The year 1895 was not an easy one for Ellen G. White. She had hoped to devote a good deal of time to writing on the life of Christ, but her plans in this respect were only infrequently carried through. The developments at Cooranbong and the uncertainty surrounding the establishment of the school; the home situation, with a constant stream of visitors; a shift in workers, as Emily Campbell and May Walling returned to the United States; and then the extended camp meetings in the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart in October, November, and December were a heavy drain on her strength. All this was topped off by the course of Fannie Bolton.
Giving Counsel in Important Interviews
A good many pages came from her pen in articles, general manuscripts, and letters. The file carries 188 letters aggregating 1,230 pages of double-spaced typewritten material. Some of these opened with comments such as these: "I have a message from the Lord for you"--Letter 91, 1895. "I am burdened over your case. In the night season I was in your company, and was listening to your words."--Letter 2, 1895. "I was conversing with you in the night season, and I was saying to you ..."--Letter 33, 1895. "I cannot sleep. I was awakened at one o'clock. I was hearing a message borne to you."--Letter 21a, 1895.
Her work also included interviews such as one held during the Armadale camp meeting. The purpose of the meeting is stated in an introductory paragraph:
On the morning of November 20, 1895, a council meeting was called at the large tent on the Armadale campground to consider some questions arising from the discussions of our brethren regarding the religious liberty work. The positions recently taken by some of our brethren indicated that there was necessity for a more thorough understanding of the principles which must govern our work.--Manuscript 22a, 1895 (see also The Southern Work, 66).
At such meetings a record was made of those present. In this case there were W. W. Prescott, A. G. Daniells, W. C. White, M. C. Israel, L. J. Rousseau, W. A. Colcord, M. G. Kellogg, W. D. Salisbury, James Smith, Ellen G. White, and Eliza Burnham.
Several letters were read regarding the questions at issue. The workers were invited to discuss the points treated in the letters, but they wanted to hear further from Ellen White. The questions had to do in part with how black believers in the Southern States should relate to Sunday laws. Should they insist in working on Sunday to demonstrate their attitude toward the sacredness of the day? The counsel given by Ellen White, now found in Ibid., 66-71, discouraged any attempt to defy Sunday laws. She declared:
From the light that I have received, I see that if we would get the truth before the Southern people, we must not encourage the colored people to work on Sunday. There must be a clear understanding regarding this, but it need not be published in our papers.--Ibid. (see also Ibid., 68).
The counsel and information that developed from these discussions was passed along to those carrying the burden of the work in the Southern States. In 1902, Ellen White again gave counsel in the same vein. It is found in Testimonies, volume 9, pages 232-238.
Battle Creek Developments
In 1895 and 1896, with growing frequency and accelerating force visions were given to Ellen White in the hours of the night regarding conditions at the headquarters of the work of the church.
Early in 1895 a General Conference session was held in Battle Creek. O. A. Olsen was reelected president for another term of two years; Harmon Lindsay, General Conference treasurer, was also reelected. This posed some occasion for misgivings on Ellen White's part, for Lindsay was not gaining ground in his spiritual experience; his principles were becoming tainted, and he was inclined to approach the business of the General Conference with calculation, and often without spiritual discernment. He stood close to A. R. Henry, treasurer of the Review and Herald, a man of finance who had long served in Battle Creek, and a man whose principles also were becoming tarnished. She saw these two men swaying the General Conference president. The overall situation gave her great concern.
On May 12, 1895, Ellen White wrote a thirteen-page letter to Olsen, reporting on her work in Australia and Tasmania, and the W. C. White--May Lacey wedding. She then expressed some concerns and gave counsel. She introduced this by writing:
I had no other idea than that you would be selected as president of the General Conference. We pray earnestly for you, that the Lord will give you a healthful experience and clear understanding of His mind and will, and that you may be continually imbued by the Holy Spirit. Both Willie and myself understand your perplexities and difficulties. I have a most intense desire that you shall keep an eye single to the glory of God, and that you will not allow any man's judgment to control you. The Lord lives and reigns, and He is to be glorified in those that come near unto Him. I have nothing but the most tender, pitying sympathy for you, my brother.
Then she came more directly to the point of concern:
In the night season I am speaking and writing clear words of admonition. I waken so burdened in soul that I am again driven to take up my pen. In various ways matters are opened up before my mind, and I dare not rest, or keep quiet. I fear and tremble for the souls of men who are in responsible places in Battle Creek.
If their works had no further influence than simply upon themselves, I could breathe more freely; but I know that the enemy is using men who are in positions of trust, and who are not consecrated to the work and who know not what manner of spirit they are of. When I realize that men who are connected with them are also in blindness, and will not see the harm that is being done by the precept and example of these unconsecrated agents, it seems to me that I cannot hold my peace. I have to write, for I know that the mold that these men are giving to the work is not after God's order.--Letter 59, 1895.
There were serious defects in the management of the publishing house and the General Conference. The Battle Creek Sanitarium also stood in peril. Basic to the problem, it seemed, were the keen-minded businessmen, Harmon Lindsay and A. R. Henry. Both were very much involved in nearly all of the financial interests of the church.
When A. R. Henry became a Seventh-day Adventist in 1882, he was president of a bank in Indiana. Soon he was called to Battle Creek to assist in the financial management of the publishing association. A review of the responsibilities he carried, as presented in the SDA Encyclopedia, helps to an understanding of the strong influence he exerted in 1895 and 1896:
Henry, Archibald R. (1839-1909). Treasurer of the General Conference (1883-1888) and a financial officer and adviser of many early SDA institutions....
In 1882, shortly after he joined the SDA Church, he was called to assist in the financial management of the SDA Publishing Association at Battle Creek, Michigan. He held this position of treasurer continuously until 1897, except between 1885 and 1887 when he was vice-president of the association. Between 1893 and 1895, he was both treasurer and manager of the institution.
In 1883 he was elected to serve also as a treasurer of the General Conference. In 1889 he was president of the General Conference Association of SDA's, in 1890-1891, its vice-president, in 1892, its auditor, and in 1893, its treasurer. Simultaneously he was a member of governing boards of nearly all early SDA medical and educational institutions in the Central and Western States.--SDA Encyclopedia, p. 581.
On May 25, 1896, Ellen White wrote to Olsen:
My mind has been so wrought upon by the Spirit of God that the burden upon me was very great in regard to yourself and the work in Battle Creek. I felt that you were being bound hand and foot, and were tamely submitting to it. I was so troubled that in conversation with Brother Prescott I told him my feelings. Both he and W. C. White tried to dissipate my fears; they presented everything in as favorable a light as possible. But instead of encouraging, these words alarmed me. If these men cannot see the outcome of affairs, I thought, how hopeless the task of making them see at Battle Creek. The thought struck to my heart like a knife.--Letter 87a, 1896.
Of course these men did not have the insights that the visions gave her. She then pointed out to them that at Battle Creek "things are being swayed in wrong lines."--Manuscript 62, 1896.
The significance of her concern surfaced in a letter written July 5, to her son Edson, in which she declared:
I dare not think my own thoughts, for indignation comes upon me at times when I think how men in Battle Creek have supposed they could take the place of God and order and dictate and lord it over men's minds and talents--an endowment given them in trust from God to improve every day, trade upon--and if these talents cannot be placed to the control of men to be in service to do their will, then they make those men have a difficult path to travel. They act just as though they were in God's place, to deal with their fellow men as if they were machines. I cannot respect their wisdom or have faith in their Christianity.
And then, writing more directly:
The Lord has presented to me his [A. R. Henry's] dangers. I expect nothing else but he will say, as he has always done, "Somebody has been telling Sister White." This shows that he has no faith in my mission or testimony, and yet Brother Olsen has made him his right-hand man.--Letter 152, 1896.
Four days later she again wrote about the distressing situation in Battle Creek:
I feel sorry for Elder Olsen. He thought if he should manifest confidence in A. R. Henry and keep him traveling about from state to state, he would be converted, but the conversion has been the other way. We are safe only as we make God our trust. He is our sufficiency in all things, at all times, and in all places.--Letter 153, 1896.
With the confidence Elder Olsen had in the skill and ability of A. R. Henry, it seemed to Olsen that he was unable to stem the tide and fend off propositions and developments that would prove a serious detriment to the proper management of the affairs of the church.
As Ellen White opened her heart to Elder Olsen and presented her feelings, she wrote:
It has been hard for me to give the message that God has given to me for those I love, and yet I have not dared to withhold it. I have to make my face as flint against the faces of those who set themselves so stubbornly to carry out their own way and to pursue their own unrighteous course.
I would not do a work that is so uncongenial to me if I thought that God would excuse me from it. When I have written one testimony to the brethren, I have thought that I should not have any more to write; but again I am in travail of soul, and cannot sleep or rest.--Letter 59, 1895.
Elder Olsen was a man loyal to the message, a deeply spiritual man, a church leader who leaned heavily on God and had respect for and confidence in the messages and work of Ellen White. It was her suggestion in 1888 that had an influence in his being called to the presidency of the General Conference, an office to which he was four times reelected. But as is common to all humanity, he suffered some weaknesses. He made no attempt to hide these weaknesses from either Ellen White or his brethren. As during the last few years of his administration, which terminated in 1897, communication after communication came from Australia pointing out the dangers that at that time threatened the ministry of the church and its administration, he called his associates together and read the messages directed to him. Many of the messages of counsel sent to him for ministers and executives he had printed in envelope-size leaflets or pamphlets. These were distributed to the working force of the denomination under the title Special Testimonies to Ministers and Workers. Many of these are to be found in Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers. It was a dark period for the church. Of it Ellen White declared:
We know not what the developments will be in Battle Creek. There will be a turning and overturning, but God is our Ruler; God is our Judge. The Lord is soon to come, and when the Lord cometh "shall he find faith on the earth?"--Letter 153, 1896.
Worsening conditions at the heart of the work of the church was a topic often touched on by Ellen White in her correspondence with leaders in Battle Creek through the last four years of her stay in Australia.
Ellen White Desires to Remain in Australia
While on several occasions Olsen urged Ellen White to return to the United States, this she declined to do. "I shall write to you," she told him in her letter of May 31, 1896, "but should I return to Battle Creek and bear my testimony to those who love not the truth, the ever-ready words would arise from unbelieving hearts, 'Somebody has told her.'" And she added, "Even now unbelief is expressed by the words 'Who has written these things to Sister White?'"--Letter 81, 1896.
It was in this connection that W. C. White on May 29, 1896, wrote to F. M. Wilcox, secretary of the Foreign Mission Board:
Mother feels more and more the fact that she has but a short time to work, and she is very desirous of getting out her books.... Yesterday I had a long talk with her, and she expressed very emphatically the opinion that the Lord had permitted her to come over here, and make a home in a quiet place, that she might be free to present in writing what the Lord has shown her, without personal conflict with those whose course is an offense to God and who are so persistent and determined in their opposition to the instruction God has given His people, but which is contrary to their feelings and plans.--9 WCW, p. 493.
Light on a Longstanding Mystery
For several years it was a mystery to Ellen White why the Lord had not given specific light to her on the matter of the request of the General Conference that she go to Australia. While she recognized that the work there had certainly benefited by her presence, there were some questions that again and again came to her mind. Now, in the setting just described, the situation opened up to her, and the picture grew clear. On December 1, 1896, in writing to the head of the church she spoke of God's intent:
The Lord designed that we should be near the publishing houses, that we should have easy access to these institutions [so] that we might counsel together.--Letter 127, 1896.
She wrote in contrast of the devisings of men:
That the people of Battle Creek should feel that they could have us leave at the time we did was the result of man's devising, and not the Lord's. The sum of the matter is proved, and its figures are before you. We are here. The Battle Creek matters have been laid before me at this great distance, and the load I have carried has been very heavy to bear....
There was so great a willingness to have us leave [America] that the Lord permitted this thing to take place. Those who were weary of the testimonies borne were left without the persons who bore them. Our separation from Battle Creek was to let men have their own will and way, which they thought superior to the way of the Lord.
The result is before you. Had you stood in the right position, the move would not have been made at that time. The Lord would have worked for Australia by other means, and a strong influence would have been held at Battle Creek, the great heart of the work. There we should have stood shoulder to shoulder, creating a healthful atmosphere to be felt in all our conferences.
It was not the Lord who devised this matter. I could not get one ray of light to leave America. But when the Lord presented this matter to me as it really was, I opened my lips to no one, because I knew that no one would discern the matter in all its bearings. When we left, relief was felt by many, but not so by yourself, and the Lord was displeased, for He had set us to stand at the wheels of the moving machinery at Battle Creek.--Ibid.
Though the topics covered in the letter were not of a pleasant nature, Ellen White wrote it in a spirit of love and tenderness:
He [God] understands all about the mistakes of the past, and He will help you. But wherever you may be, never, never tread over the same ground.--Ibid.
Doing the Work Over and Over Again
Another matter that concerned Ellen White was the necessity of doing much the same work over and over again. She would write letters or lead out in meetings in a church, presenting earnest messages and sometimes direct testimonies to individuals to which there was an earnest heartfelt response. But the work did not always last. In writing to S. N. Haskell of her experience in the Parramatta church she pinpointed the problem as the lack of daily conversion:
Last Sabbath I spoke in Parramatta. The Lord has been giving me His Holy Spirit in rich measures, and I had a message for the church. I called for those who desired to give themselves wholly to the Lord to come forward, and quite a number responded. Our labor continued from eleven o'clock; but there was good accomplished.
But oh, what a task it is to try to lift a church whose individual members do not experience daily conversion. It nearly takes every particle of strength that is in me. The same work has to be done again and again, because the church members do not live in Christ, do not meditate on His Word, and walk apart from Him. I have far greater influence and much better success in working for unbelievers however ignorant they may be, than I have in working for those who know the truth, and are not being sanctified through the truth.
But we are not to fail nor be discouraged. That which I grieve over is the fact that the Lord Jesus is dishonored and that many will lose eternal life, because they do not seek heaven with earnestness, and Satan finds their hearts ready to respond to temptation.--Letter 28, 1895.
To stand as the messenger of the Lord to the remnant church was not an easy assignment.