As the passengers of the Wairarapa woke up Sunday morning, they discovered that they were at anchor off Napier. Ellen White describes the little city as "a beautiful place, the resident portion of the town being built on a series of high hills overlooking the sea" (Ibid., June 6, 1893). She, W. C. White, and Emily were taken to the comfortable home of the Doctors Caro, [The husband, a physician, was cordial but not an adventist. The wife, a dentist, corresponded often with Ellen White.] not far from where preparations were already under way for the camp meeting. They were to be entertained there for the full time. A two-wheeled horse-drawn rig was made available for Ellen White's use in getting to the meetings.
Arrangements had been made for her to speak Sunday evening in the Theater Royal, and she presented her favorite theme, "The Love of God," to an attentive audience. The next three days were devoted to getting ready for the meeting. Two large tents were pitched. Notice had been sent to the churches weeks before, but the response was poor, so plans for a dining tent and a reception tent were dropped. Only a few family tents were pitched. It was expected that the restaurant in town could serve whatever food was needed.
However, by midweek boats and trains brought delegations from the churches, fully doubling the number expected. The camp meeting planners faced a minor crisis.
From the time plans were under way, Ellen White had urged that this first camp meeting must be a sample of what future camp meetings should be. Over and over again she declared: "'See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.' As a people," she said, "we have lost much by neglecting order and method." She commented, "Although it takes time and careful thought and labor, and often seems to make our work cost more, in the end we can see that it was a paying business to do everything in the most perfect manner."--Ibid. For the people to go uptown for their meals would, she pointed out, break into our program, waste precious time, and bring in a haphazard state of things that should be avoided" (Ibid.).
The camp was enlarged; more tents were procured, a reception tent was fitted up, and also a dining tent.
The food provided was plain, substantial, and plentiful. Instead of the dozen people expected, about thirty took their meals in the dining tent.
The first meeting held in the big tent was on Tuesday evening, in advance of the opening, and Stephen McCullagh spoke. On the first Sabbath afternoon Ellen White was the speaker. At the close of her address she extended invitations for a response, first from those who had never taken their stand for Christ and then from those "who professed to be the followers of Christ, who had not the evidence of His acceptance." The responses were encouraging. A hard rain had come up, and the big tent leaked in many places, but this did not worry the audience, for the interest in "eternal matters" was too deep to be affected by the surroundings. As the rain continued, George Starr gave precious instruction and exhorted the people. The meeting continued until sundown (Ibid.).
Sunday evening, six were baptized. Monday was devoted to business meetings.
In the evening McCullagh spoke on phrenology. The next morning in the six-o'clock testimony meeting, phrenology and spiritualism were seen to be topics in which there was great interest, so that morning, in place of the meetings that had been planned, Ellen White spoke on phrenology and its perils.
A day or two later one of the literature evangelists brought to Starr a pamphlet containing the sermon of an influential Wesleyan minister in New Zealand in which he defended "higher criticism" of the Bible and scoffed at the idea that all portions of the Bible were inspired. When it was announced that there would be an address on the subject, the people of Napier flocked out to hear. Many Adventists residing in the city where they were employed attended the early-morning and evening meetings. Ellen White was at most of the early meetings, but much of her time was spent writing in the Caro home.
The messages presented at the camp were very practical, she joining the ministers in their work. One morning she spoke on Sabbath observance, at another time on John 14 and the Christian's heavenly home, then on sanctification and transformation of character. The subject of "dress" was presented, and one evening the subject of the school in Australia was introduced and a call made for means. Ellen White spent thirty minutes recounting the establishment of Battle Creek College. It was a most profitable meeting. At a number of the meetings, only about half of the audience were Adventists.
One morning Ellen White, wanting to attend the early-morning meeting, found there was no transportation readily available. She tells the story in her diary:
The horse is in the pasture, and I decide to make an experiment of walking. I start on my way, but I see W. C. White behind me with a two-wheeled cart. He is between the fills, trotting along on the descending grade to overtake me. He insisted upon my taking my seat as usual and he drew the conveyance himself.
As he approached the encampment, Elder Starr saw him and came out to help him, and they drew up the vehicle to the very tent entrance. After the meeting opened, I spoke to the people.--Manuscript 78, 1893.
The camp meeting was scheduled to close on Wednesday, April 5, but boat transportation was delayed, and so meetings continued another day. A meeting for literature evangelists followed over the weekend. Ellen White remained for still another week in Napier; she and associate workers visited families and churches nearby. But much of her time was devoted to writing. She devoted one entire day during the camp meeting to getting materials off to Fanny Bolton and Marian Davis in Melbourne.
Two or three weeks after the camp meeting was over she wrote of its success to Harmon Lindsay in Battle Creek:
Our camp meeting in Napier was excellent from the commencement to the close. Several decided to observe the Sabbath for the first time, and some who had left the church came back.
One man named Anderson said, "The testimonies of Sister White drove me out of the church. I have been disconnected from the church three years. I bless God I came to this meeting, for I have heard the testimonies and believe them to be of God. It is the testimonies that have brought me back to the church."
He requested baptism and was as happy a man as there was upon the ground all through the meetings.--Letter 79, 1893.
Meeting Offshoot Teachings
The day before the camp meeting opened, Ellen White addressed a letter to a Mr. Stanton in America, who had begun to teach that the Seventh-day Adventist Church had, through apostasy, become Babylon. She wrote:
Dear Brother Stanton, I address to you a few lines. I am not in harmony with the position that you have taken, for I have been shown by the Lord that just such positions will be taken by those who are in error. Paul has given us a warning to this effect: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils."
My brother, I learn that you are taking the position that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon, and that all that would be saved must come out of her. You are not the only man whom the enemy has deceived in this matter. For the last forty years, one man after another has arisen, claiming that the Lord has sent him with the same message. But let me tell you ... that this message you are proclaiming is one of the satanic delusions designed to create confusion among the churches. My brother, you are certainly off the track.--Letter 57, 1893.
Mr. Stanton had published a pamphlet titled "The Loud Cry of the Third Angel's Message." In this he quoted freely from the Spirit of Prophecy messages of reproof and rebuke, forgetting that God had said, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten" (Revelation 3:19). He concluded that the testimonies of reproof constituted a message of rejection, and that those who would join in sounding the loud cry must withdraw from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The church, he asserted, had become Babylon, and those who would finish God's work in the earth and meet their Lord in peace must separate from the body. His pamphlet of more than fifty pages was made up largely of misapplied E. G. White messages pieced together with the compiler's comments. It also contained a personal testimony from her that somehow had come into Stanton's hands. This he had employed in a less-than-honorable fashion.
As she wrote most earnestly to him, she touched on several points:
Do not seek to misinterpret and twist and pervert the testimonies to substantiate any such message of error. Many have passed over this ground, and have done great harm. As others have started up full of zeal to proclaim this message, again and again I have been shown that it is not the truth....
God has a church upon the earth, who are His chosen people, who keep His commandments. He is leading, not stray offshoots, not one here and one there, but a people. The truth is a sanctifying power, but the church militant is not yet the church triumphant....
It is our individual duty to walk humbly with God. We are not to seek any strange, new message. We are not to think that the chosen ones of God who are trying to walk in the light compose Babylon. The fallen denominational churches are Babylon. Babylon has been fostering poisonous doctrines, the wine of error. This wine of error is made up of false doctrines, such as the natural immortality of the soul, the eternal torment of the wicked, the denial of the preexistence of Christ prior to His birth in Bethlehem, and advocating and exalting the first day of the week above God's holy, sanctified day.--Ibid.
In the weeks that followed, Ellen White wrote at length warnings to the church concerning this new "message." They appeared in a series of four articles published in the Review and Herald, from August 22 to September 12, under the title "The Remnant Church Not Babylon." The first opened with these words:
I have been made very sad in reading the pamphlet that has been issued by Brother Stanton and by those associated with him in the work he has been doing. Without my consent, they have made selections from the testimonies, and have inserted them in the pamphlet they have published, to make it appear that my writings sustain and approve the position they advocate.
In doing this, they have done that which is not justice or righteousness. Through taking unwarrantable liberties, they have presented to the people a theory that is of a character to deceive and destroy. In times past, many others have done this same thing, and have made it appear that the testimonies sustained positions that were untenable and false....
In the pamphlet published by Brother Stanton and his associates, he accuses the church of God of being Babylon, and would urge a separation from the church. This is a work that is neither honorable nor righteous. In compiling this work, they have used my name and writings for the support of that which I disapprove and denounce as error. The people to whom this pamphlet will come will charge the responsibility of this false position upon me, when it is utterly contrary to the teaching of my writings, and the light which God has given me. I have no hesitancy in saying that those who are urging on this work are greatly deceived.--The Review and Herald, August 22, 1893 (see also Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 32-36).
It was in this connection that Ellen White made a statement that has brought assurance and comfort to many:
Although there are evils existing in the church, and will be until the end of the world, the church in these last days is to be the light of the world that is polluted and demoralized by sin. The church, enfeebled and defective, needing to be reproved, warned, and counseled, is the only object upon earth upon which Christ bestows His supreme regard.--The Review and Herald, September 5, 1893 (see also Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 49).
Ellen White closed the series of articles by publishing in full her letter of March 22 to Mr. Stanton, quoted at the beginning of this section. As the clear-cut warnings and assurances reached Seventh-day Adventists through the Review and Herald, the threatening offshoot movement was checked and soon forgotten.
The W. F. Caldwell Mission to Australia
Before receiving Ellen White's testimony written March 22, Mr. Stanton commissioned one of his newly acquired disciples, W. F. Caldwell of Pennsylvania, to hasten to Australia to spread the message there and to gain Ellen White's support for the new movement. The two men of kindred minds, Stanton and Caldwell, had met in Battle Creek. They had spent three days together and had agreed on the urgency of Caldwell's Australian trip.
So eager and earnest was Caldwell, an Adventist of somewhat fluctuating experience, that when Stanton dispatched him to Australia he did not even return to his Pennsylvania home to bid his wife and two children goodbye. He never saw them again; his wife, not a Seventh-day Adventist, divorced him for deserting her, and refused to allow him to see the children.
In San Francisco another of Stanton's disciples gave Caldwell money and a steamship ticket, and he hastened on his way. Reaching Hobart, Tasmania, he was informed by George Starr that Ellen White was in New Zealand; he was further told that she had written a testimony to Stanton pointing out that he was "off the track." Caldwell was eager, of course, to see a copy of the testimony. Upon learning that a copy could be found at Melbourne with Sister White's papers, he was soon there and read the message.
The testimony unsettled him, but he was not convinced. Frustrated by the fact that Ellen White was in New Zealand and that he was without funds to travel there to see her, and feeling that she misunderstood the Stanton message on the loud cry, he wrote a letter to her and settled down to wait for a reply. "Then came the real struggle." He recounted his experience in the following words:
None but God knows how hard Satan and his emissaries worked for me during those few days of idleness; but Christ is able to save all who trust Him.
One Sunday I strolled down to the park where the Socialists were holding an open-air meeting. After listening to a part of three speeches, I turned away in disgust. You know how they talk, "Down with the government, down with the judges, away with these oppressive laws," et cetera, always trying to tear down, but never having any idea of a better way, or in fact, of any substitute.
The Spirit of the Lord was by my side, and showed me that I was doing the same kind of work. I could not silence that voice. The similarity of their work and mine opened before me more clearly every time I tried to excuse myself, until finally I gave in and confessed, like David, "I am the man." I went to my lodgings, and after much prayer, decided to give up the message, although still more than half believing that it was true, in part at least.--DF 463a, "A Confession," W. F. Caldwell to "Dear Brethren and Sisters," July 7, 1893 (The Review and Herald, September 19, 1893).
Caldwell had about made up his mind to give up his mission and return to the United States--he had sufficient money for a passage by steerage--when he received a response from Ellen White in New Zealand. It was tender, understanding, motherly:
Dear Brother Caldwell,
Your letter addressed to me was received at the beginning of the Sabbath.... I should advise you to attend the school, and not to leave this country until you become thoroughly settled in your mind as to what is truth. I sincerely hope that you will attend this term of school and learn all you can in regard to this message of truth that is to go to the world.
The Lord has not given you a message to call the Seventh-day Adventists Babylon, and to call the people of God to come out of her. All the reasons you may present cannot have weight with me on this subject, because the Lord has given me decided light that is opposed to such a message.
I do not doubt your sincerity or honesty.... You think individuals have prejudiced my mind. If I am in this state, I am not fitted to be entrusted with the work of God.--Letter 16, 1893; Selected Messages 2:63).
In a kindly way she reviewed a number of experiences, somewhat similar to Caldwell's, in which individuals felt they had some special message for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. (These may be read in Ibid., 2:64-66.) In this letter a most enlightening statement is made, identifying the "Laodiceans" whom Christ will spew out of His mouth:
God is leading out a people. He has a chosen people, a church on the earth, whom He has made the depositaries of His law. He has committed to them sacred trust and eternal truth to be given to the world. He would reprove and correct them.
The message to the Laodiceans is applicable to Seventh-day Adventists who have had great light and have not walked in the light. It is those who have made great profession, but have not kept in step with their Leader, that will be spewed out of His mouth unless they repent. The message to pronounce the Seventh-day Adventist Church Babylon, and call the people of God out of her, does not come from any heavenly messenger, or any human agent inspired by the Spirit of God.--Ibid., 2:66.
Caldwell accepted Ellen White's advice, abandoned the so-called new light, attended the Australasian Bible School in Melbourne, and then engaged in the literature work. A little later Ellen White employed him to assist with the work about her residence; he even copied on the typewriter some of her manuscripts. Some years later he returned to the United States and worked in the Pacific Northwest in the literature ministry. Thus the messenger of the Lord, while filling her assignments in somewhat pioneering work in local fields overseas, was ever ministering to the church throughout the world.
Good News from America
Mail, both going and coming, was an important part of the program of Ellen White and those who were with her in New Zealand.
Sunday, April 23, she arose early--at half past three--to prepare the mail bound for Melbourne, expecting it to leave on Monday.
That same Sunday, in came a large stack of letters. There was a long letter from O. A. Olsen, president of the General Conference, giving a full summary of the General Conference session and reporting on the confession of a number of prominent men who had taken a wrong position at the 1888 General Conference session.
Another letter was from Leroy Nicola, a prominent pastor in Iowa. It was the Nicola letter that brought her special rejoicing. It was a confession, "a most thorough confession of the part he acted in Minneapolis." Of this Ellen White wrote: "It is thorough, and I praise the Lord for the victory he has gained over the enemy who has held him four years from coming into the light. Oh, how hard it is to cure rebellion! How strong the deceiving power of Satan!"--Manuscript 80, 1893.
Ellen White could scarcely sleep that night. She writes:
The good news from America kept me awake. Oh, how my heart rejoices in the fact that the Lord is working in behalf of His people--in the information in the long letter from Elder Olsen, that the Lord by His Holy Spirit was working upon the hearts of those who have been in a large measure convinced of their true condition before God, yet have not humbled their hearts before to confess!
The Spirit of the Lord moved them to the point at this conference. Elder Morrison, who has been so long president of the Iowa Conference, made a full confession. Madison Miller, who has been under the same deceiving power of the enemy, made his confession, and thus the Lord is indeed showing Himself merciful and of tender compassion of His children who have not received the light He has given them, but have been walking and working in darkness.--Ibid.
As she wrote the next day of Leroy Nicola's experience to Harmon Lindsay, treasurer of the General Conference, she said, "I knew if he walked in the light that this must come.... My heart is rejoiced that he has yielded to the influence of the Holy Spirit. It has taken four years of striving of the Spirit of God to bring him to this."--Letter 79, 1893.
The Van Horn Confession
But, Nicola was not alone in resisting light in 1888. Another was Isaac Van Horn, who labored in Battle Creek and to whom on January 20 Ellen had written a testimony filling eleven pages: "I want to say a few words to you," she wrote, "to tell you some things which burden my heart. You are represented to me as not walking and working in the light as you think you are doing." She continued:
Again and again has the Lord presented before me the Minneapolis meeting. The developments there are but dimly seen by some, and the same fog which enveloped their minds on that occasion has not been dispelled by the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Notwithstanding the evidences of the power of God which attended the truth which was shining forth at that meeting, there were those who did not comprehend it.
In the blessings that have since accompanied the presentation of the truth, justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ, they have not discerned increased evidence from God as to where and how He is and has been working.--Letter 61, 1893.
She pleaded with Van Horn: "Why did you not receive the testimony the Lord sent you through Sister White? Why have you not harmonized with the light God has given you? ... Elder Van Horn, you need the quickening influence of the Spirit of God....I plead with you, dear brother, take off thy shoes from off thy feet, and walk softly before God."
The earnest testimony was used of God to save the man. In a four-page handwritten letter he reviewed his experience in receiving and accepting the testimony. He said:
This communication by your hand to me I heartily accept as a testimony from the Lord. It reveals to me the sad condition I have been in since the Minneapolis meeting, and this reproof from the Lord is just and true. Since it came, I see more than ever before the great sin it is to reject light. And this is made doubly sinful by my own stubborn will holding out so long against the light that has shone so brightly upon me.
He then related how, a few days before receiving the testimony, he began to see his true condition and on a Sabbath morning at the General Conference confessed his great wrong at Minneapolis and since then. He felt this experience was but paving the way for the testimony he was about to receive. Three days later, and still during the General Conference session, the testimony came. He told Ellen White what took place on receiving it:
Late in the evening I went to my room where all alone I read it three times over with much weeping, accepting it sentence by sentence as I read. I bowed before the Lord in prayer and confessed it all to Him. He heard my earnest plea, and for bitterness of soul He gave me peace and joy....
I could but thank Him for sending me this message, for it is a token of His love. "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."
The next morning he went into the ministers' meeting and made a most earnest and extended confession of his wrong before the men who knew of his course. It brought light and blessing to his soul. He could exclaim, "I am now a free man again, thank the Lord, having found pardon and peace."
Before closing his letter to Mrs. White, he wrote:
I shall need counsel and instruction. If you have anything further that would give me more light, showing me more clearly my true condition, I shall be very glad to receive it.--I. D. Van Horn to EGW, March 9, 1893.
In her five-page reply Ellen White declared:
I do accept your letter fully, and am very, very thankful your eyes have been anointed with the heavenly eyesalve, that you may see clearly and give to the flock of God meat in due season, which they do much need.--Letter 60, 1893.
When the testimonies were wholeheartedly received and accepted, joy came to Ellen White's heart. In addition to Isaac Van Horn and Leroy Nicola, word from O. A. Olsen told of others who were moved to confess at the 1893 General Conference session (Manuscript 80, 1893). A week later George I. Butler, residing in Florida, made a public confession through The Review and Herald, June 13, 1893 of wrong attitudes on his part and of his coming into line with his brethren. This left but very few holdouts among men of particular significance in the cause.