October 11, 1887.
Ellen White was eager to press on to California and her home, to bury herself in the final work on the enlargement of The Great Controversy and Patriarchs and Prophets. The camp meeting closed on Monday morning, October 3. Tuesday she spent in Battle Creek. In the evening, in response to the request of some of the prominent citizens of Battle Creek, she addressed a packed house in the Tabernacle on "Christian temperance as related to the home and to society." The next day the Battle Creek Journal reported:
There was a good attendance, including a large number of our most prominent people, at the lecture of Mrs. Ellen G. White at the Tabernacle last evening.
This lady gave her audience a most eloquent discourse, which was listened to with marked interest and attention. Her talk was interspersed with instructive facts which she had gathered in her recent visit to foreign lands, and demonstrated that this gifted lady has, in addition to her many other rare qualifications, a great faculty for attentive, careful observation, and a remarkable memory of details. This, together with her fine delivery and her faculty of clothing her ideas in choice, beautiful, and appropriate language, made her lecture one of the best that has ever been delivered by any lady in our city. That she may soon favor our community with another address is the earnest wish of all who attended last evening; and should she do so, there will be a large attendance.--October 5, 1887 (in Ibid., October 11, 1887).
On to Her California Home
The same page in the Review that carried the above report also informed the readers:
Sister White, W. C. White and family, and others, sufficient to make a party of fourteen, left Battle Creek on the midnight train, October 4, for California.--Ibid.
Mary had been at the Battle Creek Sanitarium for two months; she was now on her way west with her family, bound for St. Helena and Ellen White's cottage, Iliel, close to the Rural Health Retreat. Ellen White would return to her Healdsburg home, not far from the college. But first she would attend two camp meetings, and then the General Conference session. She reached the West Coast while the Oakland camp meeting was in progress and joined in the work there. In November she attended a camp meeting in Los Angeles.
The General Conference Session of 1887
The twenty-sixth annual session of the General Conference was held in the Oakland church; it opened on Sunday morning, November 13. Ellen White, residing temporarily in the city, was present for many of the meetings. It was very much of a working conference, with the time divided between reports of the progress of the cause, meetings of the various auxiliary organizations, and the regular sessions of the General Conference. Butler presided. Ellen White wrote to Mary of the session:
We have had a good meeting from the beginning. We have representation of delegates that we are not ashamed of. They do credit to the cause of God west of the Rocky Mountains.--Letter 51c, 1887.
A General Conference Bulletin covered the meeting, the first such report to be issued in connection with such meetings. It reveals that half of each day was given to regular session business; the other half related to the interests of the publishing work, the educational work, Sabbath school work, et cetera.
There were several discussions concerning a missionary boat for the South Pacific. The question of racial color line was introduced, but when it was found that the work of the church in the Southern States could be carried on discreetly without pressing this matter, it was dropped without official record or action. The Sunday law issue, now becoming prominent because of the Blair Sunday bill, [For many years sunday legislation had been on the statute books of several states. Early in 1888, senator H. W. Blair, of New Hampshire, introduced into the united states congress a bill that, if passed, would have enforced in all federal territories the observance of sunday as a day of worship. An amendment to the constitution to that effect had also been proposed. For several years national sunday legislation threatened religious freedom in the United States.] was discussed. Plans were laid for a mass move in securing signatures opposing such legislation by the Congress of the United States. The Foreign Mission Board was pulled together into a stronger organization, and W. C. White was continued as secretary. Careful study was given to the literature program of the church, both production and distribution, and a book committee was created to give guidance in the choice of materials to be processed in the church's publishing houses.
Dr. J. H. Kellogg was present; in addition to giving several addresses on various phases of the medical work, he spoke of the education of nurses. These interests found their way in the departmental meetings. Ellen White was quick to speak to some of the resolutions, urging broad plans. Financial matters called for attention, as did the transfer of laborers from one field to another. All of this was done against a backdrop of reports given each evening concerning the progress of the work of the church.
The last meeting took action recommending those who should receive ministerial credentials. Ellen White's name was among those voted to receive papers of the ordained ministers, although her ordination was not by the laying on of hands by men. The conference session closed on November 27.
The session over, Ellen White finally returned to her Healdsburg home. On December 8, W. C. White wrote to E. R. Palmer in Battle Creek of the situation of the two families:
Mother has gone to Healdsburg to spend the winter and my family are at St. Helena. Mary is not improving as we hoped she would. Our hope is that the Lord will arrest the disease.--A-2 WCW, p. 413.
The Winter in California
"I am planning to do a large work this winter," wrote Ellen White to Haskell on December 8. She continued:
Marian Davis is still on volume 4 [The Great Controversy]. I hope it will be finished ere long and she go back to volume 1 [Patriarchs and Prophets] again.--Letter 23, 1887.
Getting settled in her Healdsburg home, a home she loved, with her literary helpers about her, Ellen White gave attention to facets of the program that would build for spiritual strength. Of this she wrote:
I commenced in the arrangement of my family, to make the most perfect arrangement for religious things. We have prayers at half past six in the morning and precisely at seven in the evening, where all are expected to pray and nothing is to be allowed to interfere. If company comes, I tell them we have a special hour for prayer and if they choose to remain, they can do so.
We read a chapter in the Bible, sing a few verses, then everyone prays. Then we have a half-hour for singing again.--Letter 23b, 1887.
Ellen White might call for her favorite song, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Other "family" members, knowing her preferences, which were often their own, would make suggestions; most may be found in The Church Hymnal, but some only in the older Hymns and Tunes:
"We Speak of the Realms of the Blest" "One More Day's Work for Jesus" "I'm a Pilgrim and a Stranger" "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" "I Will Follow Thee, My Saviour" "There Were Ninety and Nine" "There Are Angels Hovering Round" "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"
She enjoyed singing cheerful songs such as "There Is Sunlight on the Hilltop," "Let Us Gather Up the Sunbeams," and "Lord, in the Morning." She might call for the hymn written by William Hyde after he heard her in 1845 tell of her first vision of the new earth--"We Have Heard From the Bright, the Holy Land"--DF 245g, Ella M. Robinson, in "Hymns Loved and Sung by Ellen White." [Other E. G. White favorites were numbers 222, 617, 551, and 397, in The Church Hymnal (Review and Herald).]
Except for an occasional visit to St. Helena to keep in close contact with the Retreat, which was having some problems, and to spend a little time with Mary, who was becoming weaker, Ellen White, through January, February, and the first two weeks of March, was in Healdsburg, pursuing her work on Patriarchs and Prophets. But pressures were mounting for her to visit various parts of the field: Nevada, Fresno, Lemoore, Los Angeles, and San Diego. She decided to attend the early camp meetings at Selma, near Fresno, and at Reno, Nevada.
At Fresno and Selma
On Friday, March 16, 1888, she was in Fresno for a few days. Writing of her visit, she said that the climate was mild; in this city of ten thousand there were about a hundred Adventists, meeting in a comfortable but much-too-small building.
As the Selma camp meeting closed on Monday morning, April 2, a comfortable carriage awaited her. Mr. and Mrs. Paddock were ready to drive her the thirty-five miles into the mountains to Burrough Valley, where they and several Adventist families lived. Ellen White wrote of her impressions:
We found Burrough Valley to be a delightful place, with a good climate. The scenery is beautiful and the valley is encompassed with hills, as was Jerusalem with mountains.--The Review and Herald, July 3, 1888.
She was well impressed with the mild climate and with the fact that there were no strong winds. Thinking of Mary, she said, "I am exploring all the places in the valley, taking in its advantages and disadvantages." The advantages outweighed, she thought, the disadvantages (Letter 55a, 1888).
Back in Fresno she and Mr. Church were called to the home of a church member and his wife, named Driver; soon an attorney was summoned. Of the visit, she reported:
Brother Driver ...was sick unto death. We found our brother suffering much bodily pain. His end was very near. We had a season of prayer for him, and committed him to God, for his sufferings were almost over. His last work was to return to the Lord a portion of the substance He had entrusted to him as His steward. It was a solemn scene to see this man doing up his last work for time and eternity. The record of his life had been registered in the books of heaven.--The Review and Herald, July 3, 1888.
What Shall the Messenger of God Do?
Just what led Ellen White to write as she did in the Review and Herald of her work in Fresno is not clear, but the circumstances called from her a thought-provoking statement about her responsibilities as the messenger of the Lord.
The messengers, as the ambassadors of God, must bear a living testimony to rebuke sin, which will cut through the soul, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear. There are many who close their eyes that they may not see, and their ears that they may not hear. They think that there has been a mistake made, that all these plain, pointed testimonies cannot come from God, but are from human agencies alone.
They wrap themselves up in their self-righteousness, and fight every inch of the way, that they may stand where they imagine they should stand--in defiance of the warnings of God's servants. They cling with desperate grasp to the garments of their own self-righteousness, lest they should be torn away from them.
But does not God know? Is there not knowledge with the Most High? Our God sees our hearts in a different light from that in which we see them. He is acquainted with our secret thoughts. He searches into the hidden recesses of our nature. He sends answers to our prayers, when we are filled with uneasiness and distress. He gives ear to our inward groanings, and reveals to us the plague spots in our characters, that we may overcome defects, instead of being overcome by them.
Then she pointed out the crucial experience in accepting testimonies that call for changes in life and practice:
When unknown chapters in regard to ourselves are opened before us, the test and the trial come; and the question is, whether or not we will accept the reproof and the counsel of God. Will we cling to our own ideas and plans, and value ourselves more highly than we ought?
God knows better than we do what is good for His children; and if they could see their real necessity as He does, they would say that the Lord had dealt most wisely with them. The ways of the Lord are obscure to him who desires to see things in a pleasing light to himself.
God can discern the end of His purposes from the beginning; but because the Lord's ways are not man's ways, they appear dark, severe, and painful to our human natures. But God's ways are ways of mercy, and their end is salvation and blessedness.--Ibid., July 3, 1888.
After portraying the purposes of God in sending such messages of counsel and reproof, Ellen White in this statement turns to the plight of the prophet:
What shall we do? Shall we bear the message God gives us, or shall we refrain, for fear of offending our brethren? As God's messengers, we cannot falter in the path of duty. Impelled by the Spirit of God, words are spoken, warnings and counsels are given. All unexpectedly the lips were opened, and there was no refraining from speaking the message of God. Reproofs were uttered that we would naturally shrink from giving. A zeal, prompted by the Spirit of God, led us to declare the dangers that threatened the children of God.
The servant of the Lord must pursue His work, losing sight of self, without thought of the consequences, exhorting to faithfulness, and urging to repentance. He must show the people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. The Lord has given the word; who can forbear to publish it? The love of Christ has a constraining power; who shall withstand its influence? It is the greatest evidence that God loves His people, that He sends them messages of warning.--Ibid.
Avoid Satan's Entangling Net
The paragraphs that follow this heart-searching statement give strong evidence that this depicted Ellen White's experience with the Fresno church. "This occasion in Fresno," she wrote, "was characterized by deep searching of heart. Many confessions were made, and yet the work was far from being thorough." Continuing to carry a heavy burden of heart, she stated:
If the Spirit of God is not cherished, and the light He sends is not appreciated, darkness will surely shut in about the soul. Parents and children need the counsel of Heaven. They need a deeper experience than they have ever had before. God's word warns them to shun the enemy's ground. They are not to be entangled in Satan's net, which he has set to catch the souls of men.--Ibid.
She enumerates some of the snares:
Christians are not watchful. They yield to the baleful influences that surround them. They are led captive by Satan at his will.--Ibid.
The people of God, who have been blessed with great light in regard to the truth for this time, should not forget that they are to be waiting and watching for the coming of their Lord in the clouds of heaven.... Let no man set up his idols of gold, or silver, or lands, and give the service of his heart to this world, and to its interests.
There is a mania for speculating in land pervading both city and country. The old, safe, healthful paths of competence are losing their popularity. The idea of accumulating substantial means by the moderate gains of industry and frugality is an idea that is scorned by many as no longer suited to this progressive age.--Ibid., July 10, 1888.
Another danger that threatens the church is individual independence. There is a manifest disregard of the prayer of Christ that His brethren should be one, as He and the Father were one. Let the church, to a man, feel its responsibility to preserve harmony of thought and action. Let every member seek to be in accord with the truth, and with the brethren.--Ibid.
Back to Her Work in the North
From Fresno, Ellen White returned to her Healdsburg home and her work on book manuscripts. On May 4 she was back at St. Helena. She was deeply pained as she saw Mary and thought of her self-sacrificing labor in the cold stone building in Switzerland where disease fixed itself on her. How Mary did appreciate having her husband with her in the little cottage near the Health Retreat, but he was often called away for important meetings. Wrote Ellen White:
Stern duty calls him here and there, and although he bears a very sad heart as he sees Mary--who has been so unselfish, so forgetful of self--weak and an invalid, yet he tries to be cheerful and never speaks one word of repining. He talks with me, and weeps over things sometimes.--Letter 75, 1888.
As Mary continued to lose ground physically, a decision was reached to take her to the warmer and more stable climate of Burrough Valley, where Ellen White had recently visited. With the help of Mrs. McOmber, Willie took Mary to the valley. The next day Ellen White, with Sara, left for her camp meeting appointment at Reno, Nevada (Letter 27, 1888). It was her plan that after the Nevada camp meeting she, too, would go to Burrough Valley and spend a couple of months in writing. She stated:
I have had but little time to write since coming from Europe. It has been one succession of meetings that have called forth labor from me. I do want to rest, for I need it so much. The perplexities that we have had to meet in St. Helena, Fresno, and other places have taken all joy out of my heart, and I have thought perhaps this work would continue till we reach the end.--Letter 27, 1888.
The camp meeting held in Reno, commencing May 24, was well attended.
Before it closed, a group picture was taken. Sara, in a postscript to an E. G. White letter, describes the experience: "The whole camp arrayed themselves before the large pavilion and had a picture taken."--Letter 27a, 1888. Surrounding Ellen White were Sara and the ministers who were present--McClure, L. A. Scott, Derrick, Loughborough, and Hickox, who carried the meeting through.
According to plans, following the Reno camp meeting, Ellen White went to Burrough Valley to take up her writing and to be near Mary.
Late July found Ellen White back in her Healdsburg home. Jenny Ings had recently come to join her staff and was at the moment working with May Walling canning peaches and plums from the White orchard. Marian Davis would be coming in a few days, and Ellen White wrote hopefully, "Shall be glad to get all together again and settle in to earnest work."--Letter 78, 1888.
The Angels Don't Sing That Way
One summer evening, while Ellen White was making a short visit to the Health Retreat, she spoke at the prayer meeting. She selected a certain hymn that fitted her subject. The hymn was announced. The congregation stood and in the warm evening began to sing listlessly. The music dragged monotonously. Then Ellen White held up her hand. "Stop!" she ordered. "Stop!"
I have heard the angels sing. They do not sing as you are singing tonight. They sing with reverence, with meaning. Their hearts are in their expressions of song. Now, let us try again and see if we can put our hearts into the singing of this song.
When they began again, the singing was with expression and with feeling, as if they really meant the words that came from their lips. [As told the author by A. P. Guyton, longtime painter at the sanitarium, who was present.]
August brought announcements of the General Conference session to be held in Minneapolis, to open on October 17. Ellen White would attend.
Before long, accompanied by Sara McEnterfer and her son, W. C. White, she was on the train, en route to Minneapolis.