Through early January, 1898, Ellen White passed through some days of perplexity at Sunnyside. On Tuesday, the eleventh, she attended a school board meeting where problems loomed. Later in the day in writing to Edson she opened her heart:
In about six weeks the second term of school is to commence. I seem to shrink from the burden of being in any way connected with the school. Elder Haskell and his wife, Brother and Sister Wilson, and myself carried the load of responsibility during the last term. I wish to be counted out, and find some place where I can be away from the school, and give myself entirely to the work of getting out my books. But I will wait the opening of Providence. I will not choose for myself. I have asked this privilege of the Lord, and if He thinks best, He will make a way for me. I know not where to look or which way to turn, but I shall ask the Lord to help me.--Letter 36, 1898.
The Lord helped her, but not in separating her from the interests of the school. A few days later she wrote: "I sometimes seem to be bearing my testimony in America. This may yet be so. The Lord knows all about the future."--Letter 1, 1898.
The Visit to Melbourne and Ballarat
In her next letter to Edson, written on February 2, she laid before him the plans for the coming weeks. Letters from A. T. Robinson, conference president residing in Melbourne, told of plans for a general meeting to run through several days; these had influenced her planning:
For some time Elder Robinson has been pleading for Elder Haskell and Sister White to visit Melbourne. Sixty have taken their stand for the truth there, and he wants me to bear my testimony to the people. I shall leave for Melbourne in about ten days. W. C. White and Sara will accompany me. I shall probably visit Adelaide, and hold some public meetings, for there the apostasy of McCullagh and Hawkins occurred one year ago, and I have been daubed with all kinds of mud. For this reason I wish to visit Adelaide, and speak the truth as a witness for Christ.--Letter 38, 1898.
As she contemplated this trip to the south, she mentioned her high hopes of the fruitage of the two camp meetings held in late 1897:
The work in Melbourne is just as promising as it is in Sydney. Since the camp meeting held there, forty-three have decided to keep the Sabbath. Brother A. T. Robinson and his wife are the main workers, and Brother Herbert Lacey and his wife are also engaged in the work. I have no doubt ... that no less than one hundred souls will be added to the church in Melbourne, and one hundred souls in Sydney.--Letter 6, 1898.
So in company with her son and Sara McEnterfer she left Cooranbong on Wednesday, February 23, and arrived in Melbourne before the Sabbath. She found the camp meeting tent at Balaclava, near Melbourne, still standing, and night and weekend evangelistic meetings being held. Over a period of four weeks she spoke seven times. On March 20, when the tent was blown down in a sandstorm, the evangelistic meetings were moved to a hall. That weekend Ellen White and Sara McEnterfer, along with the conference president, A. T. Robinson, were in Geelong, some forty miles southwest of Melbourne. Money was scarce, and they made the four-hour trip by boat for eighteen pence each; this included the return fare. By train the cost would have been eight shillings each. Writing of it Ellen White commented, "A penny saved is as good as a penny earned."--Letter 176, 1898.
Back in Melbourne on Tuesday, March 22, Ellen White determined that her strength should not be used in casual visiting, even with close friends. Of this she made an enlightening comment to Edson:
It is a tax I am not called to endure.... When I do the things the Lord gives me to do, then I can endure the strain. When I step out of the channel He has given me, I am not sustained.--Letter 177, 1898.
She visited the publishing house in Melbourne, speaking to the workers there. She later wrote to two of the employees:
The Echo publishing house is God's own institution, and had it not been for the Lord's care for it, it would not now be in existence.... The publishing institution has struggled hard to bring in, through the grace of God, a pure, sacred, holy atmosphere in every department of the work. But while a great change has been made, and there is a better class of workers, there is not yet a true appreciation of the distinction between an institution which bears the divine credentials and a common workshop....
Let everyone now at work in the Echo office, in every branch of the work, bear in mind that it is not common but sacred things you are handling. Treat this work as the work of God.--Letter 39, 1898.
Dedication of the Stanmore Church
After spending six or seven weeks in Melbourne and vicinity, and speaking twenty-two times (Letter 171, 1898), she journeyed back to Sydney, expecting that the new Stanmore church might be dedicated on April 17. It was not yet ready, so the appointment was postponed to Sunday, April 24.
The weather was good on the twenty-fourth. Writing of the new house of worship, she described it as "a very nice building, and there are no debts upon it.... It is a neat, wholesome, commodious building."--Letter 172, 1898. She found it easy to speak in.
The Second Term of School
The second term of school opened on March 16. There were fifty-three students present on the opening day, but a week later there were seventy. Accommodations had been expanded through the addition of new buildings. The March issue of the newly started Union Conference Record carried word from W. C. White on this:
The buildings erected during the summer have doubled the capacity and the general comfort of our school home. And it is our hope that the number of boarding students may increase to sixty, and that the day students in both departments may number fifty.
C. B. Hughes stated in the May Record that the faculty at Cooranbong was much the same as during the first term and the program also much the same. The students divided their time between study and work, with two and a half hours each afternoon devoted to the latter.
In describing the daily program, Hughes wrote:
At three o'clock, students and teachers may be seen in their workclothes wending their way to work. The young men engage in the various duties of farm, garden, orchard, and carpenter work. The young ladies find employment in the kitchen, laundry, and garden. Work closes at five-thirty.
While proving a success, the school was entering upon a period of financial distress even greater than had been foreseen or expected. W. C. White, now chairman of the board, had to contend with this problem rather relentlessly, and this was to be the story for the next year or two. Ellen White attributed it somewhat to tuition set at too low a point, and to discouraging rumors and false reports that were carelessly bandied about. The May Record carries "An Appeal for Help" as the first article in which White reports on accomplishments and describes activities at the school and then presents its needs. It closes with the suggestion that as in the days of Israel of old, when the people came to the feasts carrying liberal offerings, so should it be in the forthcoming Week of Prayer, May 28 to June 5, which would extend over two weekends. There was a call from church leaders not only for the payment of pledges already made to the school but for liberal offerings on the Sabbaths--at both the beginning and the close of that convocation. As the story of the Avondale school will surface here and there in this account of Ellen
White's life and activities during 1898 and 1899, there will be several allusions to financial problems.
In the March, 1898, Record, W. C. White reported on the animal life at the school, both domestic and wild:
Of domestic animals and other living creatures on the place, the school has three farm horses, about a dozen cows, half as many young cattle, and forty to fifty fowls. Besides this, there are twenty-two swarms of bees, from whose summer gatherings of honey eleven hundred pounds have already been extracted and stored for the winter use of the students.
Of the wild animals on the place, we cannot speak so definitely. There is a small family of large kangaroos, which show themselves occasionally. The wallabies are quite numerous, although many have recently been shot. Thus far they have not done serious injury to our crops. The native bears are getting scarce. We seldom hear their cry. Opossums can be heard any night, although they have been thinned out by the hunters. Snakes are much talked about, but rarely seen. Each year we see less and less of them. Occasionally a tiger cat makes a raid on our fowls. Then we trap him, and he suffers the death penalty for his fowl murders. Flying foxes have done us no harm this year. Of magpies, there are plenty. The laughing jackasses, though not numerous, are very sociable. Groups of cockatoos and parrots are occasionally seen. The bell bird and the whip bird can be heard every day.
Correspondence With Mrs. S. M. I. Henry
Early in 1898 Ellen White opened correspondence with Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, national evangelist of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and one of its early leaders. Daughter of a Methodist minister, Mrs. Henry had often accompanied her father on his itineraries in her girlhood and youth. She was now widowed, with three children. She at first supported herself and family by writing and publishing poetry and prose, but became involved with the WCTU and traveled and lectured widely in its interests.
She became a Seventh-day Adventist in 1896 while a patient at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, confined to a wheelchair. After an unusual experience in which she was healed through the prayer of faith, she again entered the lecture field and used her influence to advance the cause of temperance, and at the same time to deter the women of the United States from giving support to Sunday legislation.
W. C. White met Mrs. Henry in Battle Creek in 1897 and carried back to Australia with him some of her publications, among them an envelope-sized tract of forty-eight pages titled How the Sabbath Came to Me. Mrs. Henry wrote this as a means of introducing the Sabbath question to her WCTU friends. In the follow-up work in Stanmore, Ellen White saw in it a very useful tool, and wrote to Mrs. Henry on January 2, 1898, requesting permission to reprint it at the Echo office.
As Ellen White learned of Mrs. Henry's experience in accepting the Sabbath and then the Spirit of Prophecy, and also of her experience as a writer and public speaker, there quickly grew an affinity between the two.
Her first letter to Mrs. Henry, written on January 2, opened with the words:
I would be very much pleased could I be seated by your side and converse with you in regard to the incidents of our experiences. I have an earnest desire to meet you. It is not impossible that, even in this life, we shall see each other face to face. When I learn of the gracious dealings of God with you, I feel very grateful to my heavenly Father that the light of the truth for this time is shining into the chambers of your mind and into the soul temple. Across the broad waters of the Pacific, we can clasp hands in faith and sweet fellowship.--Letter 9, 1898.
Mrs. Henry's response was wholehearted and immediate. She wrote February 18 from her Battle Creek Sanitarium base, granting permission for the reprinting of the tract. Her response began with the words:
Your letter was a genuine and very delightful surprise to me. I have often thought of you, of course, and wished that I might know you personally. I have felt myself drawn out many times toward you during the experiences which I have had, especially as I have come to realize more concerning your own work.
She too expressed the wish that she might sit down beside Ellen White and that they might talk of their experiences, and added:
My one wish is to know what God wants me to do, and to do it; to know the whole truth and follow it.--DF 38.
In the months that followed, letters of encouragement and counsel were written to Mrs. Henry, both concerning her work with the WCTU and the work she initiated among Seventh-day Adventists in the interest of Christian homes. She, in turn, kept Ellen White informed about her work and its reception. For a year or two she maintained a column in the Review and Herald.
Mrs. Henry had not found it easy to accept the proposition of a prophet in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Then she saw this agency as a telescope focused on the Word of God. She wrote of her experience in an article titled "My Telescope," published in the January, 1898, issue of The Gospel of Health issued in Battle Creek. This proved helpful to many, and it has been recently reprinted in facsimile form in Witness of the Pioneers Concerning the Spirit of Prophecy. [Published by Review and Herald Pub. Assn.] Correspondence passed between the two women until Mrs. Henry's untimely death from pneumonia in early 1900.
Week of Prayer at Cooranbong
The time for the Week of Prayer in Australia was set by the union conference committee as May 28 to June 5, and the readings prepared for the daily meetings were published in the April issue of the Union Conference Record. As the time neared, Elder and Mrs. Haskell visited Ellen White at Sunnyside. They counseled together as to just what should be planned in the way of meetings for both Cooranbong and the newly established Stanmore church. It was agreed that Haskell would lead out at Cooranbong and Ellen White would be at Stanmore.
It proved, however, not to be so. The Lord stepped in, as Ellen White explained in her diary:
I have been, through the grace of Christ, able to decide the question of where I shall be during the Week of Prayer. I talked the matter over with Elder Haskell and I consented to be at Stanmore to help there, and Elder Haskell [will] remain here.
But during the night season I was laboring in this place, and I saw much that I should do here. I have no light to leave for Stanmore. I have borne my testimony in this place but once in three months, and I have words to speak to the people here.
She wrote to Elder Haskell about it, pointing out other considerations. W. C. White and Sara McEnterfer would have to accompany her there. She continued in her diary:
That leaves Willie's family without a head during the season of prayer, and my family without our help during this period when they need us the most, that all may blend together. Then here are people to get acquainted with--our neighbors at Dora Creek and Martinsville--and our horses and wagons must bring all who cannot ... get to the meetings.
She mentioned also the forthcoming book on the parables that called for her attention, and the upcoming American mail, and added:
My duty was laid out plainly before me in the night season, Tuesday night, and I present this to you, Elder Haskell.--Manuscript 182, 1898.
In the interest of making this week a time of evangelistic thrust, attention was given to the village of Dora Creek. A vacant schoolhouse had been rented, and Herbert Lacey was conducting Sabbath meetings. On Wednesday, May 25, Ellen White and Sara went down and arranged for the use of the building for weeknights, as well.
As for the Cooranbong church, groundwork had already been laid for the meetings. As Ellen White spoke to the church on Sabbath, May 21, she gave a clear call for an evangelistic outreach right there in Cooranbong. She cited the gospel commission and urged a missionary thrust in the community. She called for a meeting the next evening, Sunday night, with invitations to attend to be carried to all the community. "We are not to put our light under a bed, that is, confine it to our family and forget that all who have been privileged to hear the truth must hear not only for themselves but to communicate to others that which they hear."--Ibid.
The next day, Monday, she wrote in her diary an enthusiastic report:
The meeting Sunday evening was a success. The chapel was full. Quite a number walked or came with their conveyances five and six miles. We have now appointed regular Sunday-evening meetings. All seemed to be interested, even all that were not of our faith. We welcomed them and were rejoiced to have them in the meeting. This is the very object of these meetings, that we may impart to the people the knowledge we have in regard to the Word, to encourage them to cultivate their lands.
There were fifteen-minute speeches by different ones--W. C. White, Professor Hughes and his wife, Herbert Lacey, and several others. I think an excellent impression was made and a better and more correct understanding was gained in regard to muscular Christianity, which should be brought into the education in all our schools.--Ibid.
The approach was practical and prejudice-effacing. The plans for the Week of Prayer did not call for a meeting on Friday night, for it was thought families should be in their homes, with an opportunity to study their Sabbath school lessons (UCR, April, 1898). The plans did call for morning and afternoon meetings on the two Sabbaths.
The Meetings Begin
In the first few days the pattern of labor was established. Ellen White demonstrated her deep interest by a faithful record penned in her correspondence and from day to day in her diary. Of the meetings on the first Sabbath she wrote:
There was a meeting in the forenoon after the Sabbath School. Quite a number of our neighbors at Dora Creek and Martinsville attended the meeting. Some brought luncheons, but we prepared food for most of them. They took their refreshments under the trees. About forty-five united in this partaking of food together, and all seemed to have an enjoyable time. At three o'clock I spoke to the people in regard to the parable Jesus gave to His disciples concerning the leaven which the woman put in the meal.--Manuscript 182, 1898.
Writing to Haskell, she related an experience that came to her during the week. She seemed to be standing before a company speaking on the subject of faith, and showing that because of deficiencies in the experience of church members, they were far behind in faith.
Then the Word of God was opened before me in a most beautiful striking light. Page after page was turned, and I read the gracious invitations and words of entreaty to seek God's glory and God's will, and all other things would be added. These invitations, promises, and assurances stood out as in golden letters.
"Why do you not grasp them?" I said. "Seek first to know God before any other thing. Search the Scriptures. Feed on the words of Christ, which are spirit and life, and your knowledge will enlarge and expand. Study your Bible. Study not the philosophy contained in many books, but study the philosophy of the Word of the living God."--Letter 47, 1898.
And so it was from day to day through the whole week. The program for the last Sabbath was much like the week before. "There are one or two from Dora Creek keeping their first Sabbath," Ellen White joyfully reported. She sent her horses and carriages to Dora Creek to bring all that they could carry. Some forty people joined in the lunch under the trees. Sunday's morning and afternoon meetings brought the fruitful week of Prayer to a close as reported by Ellen White, with "the house of worship ...full" on Sunday afternoon and "many not of our faith" present (Manuscript 183, 1898).
Each day brought new opportunities, with attendance at all meetings accelerating. Ellen White seems to have struck the keynote when in writing to Elder Daniells concerning the spiritual revival:
We are doing all we can to enlighten minds in regard to exercising faith and trust in God. Here lies our great deficiency.... Oh, let us know what it is to have living faith in the Word of God. We must talk faith, we must sing faith, act faith, and then we shall see the deep moving of the Spirit of God. We are weak on this point, when we should be strong.--Letter 50a, 1898.