A situation of quite large proportions that was developing in the Southern California Conference gave Ellen White a great deal of concern.
The reader will recall that at the time the Loma Linda property became available in May, 1905, for $40,000, Ellen White urged Elder Burden to move forward in its acquisition. Considerable opposition developed because the Southern California Conference, with its 1,100 members who would be responsible for its purchase, was already heavily in debt. With a new secondary school, San Fernando Academy, just getting well started, and with Glendale Sanitarium just opening its doors, to make further heavy financial commitments seemed not only unreasonable but almost impossible to the conservative conference president, Elder George W. Reaser.
Reaser had been a convert of Elder G. I. Butler. In 1884 at the age of 25 he was employed by Pacific Press in Oakland, California. In the mid 1890s he was called to ministerial work in the California Conference. Then he gave two years of service to the work in South Africa.
In the spring of 1905, at the age of 46, he was elected president of the Southern California Conference. Speaking of his own characteristics and experiences, he at one time told of how his nature and education were against going into debt. As he took office, he was counseled by the union conference president that in the matter of debt he was to hold the line. This laid the foundation for his reluctant attitude toward the purchase of Loma Linda and for conflicts that ensued as necessary developments at the new institution called for borrowing money.
Through his life he had been clear in his acceptance of Ellen White as Heaven's appointed messenger, and this was intensified as he advanced in the ministry. He often mentioned in his preaching that he had never "known anyone to make a mistake by following the light of the Spirit of Prophecy" (G. W. Reaser to EGW, January 14, 1908).
When the developments at Loma Linda called for increasing the indebtedness there--when money was called for to build treatment rooms and start a school--it was hard for the conference president, who at the same time was chairman of the Loma Linda board, to give his wholehearted support, even though such developments had Ellen White's firm backing. In his heart he began to reason that possibly her son, W. C. White, had influenced her to give her strong support to the Loma Linda enterprise.
Then, too, San Fernando Academy was the apple of his eye. The speedy reduction of the indebtedness on this institution became the focus of his endeavors in financial lines. He was greatly bothered that Elder Burden, a member of the Southern California Conference committee, seemed to take rather lightly the assumption of financial obligations for the Loma Linda institution. With this as a background, we come to the prime subject of this chapter.
The Receiving and the Acceptance of Personal Testimonies
To depict this phase of her work, we must, in the interests of clarity, use names. We do this not to disparage men but only to show the interplay of communication and the resulting heart-searching that led the conference president to triumphant victory. As he opens his soul to Ellen White in response to the pointed testimonies involving his very heart experience, we are led to witness the successful work of the Holy Spirit in the experience of one of God's valued workmen.
The fact that Elder G. W. Reaser on several occasions acknowledged his mistakes, confessing his shortcomings in situations with which many were familiar, leads us to feel that in relating this experience no disservice is done to him or his family and that only good can result.
In 1905, Ellen White spoke of Elder Reaser, newly elected president of the Southern California Conference, as "an excellent man" but one who had "not had experience in dealing with minds" (Letter 237, 1905).
In her message written August 19, 1906, during the Los Angeles camp meeting, addressed to Elders Reaser and Burden and the executive committee of the Southern California Conference, she not only made a strong appeal for money to open the school at Loma Linda but came to grips with the matter of relationships. Her letter opened:
Dear Brethren,
I am very anxious that Brethren Reaser and Burden, and their associates, shall see all things clearly. God has given every man a certain work to do, and He will give to each the wisdom necessary to perform his own appointed work.
To Brethren Reaser and Burden I would say, In all your counsels together, be careful to show kindness and courtesy toward each other. Guard against anything that has the semblance of a domineering spirit.
Then coming directly to her subject, she wrote:
Be very careful not to do anything that would restrict the work at Loma Linda. It is in the order of God that this property has been secured, and He has given instruction that a school should be connected with the Sanitarium....
The work at Loma Linda demands immediate consideration.... There are times when certain sanitariums will have to pass through a close, severe struggle for means in order to do a special work which the Lord has particularly designated should be done. In such emergencies, they are to be free to receive gifts and donations from our churches.
In closing this communication she wrote:
As the president and executive committee of the Southern California Conference unite with Brother Burden and his associates in planning for the thorough accomplishment of the sanitarium and school work at Loma Linda, they will find strength and blessing. Brother Burden is not to be bound about in his work.--Letter 274, 1906.
Although the president went along with the message calling for the development of the educational work at Loma Linda, his soul was vexed, and he dragged his feet. Some of those who had pledged money for Loma Linda were, by his attitude and sometimes his remarks, influenced to withhold their support, and the work of Elder Burden was made difficult. For twelve months the conflict between Elder Burden and Elder Reaser and the conference committee simmered. By the time of camp meeting, in August, 1907, the difficulties were acute. The date for that convocation had been set for Thursday, August 15, to Monday, September 2.
Two weeks before the meeting, Ellen White wrote:
The conditions that have existed in southern California this past year are not such as God can approve. To those who have clear discernment it is not hard to see the results of placing men in positions where they are mind and judgment for their brethren.--Letter 246, 1907.
"I dare not venture to attend the meeting that will be held in Los Angeles," she stated, "but I will send some manuscripts to be read at that meeting."
It was unusual for a camp meeting to last for nineteen days, but that was the plan, with three Sabbaths and three Sundays in place of the usual two. The location selected, the west side of Vermont Avenue, two blocks south of Santa Barbara Avenue, was uncrowded. A thousand people were camping in 260 family tents on the grounds. Hundreds residing in the city came to the camp during the day.
Elder W. C. White came onto the grounds on Sunday morning, the 18th. He carried with him several documents written by his mother to be presented, some to the conference and some to the workers. Others were received from his mother through the mail. He let it be known that these were in his hands to be read at appropriate times. Opportunities came on Monday for him to read three of the more general messages. Tuesday was designated as Sanitarium Day, and Elder Burden led out in bringing to the people a number of messages from Ellen White regarding the medical work in southern California that had been sent to the conference committee. "After the meeting, scores expressed themselves as greatly surprised to know that such remarkable things had been written, and said they were thankful to have the information which had thus been given."--34 WCW, pp. 153, 154.
A good foundation was laid for what would follow during the next few days. The messages W. C. White carried dealt pointedly with the local situation and made it clear that because of the arbitrary power exercised by the conference president a change should be made in conference leadership. When asked to take the early-morning meeting on Wednesday, W. C. White felt it was time to begin bringing in the counsels on the unwise use of power of conference leaders. He read a manuscript written the Thursday before, titled "Jehovah Is Our King" (see Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 477-484). It opened:
God has revealed many things to me which He has bidden me give to His people by pen and voice. Through this message of the Holy Spirit, God's people are given sacred instruction concerning their duty to God and to their fellow men.
A strange thing has come into our churches. Men who are placed in positions of responsibility that they might be wise helpers to their fellow workers have come to suppose that they were set as kings and rulers in the churches, to say to one brother, Do this; to another, Do that; and to another, Be sure to labor in such and such a way. There have been places where the workers have been told that if they did not follow the instruction of these men of responsibility, their pay from the conference would be withheld.
Then she pointed out:
It is right for the workers to counsel together as brethren; but that man who endeavors to lead his fellow workers to seek his individual counsel and advice regarding the details of their work, and to learn their duty from him, is in a dangerous position, and needs to learn what responsibilities are really comprehended in his office. God has appointed no man to be conscience for his fellow man, and it is not wise to lay so much responsibility upon an officer that he will feel that he is forced to become a dictator.
She then referred to several experiences through the years where men were taught to look to men rather than God for wisdom, and declared:
Recently the same message has again been given me, more definite and decisive, because there has been a deeper offense to the Spirit of God.
Near the close of the testimony she stated:
This message is spoken to our churches in every place. In the false experience that has been coming in, a decided influence is at work to exalt human agencies, and to lead some to depend on human judgment, and to follow the control of human minds. This influence is diverting the mind from God, and God forbid that any such experience should deepen and grow in our ranks as Seventh-day Adventists. Our petitions are to reach higher than erring man--to God.--Manuscript 73, 1907.
At the nine-o'clock business meeting the nominating committee report was brought in, but on the suggestion of Elder W. C. White, who said that he had other messages from his mother that seemed to him to have a bearing on the choice of officers, the election was delayed, and he was asked to read them. One was titled "Workers in the Cause," appropriate material selected from Testimonies, volume 5, pages 721-729. Another was headed "Individual Responsibility," and a third one along the same line, "God's Wisdom to Be Sought." The reading brought the issues into the open.
The discussion turned to conference policy relating to institutions. W. C. White reports that the president claimed that "the conference had outlined a policy which had been persistently violated by Elder Burden in his pushing forward with improvements at Loma Linda." Then, "in response to this, Elder Burden endeavored to show that the conference policy had not been violated in any such degree as represented and that the necessities of the case had forced him to do what had been done."--34 WCW, p. 155.
It was an earnest and heated discussion in which Burden pointed out that part of the problem "had been created by the conference officers, by their diverting the attention of the people from sanitarium work to the school work and by their spreading such reports regarding the sanitarium work as to discourage our people from paying their pledges." It was a rather fierce contention, which clearly revealed both issues and attitudes of men.
Somewhere along the line, W. C. White handed to Elder Reaser and other leading men a twenty-two line testimony addressed to "The Laborers in Southern California." In part it read:
I am deeply convicted on some points. I must speak in regard to the position that Elder Reaser is occupying. I know, from the light God has given me, that if this is allowed to continue, God will be greatly dishonored.
God calls His servants to seek light and understanding and spiritual strength from One who is infinite in wisdom; they are to put their dependence upon One who is able to help in every emergency.
The conditions that have existed in southern California this past year are not such as God can approve. To those who have clear discernment it is not hard to see the results of placing men in positions where they are mind and judgment for their brethren.
Those who accept such a work and authority show that they have not a true and wise understanding of the Scriptures. If these men were close students of the Word of God, they would see that by adopting such a course, they are leading men and women to depend on human wisdom instead of seeking it from God.--Letter 246, 1907.
W. C. White read message after message at the conference. "All were well received," he wrote his mother, adding, "Some see the importance of the messages, and others cannot understand. But all are studying the matter prayerfully."--34 WCW, p. 106.
The President Reelected
When the election was held, Elder Reaser was returned to office as president for the usual one-year term. W. C. White wrote his mother:
The people here are devoted and loyal. Many greatly admire their leaders, and if your testimony had not come, they would have remained blind to their dangers. But they are now placed on their guard, and the leaders see that they must walk circumspectly. Day by day our leading men see more clearly the conditions existing here.-- Ibid., 109.
He added, "It is difficult for Elder Reaser to see his peril, but I think that he begins to see men as trees walking."
After his election was an accomplished fact, Ellen White endeavored to help him understand his situation and the need of a change in his attitudes. She wrote on August 29, 1907, a letter he received in September:
Dear Brother Reaser,
The Lord has revealed to me that in your work as president of the Southern California Conference, you are in danger of embracing too much responsibility. Some time ago the Lord showed me that if you were placed in office, you would attempt to rule in every branch of the work, but that this was not to be permitted, because you have not the judgment to deal with all lines of work, and because God has chosen especially qualified workers for certain lines of His work.
Because of a wrong comprehension of the duties of your office, the work in your field has become sadly confused in the past two years. You have accepted responsibilities that should not have been placed upon you. Because you were president of the conference, you considered yourself to be in a certain sense the manager of the work of the Loma Linda Sanitarium, and that it was your duty to see that matters there were conducted according to your ideas. I am bidden to say to you that you are not qualified to take the control of the sanitarium work.
Elder Burden has been given this work, and he has good helpers and advisers in the workers who are associated with him. The Lord appointed Elder Burden to the position he occupies, and he is to humbly bear his responsibilities in that position without interference. He is fully capable of doing the work that has been given him to do. The Lord has not told you to watch and criticize, and interfere with His work. He bids you, my brother, to stand out of the way.
In particularly earnest terms she pointed out: It is a mistake for a conference to select as president one who considers that his office places unlimited power in his hands. The Lord has instructed me to tell you that you do not know when to use authority, and when to refrain from using it unwisely. You have much to learn before you can do the work of a conference president intelligently. You are to bear in mind that in the cause of God there is a Chief Director, whose power and wisdom is above that of human minds.
The pointed testimony closed with the admonition:
My brother, God lives and reigns. Let your brethren have the right of way to the footstool of Christ. Encourage them to carry their burdens to the Lord, and not to any human being. Never take the responsibility of becoming conscience for another.
As brethren you can counsel together, and pray together, and seek instruction from the Source of all wisdom; but you are not to seek to direct another regarding his duty. Let all work of this character be done away. God forbids that this spirit shall again come into His work while time shall last.--Letter 290, 1907.
In somewhat the same vein she penned lines on September 2, addressed to "The Workers in Southern California." She reminded them that what she was writing was prompted by the visions God gave to her:
I have been instructed regarding the mistake that has been made in placing men in positions of large responsibility to meet emergencies which they think it necessary to be met.
Here are two paragraphs from the six-page testimony:
Man is not to be made amenable to his fellowman. I am bidden to write decidedly regarding this matter. The work of exalting men as rulers is a dangerous work, for it educates the workers to look to human agencies instead of looking to God, and this spoils their religious experience. Their minds are diverted from the only true Source of their strength.
I have been shown that the evangelistic labors of the gospel minister are not to be directed by a fellow minister. The workers for God should inquire of Him, the fountain of wisdom, in regard to their labors. They are to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. God is able to move upon their minds, and to guide them with judgment. "The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way." God will work with those who will listen to His voice. The Word of God is to be the man of our counsel, and is to guide our experience.--Letter 342, 1907.
The Response to Earnest Testimonies
At first there was no response, and then finally a break came. On September 23, Elder Reaser wrote at length to Ellen White. The letter was written in his own hand and read:
Dear Sister White,
I have received several communications from you of late, but have not considered that you desired a reply from me in answer to all of them. However, I am impressed that it is due you that I give you, at least, one general answer to all of these kindly communications.
I find, by a careful reading, that they all contain excellent instruction and lay down splendid principles which are well worthy of application in my life and work. I find, however, some statements that I do not fully understand. I presume that this is not a strange thing.
The conference president then reviewed a number of points of history relating to his connection with the medical interests of the conference, and particularly Loma Linda. He reported that he had offered to resign his official connections with the sanitarium work, and intended to do so at the next large council meeting. He added that Elder Burden and others connected with the sanitarium work had urged him not to do so.
Then he made a significant and enlightening statement:
From my childhood up I have had almost a horror of heavy indebtedness, and I supposed that I was acting fully in harmony with the Spirit of Prophecy and from communications that I have personally received when I opposed, what seemed to me, the extreme debt policy at Loma Linda.
After discussing a number of points where there had been friction between him and Elder Burden, he stated:
I will say in conclusion that if the Lord clearly leads in that direction, I am not only willing to resign from the medical work but from the conference work in southern California and go exactly where He leads.
Two weeks after penning this letter, Elder Reaser, on Sabbath afternoon, October 5, was in Ellen White's living room at Elmshaven for an interview with her and her son, Elder W. C. White. Elder Burden was there, as well as Clarence Crisler, who made a stenographic report of the interview. Both Reaser and Burden had in mind two main questions they wanted resolved: (1) Did Ellen White write the messages of counsel to Elders Burden and Reaser and the conference committee on the basis of what W. C. White reported to her? and (2) In the light of recent testimonies, should Elder Reaser continue connections with the medical work in southern California?
The Old Question--Who Told Sister White?
Elder Burden observed that many of the brethren in southern California were taking the position--and the matter had spread through the conference--that what she had written to meet the situation in southern California was based on the representations made to her by W. C. White, "that a situation is laid before you by Brother White, and you, from your knowledge, write on that representation, and not because you have received light apart from that" (Manuscript 105, 1907).
To this Ellen White responded: "He will tell you himself that it is I that presents the situation to him."-- Ibid. (Italics supplied.)
She pointed out:
He does not seem to want to tell me anything about the southern California meeting. Scarcely anything has he told me--only some points that he knows would not trouble my mind....
I come to him with manuscripts, and tell him, "This must be copied, and sent out just as quickly as it can be."
Now I have light, mostly in the night season, just as if the whole thing was transacting, and I viewing it, and as I am listening to the conversation, I am moved to get up and meet it.
This is the way it is; and then in the morning I tell him about it. Often he doesn't say a word--not a word; but after a while, when I have written and written, then he acknowledges that it is so. He is quite sure that it is so, because he was there; but he did not tell me.-- Ibid.
At this point the interview turned to other phases, but as it was continued on Sunday morning, Ellen White addressed herself again to the matter of the source of her information. Because of its importance, we quote from the interview at length:
Sister White: There is one other point that I want Brother Reaser to keep in his mind; perhaps he does not understand it fully.
He has thought that Willie tells me. Now I am up in the morning, you know, before anyone else is up--at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, and seldom ever after four--more often by three. Recently, for nights and nights and nights, I have seldom been able to sleep after two o'clock, but have been up writing.
I write out the presentations that the Lord has given me in the night season; and when, later on in the morning, Willie comes in to see me, I have already written many pages.
Often the manuscript has been placed in the hands of one of my copyists, and is being written out, before he knows that I have written anything, or what I have written. After it is typewritten, a copy is often placed in his hands.
It is not he that comes with things to me, but I give to him the light that I have received.
W. C. White: Sometimes, you know, you propose to read to me what you have written. Sometimes you tell me a little about it; but there is not more than one-twentieth part that I really know anything about before it is passed on by you into the hands of the copyist to be typewritten.
Sister White: Yes, I know that.
W. C. White: But the real point in the minds of the brethren is: Do I, after seeing how things are going in the field, come to you with my representations of how things look to me, and keep presenting them so as to stir you up to write out principles which are good, true principles, but principles which may not be needed at that time, and which do not exactly apply at that time, but which you think apply at that time because of the representations I have made to you of the conditions in the field?
Sister White: I have not been able to get from Willie full particulars regarding perplexing matters; he is careful to tell me only of victories gained, or anything that will encourage me. When he attends meetings, he does not make it a point to tell me of the difficulties that he encounters in these meetings. Instead of going into particulars regarding the matters that perplex the brethren, he presents those things that he thinks will not disturb my mind. Sometimes letters come, giving me information that I should never gain from him, because he won't tell me.--Manuscript 109, 1907.
Then she informed the men that it was Elder H. W. Cottrell, the president of the Pacific Union Conference, who had given her somewhat of a detailed report of the camp meeting in Los Angeles, for she had pressed him for his impressions of what had taken place, particularly in the light of the fact that she had sent testimonies to the meeting to be read.
The Other Question--Proper Relationships
But the main part of the interview on Sabbath afternoon and Sunday morning was devoted to the question of the relation of the conference president to the work in the light of the several testimonies concerning arbitrary authority and his attitude to the sanitarium work. On the more general phase of the question, Ellen White stated that as she had been looking through her diaries, she found a portrayal of "principles very similar to those outlined in the testimonies sent recently to brethren in southern California."
The same dangers of centralizing the work, and of binding about and restricting the labors of our fellow workers, are brought to view. Southern California is not the only field where there is a tendency to restrict and bind about. In several other fields the same evil has to be met.--Manuscript 105, 1907.
On the question of the president continuing his connections with the sanitarium work, Elder Reaser stated, "I want to have an understanding as to just what to do, and what not to do."
He pointed out that practically the only thing that was between Brother Burden and him was the matter of going into debt at Loma Linda, and he stated:
My whole nature and education were against going into debt heavily, and that was what caused the whole issue down there.-- Ibid.
Sister White then introduced the matter of her gift of Christ's Object Lessons to bring relief to denominational schools, and The Ministry of Healing to help the sanitariums. The former had brought in more than $300,000. [It should be noted that although Ellen White abhorred debt, she recognized that at times it was necessary to borrow money to advance the work of the Church. She was opposed to institutions carrying heavy indebtedness.]
When pressed as to whether Reaser should continue his connections with the sanitarium work, Ellen White declared:
It is not that you are not to be connected with the work, but that you are not to be connected with it to discourage.... There is a kind of authority that you feel at liberty to use, that the Lord does not give you--a kind of domineering that is not in harmony with the Lord's work and our relation one with another.-- Ibid.
Two weeks after the interview and a week after the dedication of the hospital building at St. Helena Sanitarium, Ellen White, with several members of her staff, went to southern California to attend a convention of physicians, ministers, and leading workers. They arrived at Loma Linda on Monday, October 28. She spent two months in southern California dividing her time between the convention, the three sanitariums, speaking appointments, and giving counsel concerning the school in operation at Loma Linda. Her eightieth birthday passed with but little notice. Her heavy burden was the matter that had been of deep concern to her for the past few months, the administration of the Southern California Conference. On Sunday, November 3, while at Loma Linda, she wrote:
I have passed a wakeful night, for there have been presented to me some things connected with the past, present, and future of the work in southern California.
I have now no hesitation in speaking plainly, and in calling things by their right names. For three nights in succession, the message has been given to me that Elder Reaser, as president of this conference, is out of his place. He should not occupy such a position in any of our conferences. He is leading some of his brethren to ignore the messages that the Lord is sending to His people. He has refused to accept the testimonies that have not harmonized with his own mind and judgment....
The president of the Southern California Conference needs the power to see himself as he is in the sight of God. He is as a man lost in the woods, blinded by a dangerous confidence in himself.--Manuscript 127, 1907.
First Resistance, Then a Heartfelt Response
How would a conference president respond to such a direct message? On Thursday, November 7, in his own hand, he wrote to the Lord's messenger:
Dear Sister White,
Your communication of the third ... [of November] was laid on my desk by Brother Jones yesterday. I have given the same a very careful reading. My first temptation was to resist, even to taking a stand with our people in southern California that the charges were unjust, in view of the very heavy burdens that have been forced upon me in this conference. It seemed to me that the whole issue was over the financial policy for which I have stood.
However, after much meditation, heart searching, and prayer over the matter during the past night, I have decided that it is far better to be submissive than to resist. I do not as yet see the force of all that has been written to me personally, but doubtless as I walk in the light that I can see in it, additional light and truth will be revealed to me.
Then he made reference to a point that many who had received testimonies touching their own lives had noted, and of which they had spoken in deep appreciation:
The first favorable impression was made on my mind by the very tender spirit breathed in the latter portion of the testimony. Evidently the Lord does not rend the heart asunder, and then leave it torn and bleeding, but rather binds up the wound. I trust that as I have more time for heart searching and earnest prayer, the result of all the reproof and instruction that has come to me will work repentance that needeth not to be repented of, and in the end will yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
I gratefully acknowledge the goodness of the Lord in all His dealings with me.
Wishing you every blessing, I am yours for being right in the sight of Heaven. G. W. Reaser.
But such battles are not won in a day. Under the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord, further communications were addressed to the conference president, and there were further heartfelt responses. On Sunday, December 22, in a five-page handwritten letter, he opened his heart:
Dear Sister White,
The mail has just brought a letter containing three separate communications from you, and I hasten to reply, having first sought the Lord for special guidance. I have carefully read the instruction given and also the pages referred to in [Testimonies,] volume 6.
I am glad to say, Sister White, that these communications do not stir up my nature to resistance as I was stirred by the first personal communications which began to come to me from your pen at camp meeting time and thereafter. But instead, I feel very much softened and subdued.... I certainly desire to learn every lesson that the Lord has for me, and to put it into practice in my daily life and in my associations with fellow workers and in my relationship to the cause of God.
He reviewed his experience in resigning from the medical boards, except Loma Linda. He pointed out that there were now capable men who could carry responsibilities and that he was enjoying having time to study and pray as he had not done before. It was his plan to spend his time with the churches. He was reaching out for preparation of heart to do acceptable work for souls. He declared:
Now, Sister White, I can give you positive assurance that I have no other thought than to humble my heart before God, to seek full forgiveness by repentance and confession of the many mistakes of my past life and to walk humbly and softly before the Lord hereafter, and to labor in love and perfect accord with my brethren. I am sure that there is grace sufficient for this, and I am determined to avail myself of it, and to accept in humility all reproof and instruction that the Lord has for me.
I have been connected with this message too long, Sister White, to now turn away by any reproof that may come. The thing for me to do instead of turning away is to conform myself to it. I cannot afford to be out of harmony with heaven nor to be blinded so that I will not see my sins and weaknesses.
I am thankful for the assurance that you give that the Lord will freely forgive and accept me.
Elder Reaser wrote again on December 31 to Ellen White:
Dear Sister White,
I awoke early this morning, and again turned to the testimonies which have come recently. I find, Sister White, a strong and still stronger desire in my heart to profit by every statement made in them. I am determined to make thorough work of repentance and confession to all individuals whom I have wronged.
Instead of being in any way a hindrance to Elder Burden, I am fully determined to hold up his hands, and do everything in my power to help him.
I desire also to fully cooperate with Elder W. C. White, and to give due consideration to all of his counsel. He has had a long and valuable experience in the work of the Lord.
I have so often preached conscientiously and confidently, upholding the Spirit of Prophecy, and I have so often used extracts to strengthen my sermons. I am determined to uphold it still, as the Lord permits me to have a part in His work.
Ellen White Rejoices in the Victory Gained
Having received the December 22 letter showing a genuine change in Elder Reaser's experience, Ellen White on New Year's Day picked up her pen and wrote:
I was very thankful to read your letter, for it seemed to me that it sounded the right note. I believe, Brother Reaser, that you are coming to the place where the Lord would have you be. As you seek the Lord for light, He will be found of you.
But before the day was over, she received the second letter written on December 31. What gratitude welled up in her heart. The appeals of the Spirit of God had not been in vain. Changes were taking place. Adding to the letter, she wrote:
Later: It is New Year's Evening. Sara has just come in with your last letter. As I read it, Elder Reaser, my heart was deeply moved, and I wept, and said, "Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!"
My heart was filled with a great joy as I read of your effort to place yourself in right relation to God and His work. I have cause to rejoice in that while some are lapsing into apostasy, which almost breaks my heart, others are finding their way to the light.
Your letter means much, very much to me; it has lifted a tremendous burden from my heart. I believe that the terrible spell is now broken. I had fully accepted your first letter; but this last, I verily believe you were moved by the Spirit of God to write. Coming on the first day of this new year, it has made my heart glad. I cannot find words in which to express my gratitude to God.
Then she made an interesting statement, relating to Elder Reaser's connection with the sanitarium boards, that is typical of counsel given when changes had been made in people's lives:
Your statement that you feel that you should not be on any of the sanitarium boards I do not fully agree with. Your voice is to learn to give the right note of counsel and advice in unison with your brethren; and this you will be enabled to do if you continue to press to the light.
Brother Reaser, you can do a grand work for the Lord in southern California if you will work in His way. Be assured that we will stand with you as you seek to carry out the Lord's plans in His way. When we receive the meekness of Christ, and labor in His lines, our influence as laborers together with God will tell decidedly for the truth.
Elder Reaser Needed in God's Cause
What assuring words she wrote as she continued her seven-page letter of gratitude and counsel:
Elder Reaser, we have not one worker to spare. We have felt pained at heart as we have seen you placing yourself where you were in danger of sowing strange seed. Oh, how I feared for the results, if you should refuse to accept the light God was sending you. But rest assured that if you will work in harmony with your brethren, we will draw in even cords. If God's servants will walk humbly with Him, they will see of His glory.
She recognized that there was a battle ahead, but assured Reaser that as he sought to "correct those things for which the Lord has reproved" him, God's grace would enable him to see things in their right light, and to be one to help "recover others who stand in the same dangerous position" in which he had stood.
"I believe," she wrote, "that you will continue to come more and more into the light, and that you will not be separated from the work, but will learn to carry it as a converted man in Christ Jesus."
As to the influence of this experience in the conference, she continued:
Nothing could give the conference surer confidence in you than the step you are now taking to place yourself in right relation to the work of God. Do not cease your efforts until you stand on vantage ground. And the position you take will help those who have been following a similar course.
If you can retain your position as a minister of God, and reveal His converting power and the grace of Christ in your life, you will teach others the right way.--Letter 4, 1908.
The exchange of correspondence continued over a period of six weeks, Elder Reaser expressing his gratitude for the messages the Lord had sent and his determination to follow the light, and Ellen White carefully keeping before him that the battle he had entered upon was one he must with the help of God pursue, and at the same time keeping before him the tender love of God and the help he must secure from Him.
Elder G. W. Reaser continued to carry on his work as the president of the Southern California Conference as a man who now saw things in their true light. When his term expired, it was thought best to allow him to work in a new field. He responded to a call to Mexico, where, by the help of the Southern California Conference, mission work was being opened. At the 1907 camp meeting, he had reported three trips to Mexico (Pacific Union Recorder, September 19, 1907), so he was somewhat acquainted with and deeply interested in that field.
After two years in Mexico, Elder Reaser engaged in various ministerial activities in the Pacific Union Conference. As a member of the union committee, he participated in an interview with Ellen White at her home on December 4, 1913, and offered prayer and expressed appreciative remarks at the close of the interview (Manuscript 12, 1913).