Lord, help me," Ellen White cried out in prayer Friday morning, October 11, 1895, as she tossed sleeplessly on her pillow in her Granville home. She was suffering weakness, physical and mental exhaustion. Discouragement swept over her. She was wrestling with the decision as to whether she should attend the third Australian camp meeting to be held in Melbourne a week later. Would she be able to go? Would she be able to preach if she did go? It was past the midnight hour, and she had just conversed with God:
Lord, help me. I am determined to cast my helpless soul upon Thee. Satan is the destroyer. Christ is the Restorer. This is Thy word to me. I will try to walk by faith.
The appointments have been made for me to go [on Sabbath] to Sydney, and in order to do this I must go with my horse and carriage, to save any confusion and unfit me to speak. If it is Thy will that I attend the Melbourne meeting, strengthen me to ride twelve miles to Sydney and bear my testimony and strengthen me to give the dedicatory talk [at Ashfield] on Sunday.--Letter 114, 1895.
As she had done so many times before, she decided to move out by faith. Sabbath morning, feeling confident in making this test that the Lord would be her helper and that strength would come, she started on the twelve-mile drive to the city. A day or two later she wrote of the experience to Edson:
The way was long, but I went trusting in God, and while speaking I received special strength. A change came to nerve and muscle, and to my soul.
After I had ceased speaking in regard to grace being always proportioned to the trial God gives us to bear, I was led out to speak upon the faith given all who talk faith and encourage faith. They will have faith and increasing faith that will not waver, but remain steadfast, immovable.--Ibid.
With strength newly imparted, she was able Sunday afternoon to give the dedicatory address in the newly built Ashfield church. Since the camp meeting held there the last October, more than one hundred had embraced the message, and a new house of worship had been built. It was a growing church; six more were to be baptized on the day of dedication. Evangelistic camp meetings had again proved the most fruitful thrust in building up the cause in Australia. Now Ellen White, having the evidence that she called upon God to give her, turned to preparation for the journey to Melbourne for the camp meeting. From there she would go on to Tasmania for a similar but smaller gathering. She would have to leave Sydney the coming Thursday afternoon. Accompanying her would be her son W. C. White; his wife, May; a secretary, Maggie Hare; and Sara McEnterfer, who that very week had arrived from the United States to assist Ellen White. She had traveled with her and assisted her both in America and Europe and had just come to Australia at Ellen White's request.
The Armadale Camp Meeting
The camp meeting in Melbourne, scheduled for October 17 to November 11, opened in the suburb of Armadale on Friday, the day the Whites arrived, and Ellen White spoke Sabbath afternoon. Sunday the interest was good and the attendance large, J. O. Corliss speaking in the morning, Mrs. E. G. White in the afternoon, and Prof. W. W. Prescott in the evening (The Bible Echo, October 28, 1895).
In the initial plans for this, the third Australian camp meeting, it was thought it might be held at Ballarat, some ninety miles north of Melbourne. The conference was in debt, and it would be less expensive to hold a meeting there than in Melbourne. But in response to light given to Ellen White that the message must now go to the people in the large cities, it was decided to select an appropriate site in Melbourne where they would benefit from the work at Middle Brighton the year before. It seemed that they were providentially led to Armadale, declared to be "one of the most inviting suburbs of Melbourne," and a choice site was found on which to pitch the tents. In advance of the meeting, a special "camp meeting edition" of the Bible Echo was published and widely distributed. The issue carried notice of the speakers who would address the crowds:
Professor [W. W.] Prescott, educational secretary of the denomination, who is on tour through Australasia, South Africa, and Europe, in the interests of the school work, will be present, and will take an active part in this meeting.
Mrs. E. G. White, a speaker and writer of rare experience, is to be present.... Among her published works, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, Patriarchs and Prophets, and Steps to Christ are widely circulated in all English-speaking countries, and translated into many foreign tongues. Her long and wide experience makes her labours of special value. Mrs. White will probably speak each Saturday and Sunday afternoon during the meeting.
Pastor J. O. Corliss, one of the first to introduce the views and work of the denomination in the colonies, will take a prominent part in the evening discourses on the prophecies of the Bible and the signs of the times.--September 23, 1895.
Others mentioned in this sheet, advertising the meeting were W. A. Colcord, editor of the Bible Echo, and Dr. M. G. Kellogg, who had been spending some time in the South Pacific.
A Unique and Successful Camp Meeting
Ellen White was provided with a little rented cottage about three minutes' walk from the campground, where she could rest and work (8 WCW, p. 363). She wrote a report of the camp meeting for the January 7, 1896, Review and Herald in which she declared:
During the meeting we have had abundant evidence that the Lord has been guiding both in the location and in the work of the meeting. A new field has been opened, and an encouraging field it appears to be. The people did not swarm upon the ground from curiosity, as at our first meeting in Brighton, and as at Ashfield last year. The majority came straight to the large meeting tent, where they listened intently to the Word, and when the meeting was over, they quietly returned to their homes, or gathered in groups to ask questions or discuss what they had heard.
As she continued, she wrote of the topics of the evening discourses delivered by Prescott, Corliss, and Daniells:
All presented the truth as it is in Jesus Christ.... In every sermon Christ was preached, and as the great and mysterious truths regarding His presence and work in the hearts of men were made clear and plain, the truths regarding His second coming, His relation to the Sabbath, His work as Creator, and His relation to man as the source of life appeared in a glorious and convincing light that sent conviction to many hearts.
There were not sufficient seats in the tent to accommodate the people who came to the evening meetings, and many stood outside.
Having discovered the great value of the evangelistic camp meeting as held in New Zealand and Australia in 1893 and 1894, the initial plans for this meeting called for a convocation of three weeks' duration. During the mornings of the first week, sessions of the Australian Conference and the Australasian Union Conference were held.
Writing in the very midst of the camp meeting, W. C. White reported to Abram La Rue working in Hong Kong:
Yesterday afternoon our large eighty-foot tent was crowded full, and about four hundred stood outside. Mother spoke with power, and many were deeply impressed. In the evening also the tent was packed as full as it could be, and some scores stood around outside. Elder Prescott spoke. "Christ and the Sabbath" was his theme. Some whom I have met today say he was inspired. Certainly he spoke with great clearness and power, and never in my life did I see an audience listen as his audience listened last night.
During the week the attendance averages about one hundred in the afternoon and three hundred in the evening. Everything about the management of the ground is moving along pleasantly. Quite a large number are spending their afternoons visiting the people and inviting them to the meetings. My wife is out engaged in this kind of work this afternoon.--8WCW, p. 368.
Prescott's Effective Preaching
Again and again in her report Ellen White mentioned the effectiveness of W. W. Prescott's meetings, stating that "the Lord ... has given Brother Prescott a special message for the people," the truth coming from human lips in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God. Those attending, she said, exclaimed:
You cannot appreciate the change of feeling about your meeting and work. It has been commonly reported that you do not believe in Christ. But we have never heard Christ preached as at these meetings. There is no life in our churches. Everything is cold and dry. We are starving for the Bread of Life. We come to this camp meeting because there is food here.--The Review and Herald, January 7, 1896.
"On every side," she wrote, "we hear discussion of the subjects presented at the camp meeting." She told the readers of the Review of how Corliss, stepping out of a train, was stopped by the conductor, who hurriedly asked him to explain certain Scripture texts. While the crowd rushed by, Corliss gave the conductor a hasty Bible study. By earnest and urgent request the three-week camp meeting was stretched into a successful five-week evangelistic series. Ellen White spoke twenty times at length and many times twenty or thirty minutes (Letter 105, 1895). It was difficult for her to find words to describe her ecstasy as it related to the meetings and the response. To S. N. Haskell she wrote:
The Word is presented in a most powerful manner. The Holy Spirit has been poured out upon Brother Prescott in great measure.... Brother Prescott has been bearing the burning words of truth such as I have heard from some in 1844. The inspiration of the Spirit of God has been upon him.
Unbelievers say, "These are the words of God. I never heard such things before." Every evening the tent is full, and even on weekdays there is an intense interest to come out and hear the truth.--Letter 25, 1895.
In the light of the above, Ellen White's urging in 1909 that Prescott enter evangelistic work in the large cities is easily understood.
In another communication Ellen White made an interesting observation: "We cannot now gather in the sheaves. It takes the people in the colonies a long time to make up their minds to obey; but while the interest is at its height, we cannot move our place of meeting."--Letter 51, 1895. "Three weeks this meeting has been in session," she wrote to Haskell, "and the camp meeting proper will not close until next week, Tuesday or Wednesday. Then if the same interest is manifested, the tent will remain on the ground two weeks longer, and as many as choose may remain in their tents to attend the meetings. At the close of the two weeks, Professor Prescott and my family, W. C. White and wife, and my two workers will go to Tasmania."--Letter 25c, 1895.
The Business Meetings
Important advances were made in the business meetings of the Australian Conference and also in the business meetings of the new Australasian Union Conference in its first biennial session, all held during the extended camp meeting. One action called for an outreach in Australia in medical missionary lines, a project in which Ellen White would become rather deeply involved. Early in the meeting, the six churches in New South Wales were organized into a separate conference, with a church membership of 321. Their petition to the union conference read:
Dear Brethren,
A conference having been organized for the colony of New South Wales, we respectfully request that it be received into the union conference, to be under its care and to be represented in its councils.--9 WCW, p. 6.
The request was granted. This was the first local conference in the history of Seventh-day Adventists to be admitted into a union conference instead of the General Conference. The work in Australia was taking shape.
Another important action had to do with the development of the educational work and the new school at Cooranbong. Among the resolutions adopted was one calling for the name of the educational institution to be the Avondale School of Christian Workers.
After the close of the camp meeting proper, Ellen White remained in Melbourne writing and occasionally speaking. Maggie Hare and Sara McEnterfer were both with her. Sunday, November 24, with Sara's help they got off the American mail. She opened her heart in her letter to Edson: "Since coming to this meeting I have felt that unless the Lord shall help me, I shall utterly fail. I have been brought into great trial and perplexity and distress of soul through others."--Letter 82, 1895. One of her helpers, Miss Fannie Bolton, sent with her to Australia to assist in the preparation of Ellen White's materials for publication in the journals of the church, had insisted on coming to Melbourne and was not acting as a faithful, trusted helper. More will be said about this in the next chapter.
The Tasmania Camp Meeting
On Tuesday, November 26, her sixty-eighth birthday, which she entirely forgot until a day or two later, Ellen White took the train and then the boat for Hobart, Tasmania, where the camp meeting was to open on Thursday, November 28. The camp was pitched across the street from the post office in Newtown, a suburb two miles from the center of Hobart. Pleased with the campground, Ellen White gave a description in her report to the Review and Herald:
It was elevated considerably above the surrounding streets, and was reached by a flight of steps. A hawthorn hedge formed the enclosure, so that the encampment was hidden until we reached the entrance. Then the white tents, in their orderly arrangement in that grassy retreat, were an attractive sight.
Hobart is surrounded by hills, rising one above another, and stretching away in the distance. Often they brought to our minds those precious words, "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever."--February 11, 1896.
There were thirty-two family tents on the grounds. Attendance grew from sixty when the meeting opened, to 107 at the close, representing fully half of all the Sabbathkeepers in Tasmania. With no conference business to divide the time, the ten days were spent in the study of the Word of God. On the first Sabbath Ellen White spoke and felt it was a precious opportunity for the people to especially seek the Lord. She made an altar call inviting "all who were afflicted and troubled in mind, all who were in sorrow and despondency, all who had lost their first love ... to come forward, that we might unite with them in sending up a prayer of faith for the manifestation of the Holy Spirit" (Ibid.).
A large share of the congregation came forward. Then Ellen White went down into the audience, right back to the last row of seats in the tent, to speak to several young people, and invited them to give their hearts fully to Jesus. All five of them went forward and were joined by several girls whose hearts were tender.
"I knew that the angels of God were in that assembly," she wrote, "and my heart, that for the past five weeks had been sadly burdened and oppressed, seemed at rest, full of peace and trust in God."--Ibid. She stated:
There were those who had been living in unbelief, doubting their acceptance with God. This distrust had made them miserable, but the Lord revealed Himself to their souls, and they knew that He had blessed them.... Many others testified that they had realized more of the presence of the Lord than ever before, and their hearts were filled with thankfulness.--Ibid.
Ellen White spoke from time to time through the ensuing week, eleven times in all (Letter 128, 1895). The work of the Spirit of God was manifest on the grounds. W. W. Prescott joined the force of workers in midweek, and the Lord richly blessed his ministry. The people flocked to hear him, and Sunday, the last day of the ten-day meeting, fourteen were baptized in the bay. It was decided to continue evening meetings in the large tent for a week or two, for there was a growing interest in the community.
When it had been proposed that there be a camp meeting in Tasmania, the believers felt they could not sustain it financially. Ellen White offered to give several pounds--she gave twenty-five--to help make the meeting possible. She asked the believers in Tasmania to match her gift with funds of their own. They did so, and the meeting was a success (Letters 83 and 127, 1895).
As her mind turned homeward, she wrote:
These camp meetings in Melbourne and Tasmania have been the best we have ever attended. We have had precious unity among our ministers and workers. Our hearts seem to be knit together as the heart of one man, and this is worth everything to us. I praise the Lord for this....
These meetings cost money, and yet we must have them. I am, as I have told you, investing all the means I can command, but when you are entering new, poverty-stricken districts, it requires strong purpose and strong faith to push forward where there seems so little means to use....
We leave here on the seventeenth. Shall arrive in Sydney the nineteenth of December, if the Lord prospers us with favorable passage.--Letter 127, 1895.
The ship arrived in Sydney, Thursday, December 19, at midnight. Mr. Caldwell was at the wharf with a carriage to meet the travelers, taking Ellen White, Sara McEnterfer, and Maggie Hare the fourteen miles home to Granville. They arrived at 3:00 A.M. W. C. White and May remained to care for the baggage.
"I was so pleased to be home," wrote Ellen White (Letter 128, 1895), but she was exhausted. The Lord had sustained her in a remarkable manner, but the distressing experience with Fannie Bolton well-nigh drained her life forces and her courage.
Nonetheless, Ellen White took the church service in the Parramatta church on Sabbath, December 21, and she felt God had given her a message for the people.
The Move to Cooranbong
These were exciting days and there was no time to lose, for it was expected that soon she would move to her new home, Sunnyside, now almost ready for her and her family.
The move came on Wednesday, Christmas Day. The work of construction was not yet finished, and another week would be needed before they could settle. So members of the family moved from room to room through the last days of December. How glad they were that they could greet the new year in their own new home.