Now back at home, Ellen White was weary. Her throat was sore and she could hardly speak. But it was good to be home again. She had been gone since late winter, and it was now early summer. As she looked at her Elmshaven farm, she found the grapevines had fruit setting heavily, but as to the prunes, there were two thousand trees and not a prune in sight! The fruit buds had been frozen in the April frost.
"'Well,'" she said, "'I thank God that it is not anything I have done that has brought this about.'" Then, always looking for a cheerful side even in calamity, she added, "'I thank the Lord that we shall not have the trouble and care of gathering the prunes.'"--Letter 49, 1901.
This would have been her first prune crop, and this loss was one she would feel, but she said, "Let us not complain. Let there be no complaints in our mouth.... Talk not darkness; talk light."-- Ibid.
Ellen White was badly mistaken in her thought that she could hide away in a comfortable and convenient place and devote her unbroken attention to her writings and the issuance of her books. Her advancing years drove her to the conviction that this must be, but the needs of the cause as she observed things, and the enlightenment that visions imparted to her, led her into the field. The year 1901 is the story of these divided interests, with the demands of the field largely the winner. Not even with the General Conference session over was she able to turn immediately to her book work.
During the first night Ellen White spent in her home in three months, she was given a vision. The subject matter: Dr. D. H. Kress, who had recently gone to Australia. In his extremes in dietary practices, he was suffering from what was diagnosed as pernicious anemia. In vision she saw his hands--as white as if he were a corpse.
"Do not go to extremes in regard to the health reform," she wrote in the letter penned Wednesday morning. She counseled Dr. Kress to "get eggs of healthy fowls" and use them with unfermented grape juice. She declared, "This will supply that which is necessary to your system." And she urged, "Do not for a moment suppose that it will not be right to do this." Bringing the letter to a close, she wrote, "This that I now send you was opened distinctly before me last night."--Letter 37, 1901. [Note: The dietetic instruction to Dr. Kress may be found in CDF, pp. 202-207, 366-367, and Medical Ministry, 286-289.]
The thirteen-page testimony reached Australia at a very critical time in the experience of Dr. Kress. He put the counsel into practice, his life was saved, and he spent nearly a half century more in dedicated medical service. Nor did he ever discard the special dietary prescription that he found most helpful.
The question of further camp meetings in the summer of 1901 was much in Ellen White's mind. Elder Daniells urged her to attend the Eastern camp meetings. This is something she, with her husband, had done again and again twenty or thirty years before, but to Elder Daniells she wrote:
I have been absent from home for nearly four months, and have worked beyond my strength. My workers have been scattered, and Willie and I have given our undivided attention to the general work. Now we are trying to gather our forces.... Attending so many meetings has made a deep impression on me, and has revived many things in my mind. I have decided that the members of our churches need the matter I have for them. I shall not attend the camp meetings in the East.--Letter 65, 1901.
But she added, "If the Lord said, 'Go,' I would not hesitate a moment."
She found many things to attend to at Elmshaven. There was an eight-room office building under construction about thirty yards north of the home. Brother Druillard was in charge of the construction.
Coming through Oregon, her son William had negotiated for lumber for a home he was to build on the seven-acre tract his mother had given to him. It would be large enough to accommodate several families, so his wife and children would not be alone when he had to be on his many trips. He would begin building later in the summer.
Little Forays that Rested Mind and Body
Ellen White contrived to arrange affairs so that short, practical trips could be made that would rest her mind and body. Somehow, traveling by carriage did something for her that nothing else could. She was to attend the California camp meeting in Oakland in early June. As she planned to stay through the entire meeting, a home near the campground was rented for her use. She made the thirty-five-mile journey from St. Helena to Vallejo by carriage, for she felt she needed the relaxation and rest that she would thus gain. She continued the trip to Oakland by ferry and by train, but the carriage was brought on for her use during the camp meeting.
There was a trip to Healdsburg to see what needed to be done with her home there. It was only a few blocks from Healdsburg College, and she had kept it since its purchase in 1882. Now, with the securing of Elmshaven and the decision not to reside at Healdsburg, she must arrange to fix up the building and rent it till it could be sold. After it was refurbished, she would rent it to Alma McKibbin, who was writing Bible textbooks. The home would be occupied by Mrs. McKibbin, her mother, her grandmother, and her younger brother, Alonzo Baker.
Ellen White felt that she needed to spend the day in the open air and so made the thirty-five-mile trip by carriage, giving her heart and head an opportunity to rest. It was to be a full day, so they left Elmshaven at four o'clock in the morning. Sara McEnterfer and Maggie Hare were with her in the carriage, which was driven by a young man who wanted to journey to the college. About halfway they stopped by a brook and under the shade of a tree ate their breakfast.
Looking over the Healdsburg house, she decided what must be done and made arrangements for the work. This included repapering the whole house and painting it inside and out. The $10 a month that Mrs. McKibbin would pay for rent would in time cover the expenses. In the next year or two, whenever she went to Healdsburg, she visited the home. It held many memories for her, and she loved it.
The first time Ellen White visited the home after Mrs. McKibbin moved in, she asked whether she might go out and look at the orchard. There was an acre and a half of fruit trees at the back of the home. Mrs. McKibbin observed that though Ellen White was a short, somewhat stout woman, "her step was very light." She stepped "from the top of one furrow to another just like a bird." She knew every tree there and remarked about the planting of this one and that one. She loved the orchard and the garden.
A large pine tree stood in the yard at the side of the house, a carpet of pine needles covering the ground around it. Looking down at the needles, Ellen White remarked, "'Sister McKibbin, we will never see anything like that in the new earth. Nothing will ever fade there, there will be no death there.'"--DF 967, Alma McKibbin, "My Memories of Sister White," February 15, 1956.
On the occasion of another visit she wanted to walk through the house. As they crossed the rather large enclosed back porch and passed the bathroom that opened into it, Ellen White said, "'Sister McKibbin, away out here!'" and then commented, "'But really it was a great convenience, after all.'"
To this Mrs. McKibbin replied, "'I find it so, too.'"
Then Ellen White said, "'I think, Sister McKibbin, I should like to go upstairs.'"
"'Very well,'" her hostess replied, and led the way.
"'You have put a handrail on,'" Ellen White noted as she ascended the rather steep stairs. "'I should have had that when I lived here. It's a great help in going up these stairs.'"
When they got to the head of the stairs, Mrs. McKibbin opened the door to the room on the southeast corner, and said, "'Sister White, this is my room.'"
"'Oh, is it?'" she said. "'It was my room when I lived here; and you have your desk just where I had mine! The light is so good here.'"
She crossed the room and leaned on the desk and paused in silence for a minute or two. Then she looked up and said, "'It's here that I finished Patriarchs and Prophets.'"
"'Did you, Sister White?'" Mrs. McKibbin responded. As she was a writer of church school Bible textbooks one may understand her appraisal of the book as her favorite. "'Now,'" she said, "'it will be much more precious to me.'"-- (Ibid.)
The room held a fireplace, as did three other rooms. "'Do you use the fireplace?'" she asked. "'No, Sister White, I cannot afford to use it. Fireplaces use too much wood.'"
By the gate was a big rose geranium. "'Oh,'" Mrs. White said, turning to Willie, who was with her, "'that rose geranium is still alive that was here when I lived here.'" Then addressing Mrs. McKibbin, she said, "'May I have a leaf? You know, I love the fragrance of the rose geranium; and to think that it's still here!'"
So Ellen White carried away with her a branch of the rose geranium. The next morning Miss McEnterfer found it under Sister White's pillow (Ibid.).
But back to July, 1901. As to the therapeutic value of the trip to Healdsburg, she declared, "When we closed the journey I was feeling better than when I started."--Letter 213, 1901.
Not long after this she thought up another "therapeutic" drive. This was in search of a cow for her son Willie. She and Sara, their carriage pulled by a young colt, started up Howell Mountain about ten o'clock one Wednesday morning. Optimistically, they had expected to return by lunchtime, so they had only some tarts and a few crackers along. The young horse went up the hill readily enough, but they found the drive down the other side of Howell Mountain into Pope Valley, where they would see the cow, to be very disagreeable.
When the women reached the valley, they sought a way home that would not involve going back down the steep grade they had ascended in the forenoon. They were told that there was a road that would take them fourteen miles to the Napa Valley and then on to St. Helena.
"We found a beautiful road," wrote Ellen White, "and romantic enough. Had few hills to ascend, but the way seemed very long and we inquired and found the distance from Pope Valley was twenty miles. We were in for it and we must go through." That trip around by Berryessa Valley ran into the early evening.
Finally, when they reached St. Helena, Sara found a telephone and put through a call to Elmshaven. She knew everyone would be concerned, for Ellen White had gone on the trip because her head was "refusing" to work and her heart was paining her. The call came just in time, for the farm manager, Iram James, had a wagon all hitched up, ready to go look for the women.
Commenting on it, Ellen White said, "You would think by the joy expressed when we got home that we had been like the lost sheep, just found."-- Ibid. As to the cow, it seems to have been forgotten.
California Interests
August was a month that marked development in the work of the church on the Pacific Coast. The newly established Pacific Union Conference was getting well under way. On August 1, the first issue of the Pacific Union Recorder was published, and its first article, from the pen of Ellen G. White, was devoted to "True Missionary Work." It fitted nicely in the journal's department titled The Church. This first issue carried, as well, an explanation concerning the formation of the new union conference and presented its constitution.
It was also in August that the churches in the southern part of California, formerly part of the Statewide conference whose headquarters were in Oakland, were organized into their own local conference. This new Southern California Conference, comprising thirteen churches, had a membership of just about a thousand. Clarence Santee was elected president.
Sara McEnterfer and Maggie Hare accompanied Ellen White on the journey south to attend the Los Angeles camp meeting. W. C. White remained at St. Helena. Ellen White spoke several times in the large tent and, on August 14, was invited to attend an important counsel meeting. Of this she wrote:
This morning I was called into a committee meeting, to give the light the Lord had given me in regard to the sanitarium which is to be established in Los Angeles. Some of the brethren have held one view in regard to the way in which the work should be carried on, and some another.
I gave them the light God had given me, and I think that now they will all work on right lines. I spoke for over an hour, presenting the necessity of blending together in medical missionary work. I had some very plain things to say.--Letter 113, 1901.
After she had spoken, she drove out to see a five-acre site the brethren were looking on as favorable for a sanitarium. The next day they visited Long Beach, checking on another site. She felt that there was too much fog there to make a good sanitarium location.
Concerning her entertainment in Los Angeles during the camp meeting, Ellen White wrote:
We were well located in Los Angeles. A brother who had just purchased a new house kindly gave it up for the use of myself and my workers. We were very thankful to be thus favored. And even now as I recollect their kindness, I feel like saying, "Thank you, my brother and sister."-- Letter 125, 1901.
On the return journey to her Elmshaven home she stopped in Oakland to attend two meetings of the Pacific Press board. She talked for an hour at each one of these meetings, "setting forth the importance of consecration to God's work." She had much to say regarding "the religious interest in the Pacific Press" (Letter 125, 1901).
After returning to her home, she wrote to the leaders in southern California concerning a vision in which she seemed to be participating in a meeting as important matters were considered:
We were in council, and the matter of locating the sanitarium at Long Beach was being discussed, when One of authority said, You will make a mistake if you select that place. It is not a favorable place for invalids. The winds are objectionable. Take time to make full investigation, and in no case locate the sanitarium in a place where the sea breeze blows as strongly as at Long Beach.--Letter 143, 1901.
And then to give emphasis to what she had just written, she declared: "This is light from the Lord."
The matter of the establishment of sanitariums in southern California was one in which she would participate for the next decade and more.
At Elmshaven, work on Education was moving slowly. Ellen White felt the urgency of her literary work, but before she could settle down to this, there was the three-week teachers' institute opening at Healdsburg on Friday afternoon, August 23. Elementary church schools were just getting well under way, and this institute would be an important one. She pledged her presence. Sarah Peck, an educator on her staff, and W. C. accompanied her.
About forty people attended the institute, twenty-five of them church school teachers. Ellen White spoke frequently to the group. On the two Sabbaths she spoke in nearby churches, Santa Rosa and Petaluma. The Santa Rosa trip included a visit to the Lighter family, where she found Mrs. Lighter's father, an aged cripple, desiring baptism. He was too feeble to go to either Healdsburg or Santa Rosa, so plans were formed for conducting the baptism by letting him down in a bathtub (Letter 126, 1901; Evangelism, 315).
Ellen White made a quick trip back to Elmshaven on Sunday afternoon, September 1, to attend to some important writing. Monday she worked from 2:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. A vision was given to her that night, and she was up on Tuesday morning at three o'clock, writing. She returned to Healdsburg that same morning (Letter 126, 1901).
Then at the close of the institute on Friday, September 13, they returned to Elmshaven. W. C. White reported that book work was about to begin again (17 WCW, p. 366). This embodied primarily work on Education and The Ministry of Healing. The records of the days reveal these activities:
Sabbath, September 21 Ellen G. White spoke in the sanitarium chapel.
Monday, September 23 An interview with J. N. Loughborough in regard to his going to Australia (Letter 195, 1901).
Wednesday, September 25 She found a letter under her door from A. G. Daniells at one o'clock as she arose and began her day's work.
Thursday, September 26 At 1:00 A.M. she began a letter to Daniells declaring that the church was not ready to press the work in China and India. She explained:
We first have a work to do at home. All our institutions--our sanitariums, publishing houses, and schools--are to reach a higher standard. Then the workers sent to foreign fields will reach a higher standard.--Testimonies for the Church 8:87.
That evening she retired at seven o'clock. But an hour later she arose to write concerning Rodney M., a student at Healdsburg College and son of one of the ministers. She wrote until midnight and then slept until 4:00 A.M. When she rose. Burdened with the case of the "Doctors S." at the Sanitarium, she wrote a testimony to them.
In her eagerness to see the school year at Healdsburg start off in right lines, she drove over again for the opening of the college. Her address to the students and faculty "on the subject of Christian education" was encouraging. She dwelt especially on "the relation of students to each other and to their teachers" (Pacific Union Recorder, October 24, 1901).
She constantly carried a heavy burden on her heart for the spiritual condition in church institutions and for the men and women connected with them. Just at this time she had a particular concern for the publishing house in Battle Creek, and for the sanitarium on the hill just above her Elmshaven home.
Laboring for Two Misguided Physicians
On Friday, August 23, just before she went over to Healdsburg for the three-week teachers' institute, there had rolled upon her heart a great longing to help the Drs. S., connected with the St. Helena Sanitarium. In vision she had been shown the peril of their course, one marked with indifference toward Bible study and an unusual interest in amusements. Worldly aspirations and a determination to rule seemed to mark their characters.
Before reaching America on her return from Australia, she was given instruction regarding conditions at the St. Helena Sanitarium. Now among other pressing tasks she must deal faithfully with these two leading workers. This case, in which several visions were involved and a number of most earnest testimonies written, extended over a period of months before the final breakthrough; it illustrates an important phase of her work. Dr. S., 36 years of age, was the medical superintendent and had been for most of the ten years since he came to the institution. Mrs. S., also a physician, stood close by his side. The seven-page letter Ellen White addressed to Mrs. S. on that Friday, August 23, opened with the words:
My Dear Sister,
I have been alarmed for you, because you are not a practical Christian. Your salvation depends upon a change, not a spasmodic change, but an entire, lasting change of heart. You cannot be a child of God unless this change takes place.--Letter 117, 1901.
This letter was to be followed by others to the husband-and-wife doctor team--thirteen in all, in eight weeks. The opening lines of these communications, ranging from two to sixteen pages each, provide a glimpse of the concern the messenger of the Lord felt for those whose cases had been revealed to her and the labor on her part in bearing testimony to them. On August 24, she wrote again: "My Dear Sister: The past night has been one of labor, and it concerned you. I have words to speak to you."--Letter 118, 1901. There were eight pages. On August 26 she wrote: "My Dear Sister: I am up at one o'clock, my soul filled with sorrow on your account."--Letter 119, 1901.
Another written the same day to Dr. S, her husband, filled six pages. This letter referred to perils in their medical work. It was the introduction to further counsel she would give concerning their use of hypnosis in their practice. In this letter she wrote:
The physician is never to lead his patients to fix their attention on him. He is to teach them to grasp with the trembling hand of faith the outstretched hand of the Saviour. Then the mind will be illuminated with the light radiating from the Light of the world. The mind cure must be free from all human enchantment. It must not grovel to humanity but soar aloft to the spiritual, taking hold of the eternal.--Letter 120, 1901.
Two weeks later, on Thursday, September 12, she wrote from the Healdsburg Institute: "Dear Brother: I have said many things to you by letter, but I am so weighed down in your case that I must continue to write to you."--Letter 121, 1901.
In the fifteen pages of this letter Ellen White entered more deeply into what she termed "a species of mind cure." Speaking of the vision that formed the basis of this letter, she declared:
In tones of earnest warning the words were spoken: Beware, beware where your feet are placed and your mind is carried. God has not appointed you this work. The theory of mind controlling mind is originated by Satan to introduce himself as the chief worker, to put human philosophy where divine philosophy should be.
No man or woman should exercise his or her will to control the senses or reason of another, so that the mind of the person is rendered passively subject to the will of the one who is exercising the control. This science may appear to be something beautiful, but it is a science which you are in no case to handle. If you do handle it, it will finally handle you.-- Ibid. (Medical Ministry, 111-115).
In another communication to these same physicians Ellen White wrote:
In dealing with the science of mind cure, you have been eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God has forbidden you to touch. It is now high time for you to begin to look to Jesus, and by beholding His character become changed into the divine likeness. Cut away from yourselves everything that savors of hypnotism, the science by which satanic agencies work.--Letter 20, 1902; Selected Messages 2:350).
As an alternative she counseled these physicians: "The only safe and true mind cure covers much. The physician must educate the people to look from the human to the divine. He who has made man's mind knows precisely what the mind needs."--Letter 121, 1901.
Then there were letters of response, one from each of the husband-wife physician team.
This brought great relief to Ellen White, and it was with joy that she wrote:
Your letters have been received and carefully read. I will now write a few lines in reply. I thank you for writing; for your letters have taken a heavy weight off my heart. I greatly desire that you shall both so will and so do that God will be honored and glorified by your service in the sanitarium.
I know that changes must be made, and we shall help you in every way possible. I felt like weeping when I read Sister S.'s letter. I thank the Lord, my sister, that you are resolved to open your heart to the Saviour. I would not speak one word to discourage you. I will try to help you in every way that I can.--Letter 123, 1901.
But as is true so many times, the battle was only partly won. Steps had been taken in the right direction, but it was revealed to Ellen White in vision that there was a great deal yet to be accomplished. She continued to write to these workers until thirteen letters had been sent. Through the winter she continued to carry the burden of this couple on her heart. One letter was written December 3, 1901. Then in February, 1902, there was another. It began:
My Dear Sister,
Do you know that you are spending your life for naught? If converted to the truth, you could be a help to your husband.... You are not building on the Rock of Ages, but are laying your foundation on the sand, and when the tempest beats on the house you are building, it will surely be swept away.--Letter 18, 1902.
It was this letter that brought the response for which Ellen White was hoping and praying. On March 2, Sister S. sat down and penned these words to Ellen White:
Dear Sister White,
I feel that some word of explanation and gratitude is due you from me, after your many messages of warning and reproof, especially those received yesterday morning.
I wish I had language to express to you just how I have felt over these things. I have not thought myself indifferent to your words, only puzzled and unable to apply all of them to my case. It may be that, as you say, it has simply been that I have stubbornly turned from what might have proved life and salvation.
I will not take your time to tell you of what parts of your messages I could not understand. I feel sure now that, had I accepted and lived up to what I could understand, in time I should have been enabled to understand all.
I am by no means blind to certain of my faults, though entirely incapable, no doubt, of seeing them in their true light. For some weeks I have been studying and praying that God would reveal Himself to me and enable me to see my true needs. And I really felt glad when your letters came yesterday. It seemed to me that they had come in direct answer to prayer, feeble though it was.
I am fully determined now, by earnest prayer and studying God's Word, to learn what is duty, and to perform it. I realize that this will be no easy task, and that only by constant vigilance shall I be enabled to have God's blessing dwelling in the heart. But I am fully determined in purpose, and I am glad that the struggle will be only one day at a time.
I am greatly grieved as I look back over my worse than misspent life. I can see, in some measure at least, how I have been to blame for many of the failures in our work at St. Helena.... I believe we have needed just the experience through which we have passed, to teach us our true condition. I am only too grateful that even through these troubled experiences, God has brought us to as much of a knowledge of our own need as we possess.
I am anxious to do or to be anything that the Lord will have me, so that I may have a close and abiding connection with Him. I have at times known His blessing, but never for long. Yesterday I spent the most of the day in seeking God, and He specially blessed me. For all this I am truly thankful. It is wonderful how ready He is to bless me after all my perversity....
So far as I know, we have no reservations, but are willing to do whatever is best and pleasing to God.
Very gratefully,
Dr. S.
What rejoicing Sister S.'s letter brought to Ellen White, and she could not refrain from an early reply:
Dear Sister S.,
I have just read your letter. I need not say that I am very glad that you are making use of your will to break the power of Satan, that you may be his slave no longer. I thank the Lord for this movement in the right direction. I shall pray for you and unite with you in drawing near to Christ Jesus.--Letter 30, 1902.
In the five pages of this letter Ellen White discussed her Lord, His cross and what it means to the human family, and the importance of the study of the Word of God in the development of Christian life. And then she wrote:
In your character building you must work in union with your heavenly Father, your will conformed to His will. We are to work in union with Him "who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Then why should we doubt Him? Do not stop, my sister, with a work half done.
Do not stop before receiving a new and sanctified nature, in which will appear the fruits of righteousness. Those who stop short of this are Christians only in name. Make diligent work for eternity. Take hold with your husband, walking and working in all humility, and you shall receive grace for grace.-- Ibid.
A few weeks later the husband wrote to Ellen White in appreciation and reported that his wife had been rebaptized.
This is the picture of Ellen White's care for individual cases. However, she was eager to get on with the book work that awaited her attention. She now had a good staff: Sara McEnterfer was her personal secretary, nurse, and traveling companion; Marian Davis, Clarence Crisler, Sarah Peck, and Maggie Hare composed her secretarial force; Mrs. M. J. Nelson was cook; Iram James managed the farm; Mrs. N. H. Druillard was her accountant; and Mr. Druillard the builder. W. C. White gave general supervision and served Ellen White and the General Conference in varied capacities.
The new eight-room office was now in use.
On October 26, Ellen White wrote, "I shall now remain at home for a time, to do the work on my books which has been so long neglected."--Letter 153, 1901. Her hope would not be realized. Within two weeks she was on the train to New York City to meet a critical situation there!