Ellen White was asked to take the first early morning devotional study of the session. It convened on Wednesday at 5:30 A.M. Choosing a topic most appropriate for the occasion, she stressed the apostle James's admonition, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering" (chap. 1:5, 6).
She dwelt on the experience of those who forget this instruction and "begin to look for human help." "Is not Christ close beside us, and will He not give us the help we need?" she asked, and then reminded her hearers that in His Word there is the repeated promise "'If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it.'"--The General Conference Bulletin, 1901, 35, 36.
The whole address was an appeal for the workers to look to God for guidance. This was a thread that was to run through her appeals to the conference, urging men to look away from men and look to God.
Fortunately, as the Committee on Counsel approached the task of reorganization, they had before them the knowledge of what had been done in Africa under Elder A. T. Robinson's leadership. There, departmental interests had been organized within a conference structure, in place of separate, independent organizations representing Sabbath school work, religious liberty, et cetera.
They also had before them what had been done in Australia in the development of a union conference. Sister White had been in that field as the cause had developed and grown. Australia was far from Battle Creek. It took weeks to get letters to the General Conference and back. In the interest of efficiency, A. G. Daniells and W. C. White with encouragement from O. A. Olsen and in close counsel with Sister White, had led out in developing a form of organization that would bind the local conferences together in what they called a union conference. Incorporating the Robinson plan, such interests as Sabbath school work, tract and missionary work, and medical missionary work were brought into the union conference as departments. This plan had worked very successfully.
Europe also had pioneered with some success a plan for a European General Conference, as it was called.
Elder Daniells, with his implicit trust in the messages of the Spirit of Prophecy and his recent experience in leading in the organization of the work in Australia, was the man of the hour. He was the man to step forward and fearlessly initiate steps toward reorganization, standing at the head of the Committee on Counsel. After reviewing the general needs and the directions in which the work should move, the first task was to set up subcommittees. First to be appointed was a committee on organization, with W. C. White as the chairman. Then followed the naming of other committees on education, on colporteur work, on publishing, on missionary work, et cetera. But it was the committee on organization especially that often brought its reports to the conference as a whole. And it was these reports that gained first attention.
An early proposal was that union conferences, after the order of what had been done in Australia, be formed throughout North America and the European fields. At the business session held Thursday afternoon, April 4, a memorial was presented from the Southern field, or what might be termed the Southern district, embodying three conferences and six missions. Perhaps it was the relative smallness of the field, with 2,600 members, and because the work was just getting well established there that they were able quickly to move into line with the new organizational plans and with a suggestion that they be made a union conference. The proposal also called for their president to be a member of the General Conference Committee. With the memorial was a request that they be permitted to draft a constitution for their union.
Again Ellen White entered into the discussion, giving full support to the desires of the brethren in the South. In her speech she said, "I want to say that from the light given to me by God, there should have been years ago organizations such as are now proposed."--Ibid., 68.
One paragraph in the memorial declared, "We believe that a more complete and independent organization of the work in this field, if sanctioned and approved by the General Conference, will result in great benefit to the work."--Ibid., 67.
In the discussion that followed the reading of the Southern memorial, the point was made that there is strength in action that is initiated locally. Ellen White in a little speech told of how on her journey to Battle Creek as she visited different places in southern California, she asked, "Why do you not do this? and, Why do you not do that? And the response has been, 'That is what we want to do, but we must first get the consent of the board, the members of which are in Oakland.' But, I asked, have you not men here with common sense? If you have not, then by all means transport them. You show great deficiency by having your board hundreds of miles away. That is not the wisdom of God. There are men right where you are who have minds, who have judgment, who need to exercise their brains, who need to be learning how to do things, how to take aggressive work, how to annex new territory. They are not to be dependent on a conference at Battle Creek or a board at Oakland."--Ibid., 69.
Hers was one of the longer speeches made in regard to the Southern memorial, and it gave her an opportunity to stress some of the points that she was so eager to see carried into the work of the conference. She stated:
We want to understand that there are no gods in our conference. There are to be no kings here, and no kings in any conference that is formed.... New conferences must be formed. It was in the order of God that the union conference was organized in Australasia. The Lord God of Israel will link us all together. The organizing of new conferences is not to separate us. It is to bind us together. The conferences that are formed are to cling mightily to the Lord, so that through them He can reveal His power, making them excellent representations of fruit-bearing. "By their fruits ye shall know them."-- Ibid.
Then, in more general terms, thinking of the work in its larger elements, she declared:
The Lord wants to bind those at this conference heart to heart. No man is to say, "I am a god, and you must do as I say." From the beginning to the end this is wrong. There is to be an individual work. God says, "Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me." Remember that God can give wisdom to those who handle His work. It is not necessary to send thousands of miles to Battle Creek for advice, and then have to wait weeks before an answer can be received. Those who are right on the ground are to decide what shall be done. You know what you have to wrestle with, but those who are thousands of miles away do not know.
It is best for us to put our trust in the God of Israel. We are to feel that it is time for us to possess new territory, time for us to feel that we must break the bonds which have kept us from going forward.--Ibid., 70.
The whole discussion, in which a number took part, was a very wholesome experience and paved the way somewhat for the work that was in the hands of the committee on organization.
The Conference Proceeds
On Thursday morning at nine o'clock Ellen White was the speaker. Under the title of "In the Regions Beyond," she reported little incidents in the development of the work in Australia, and what she saw in the South as she came to the session. She then went back to her memories of early days in the work of the church.
Again she touched on the point of the need of a change in the management of things in the heart of the work. She called for economy, pointing out that from the light God had given to her "there must be a decided change in the management of things at the heart of the work."--Ibid., 83. She spoke of the unworked fields around them, and recounted an incident that indicated God's guidance in their experience in starting the work in Oakland, California.
We came to the place where we must have means, and we did not know what to do. My husband was sick and feeble, and very busy. I said, "Will you let me go to Battle Creek to try to raise some money for the work here?"
"How can you go?" he said. "I am overwhelmed with responsibility. I cannot let you go." "But God will take care of you," I said.
We held a meeting in an upper room of a house in Oakland where prayer was wont to be made. We knelt down to pray and while we were praying, the Spirit of God like a tidal wave filled the room, and it seemed that an angel was pointing across the Rocky Mountains to the churches in this part of America. Brother Tay, who is now sleeping in Jesus, rose from his knees, his face as white as death, and said, "I saw an angel pointing across the Rocky Mountains."
Then my husband said, "Well, Ellen, I shall have to let you go."
I did not wait for another word, but hurrying home, put a few gems [bread rolls] in a basket, and hastened to the cars. I made very little preparation, for I had just time to get to the cars.... I went alone.... I obtained means, and then returned to California to build up the work.--Ibid., 84.
And then she brought the lesson home, explaining:
I told the Lord that when I came to Battle Creek this time, I would ask you why you have withheld means from the work in Australia. The work there should have been pressed with tenfold greater strength than it has been, but we have been hindered on the right hand and on the left....
Why am I telling you this? Because we desire that at this meeting the work shall be so established that no such thing shall take place again. Two or three men, who have never seen the barren fields, where the workers have had to wrestle with all their might to advance an inch, should not control matters."-- Ibid.
If Ellen White's voice had not been heard in a General Conference session for ten years, it was heard in this conference of 1901. She was asked to speak Sabbath morning, which she did. This was the most largely attended session thus far held by Seventh-day Adventists. In addition to the delegates, there were 1,500 visitors from all parts of the United States, and the comment was made, "All of these seem of one heart and mind to make this the greatest and best occasion of their lives."-- Ibid., 65.
According to the General Conference Bulletin, that first Sabbath of the session, April 6, was a great day. "Sister White spoke in the Tabernacle at 11:00 A.M. to an overflowing house. Not only was every available seating space occupied but every foot of standing room was covered. There must have been 3,500 people or more present to listen to a stirring address upon the duty of tithe-paying."--Ibid., 89.
The Tabernacle was not capable of housing all who had come for the Sabbath meetings. "At the same hour W. W. Prescott spoke to about all who could be accommodated in the college chapel. His subject was the sanctuary and its service."-- Ibid. E. J. Waggoner spoke in the Review and Herald chapel to a good-sized audience on the "Temple of God." At the Sanitarium a Sabbath-morning service was held with Elder J. O. Corliss as the speaker. The estimate was that approximately five thousand people worshiped that Sabbath morning in Battle Creek, "making [it] the largest Sabbath meeting ever held" in that city (Ibid., 89).
At five-thirty Tuesday morning, April 9, Ellen White again gave the morning devotional study. Her topic was the need of missionary effort. She thanked the Lord that He was working in their midst and said that this could be so only when His people draw together. "There seems to be in this meeting an endeavor to press together. This is the word which for the last fifty years I have heard from the angelic host--press together, press together. Let us try to do this. When in the spirit of Jesus we try to press together, putting ourselves out of sight, we shall find that the Holy Spirit will come in, and the blessing of God will rest upon us."--Ibid., 182.
Her address was filled with appeals for attention to be given to needy fields of labor. She spoke of Europe and of New York City. And she came back to the theme that lay heavily upon her heart--the importance of a close binding together of the medical and evangelistic interests of the church.
"Do not," she urged, "longer divorce yourselves from the medical missionary work. Dr. Kellogg has been driven almost to despair as he has sought for some way in which he could bring the truth more prominently before the world. Let every minister of the gospel heed the words of Paul: 'I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway.'" She urged that "God wants you to observe the strictest principles of temperance. He wants you to stand in a position of sacred nearness to Him, where you can ask and He will hear, where you know that He will always be with you."--Ibid., 184.
At three o'clock on Tuesday afternoon Dr. Kellogg took two hours to present the work of the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, stressing what was being done in Chicago. (The regular work of the General Conference in session was interspersed with the meetings of the various associations.) It was on this Tuesday, April 9, also, that the organization of the Southern Union Conference was completed, a constitution adopted, certain officers elected, and members of the executive committee named. This represented the first full-fledged union conference to be organized in the United States. It was the bellwether, and before the conference was to close two weeks later, there would be six union conferences in North America.
The Reorganization
On this same day the basic action embodying reorganization was framed and presented to the General Conference in these words:
"5. That the General Conference Committee be composed of representative men connected with the various lines of work in the different parts of the world.
"6. That the General Conference Committee, as thus constituted, should take the place of all the present boards and committees, except in the case of the essential legal corporations.
"7. That the General Conference Committee consist of twenty-five members, six of whom shall be chosen by the Medical Missionary Association, and nineteen by the General Conference. That five of these members be chosen with special reference to their ability to foster and develop true evangelical spirit in all departments of the work, to build up the ministry of the word, and to act as teachers of the gospel message in all parts of the world; and that they be relieved from any special business cares, that they may be free to devote themselves to this work.
"8. That in choosing this General Conference Committee, the presidents of the union conferences be elected as members."--Ibid., 185.
The proposed changes were sweeping. They called for the various independent and separate international organizations--the Sabbath School Association, the Religious Liberty Association, the Foreign Mission Board, et cetera--to be blended into the General Conference. The Executive Committee was to be a much larger group with much wider representation. The medical missionary work, which had grown so strong, was to be integrated, with a definite representation on the General Conference Committee.
It took several days of earnest, prayerful discussion and consideration before the conference was ready to take an action on such a sweeping reorganization. At one critical point when progress seemed blocked, Sister White stepped in and spoke directly to the point, exposing the vital involvements. When the vote was called for on these crucial and far-reaching steps in reorganization, the resolutions were passed unanimously.
From day to day throughout the session the various districts into which church work in North America had been loosely drawn were organized into union conferences. Constitutions were drawn up and accepted, and officers were elected. The various international auxiliary organizations took actions looking forward to their absorption into the General Conference.
It was a thrilling meeting of earnest, prayerful study, discussion, and action. There was no bitterness, no holding back. The thought expressed at the opening meeting by Elder Daniells when Ellen White called for a reorganization was kept in the minds of all:
We all feel that our only safety lies in obedience, in following our great Leader. We feel that we should begin at the very beginning of this work at this meeting, and just as nearly as we know how, build on His foundation.--Ibid., 27.
The Call to Move the College
But there were other burdens that Ellen White carried on her heart. These related to the institutions in Battle Creek--all three of them, the publishing house, the Sanitarium, and the college. The college occupied her attention midway in the meeting. At half past five on Friday morning, April 12, she dispatched one of her helpers to the Magan home. Percy T. Magan was the dean of Battle Creek College, serving with Prof. E. A. Sutherland, the president. The message to the dean was that Sister White wanted to see him.
Within a few minutes he was talking with her. As reported by Magan, she asked him whether he remembered when he and Professor Sutherland had through correspondence discussed the moving of the college out of Battle Creek. "'I told you at the time,' she said, 'not to do it. Now I am ready to tell you to do it. What we will do with the old plant I do not know. I think possibly we may be able to sell it to the sanitarium. I do not think even then that we will be able to realize enough to pay off anything on the principal. Perhaps we will get enough to pay its debts. We will have to go out single-handed--empty-handed. It is time to get out now, for great things will soon be happening in Battle Creek.'"--Founder's Golden Anniversary Bulletin, 21, quoted in Merlin L. Neff, For God and A Call to Medical Evangelism and Health Education, 70.
At nine o'clock Magan gave his report on the relief book plan he was directing. Ellen White had dedicated her book Christ's Object Lessons to the financial relief of Seventh-day Adventist educational institutions. Thousands of dollars had been raised as church members sold the books to their neighbors and friends and turned over the proceeds for debt reduction. Ellen White was seated on the platform with other workers who were leading out in this particular meeting. As Magan closed his report, he referred to the testimonies that called for a country location for Seventh-day Adventist schools and proposed that consideration be given to moving Battle Creek College to "a more favorable locality" (The General Conference Bulletin, 1901, 212).
Then Ellen White rose to speak. She made reference to the experience with Christ's Object Lessons and then challenged the audience with this declaration:
The light that has been given me is that Battle Creek has not the best influence over the students in our school. There is altogether too congested a state of things. The school, although it will mean a fewer number of students, should be moved out of Battle Creek. Get an extensive tract of land, and there begin the work which I entreated should be commenced before our school was established here--to get out of the cities, to a place where the students would not see things to remark upon and criticize, where they would not see the wayward course of this one and that one, but would settle down to diligent study.--Ibid., 215.
She then reviewed their experience in Australia in the establishment of the Avondale school at Cooranbong, and admonished:
Our schools should be located away from the cities, on a large tract of land, so that the students will have opportunity to do manual work. They should have opportunity to learn lessons from the objects which Christ used in the inculcation of truth. He pointed to the birds, to the flowers, to the sower and the reaper. In schools of this kind not only are the minds of the students benefited, but their physical powers are strengthened. All portions of the body are exercised. The education of mind and body is equalized....
God wants the school to be taken out of Battle Creek.... Some may be stirred about the transfer of the school from Battle Creek. But they need not be. This move is in accordance with God's design for the school before the institution was established. But men could not see how this could be done. There were so many who said that the school must be in Battle Creek. Now we say that it must be somewhere else.--Ibid., 215, 216. And then she urged:
The best thing that can be done is to dispose of the school's building here as soon as possible. Begin at once to look for a place where the school can be conducted on right lines. God wants us to place our children where they will not see and hear that which they should not see or hear.--Ibid., 216.
At this point the meeting adjourned to 11:00 A.M., which left just a short intermission. Much of the rest of the morning was devoted to a consideration of the release of the denomination's schools from their financial obligations through the sale of Christ's Object Lessons and to the moving of Battle Creek College.
Elder A. T. Jones, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Educational Society, asked for the floor. He referred to the appeal that the college be moved out of Battle Creek. He called for the stockholders of the Educational Society present who favored carrying out the instruction that had been given, to rise to their feet. The report is that there was a hearty response and that when the negative vote was called for, no one responded.
Then the delegates of the General Conference session were asked to vote and this was unanimous. Finally, a third expression was called for from the congregation generally. Rising to their feet, they gave a unanimous affirmation to the decision to move the college from Battle Creek. History was made that day at the General Conference session, and when the fall term of school took up, it was at Berrien Springs, Michigan. This was the second marked instance of a wholehearted and immediate response at the General Conference of 1901 to counsel given by the messenger of the Lord that called for sweeping changes.
Other Evidences of a Hearty Response
For three weeks the delegates labored carefully, patiently, earnestly. At the opening of the conference a message from God through His servant had called for marked changes. The delegates had applied themselves, and when it came time to close the session on Tuesday, April 23, clearly great changes had taken place.
The General Conference was now a world conference, with an Executive Committee of twenty-five men representing the various interests of the whole world field. The organization of union conferences provided for the leaders close to the problems to carry the burdens of the work. This was a point that had been stressed again and again by Ellen White. It also led to the development of men in executive experience.
Provisions were made to bring the various auxiliary interests into the General Conference as departments. While committees were named to represent these lines, to implement the changes would take a little time, but everyone seemed pleased and confident in the actions that had been taken.
An Undetected Weakness
But there was one weakness in the new constitution that did not show up clearly when it was adopted. It was to cause considerable concern in the months that followed. This related to the election of the officers of the General Conference.
According to the new constitution, the delegates attending a General Conference session were empowered to elect the General Conference Committee; this committee in turn was to organize itself, electing its own officers. It was recognized at the time that this could mean that a man might be chairman for only one year.
Undoubtedly this provision came about as an overreaction to the desire to get away from any "kingly power" (Letter 49, 1903), a point that was pushed hard by Elder A. T. Jones, a member of the committee on organization.
While this arrangement would clearly reduce the possibility of anyone exercising kingly power, it also greatly undercut responsible leadership. It went too far, for it took out of the hands of the delegates attending the General Conference session the vital responsibility of electing the leaders of the church and instead placed this responsibility in the hands of the General Conference Executive Committee of twenty-five. It was too unwieldy. There was no church leader with a mandate from the church as represented by its delegates.
That some of the delegates attending the session of 1901 were not clear on this point is evidenced in the insistence that the Committee elect the chairman and announce their decision before that session closed. A. G. Daniells was chosen as chairman of the General Conference Committee. He was the leader of the church and nearly all the delegates were pleased, but they did not discern at this point how he would be crippled in his work, having no tenure and no mandate.
To take the position that Ellen White's urging that there be no kings meant, as interpreted by A. T. Jones, that the church should have no General Conference president was unjustified. At no time had the messages from her called for the abolition of the office of president of the General Conference; rather her messages recognized such an office in the organization of the church. An earlier statement indicated that she understood that the work devolving upon the president of the General Conference was too large for one man to carry and that others should stand by his side to assist. (Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 342, 343). She did condemn the exercise of kingly power.
The weakness, which soon became very apparent, was corrected at the next session of the General Conference--the session of 1903. [Note: See A. V. Olson, through crisis to victory, pp. 316-320.]