Shortly after the long trip east that closed with her return to her Elmshaven home on September 9, 1909, Ellen White received from the Review and Herald Publishing Association the first copy of Testimonies for the Church, volume 9. From time to time over a four-year period some work had been done on its preparation.
On February 1, 1905, she had written to Dr. Kress, "Just now we are very busy. We are finishing up Ministry of Healing, which is now in the printers' hands, and are making an effort to prepare matter for Testimony IX."--Letter 73, 1905.
A few weeks later she wrote that she hoped the volume would soon be in circulation, and in the weeks that followed she was reading matter that was to go into "the next Testimony" (Letter 89, 1905). In October W. C. White expressed the hope that the book would come out in "three or four months" (29 WCW, p. 40). One of the secretaries, Maggie Hare, was collecting material for the opening section (Ibid., 402).
In March, 1906, W. C. White was looking forward to a meeting with Elders Daniells and Irwin regarding the contents of the Testimony volume (30 WCW, p. 22), and reported that "much of the copy has been prepared, but none of it has been sent to the printer" (Ibid., 98).
But as certain crisis matters pressed in, work on the Testimony volume was laid aside. Two years went by, and then in September and October, 1908, members of Ellen White's staff were back at the Testimony volume again. She wrote, "We have faithful workers in our office staff, and all of them are appreciated.... Clarence Crisler has a special work to do in the preparation of the Testimonies."--Letter 310, 1908.
But it was not until the General Conference session in Washington in 1909, at which Ellen White delivered several messages she wanted the whole church to have and the needs of the great cities pressed hard upon her, that the time seemed ripe for closing up the work on the Testimony volume. Both Clarence Crisler and Minnie Hawkins had been with her during the session, and as plans had been laid for the Review and Herald to publish the book, Clarence and Minnie were left in Washington to see the book through the press. This kept them in Washington through June, July, and much of August--time spent by Ellen White in the long trip home. They kept in almost daily contact with her through W. C. White as he and his mother traveled north and then west. As Crisler turned over finished copy to the publishers, carbon copies and then galley proofs were hastened to the traveling Whites.
On August 4, W. C. White wrote to Crisler, "Mother has read and approves of all the proofs thus far received. You can push forward the closing up of the work as fast as you like."
Crisler was able to send the last of the galley proofs to Ellen White on August 9. These were for the section titled "The Religious Liberty Work."
At the Review and Herald top priority was given to publishing the volume, and with members of Ellen White's staff close at hand to assist when needed, the work moved quickly through the plant. The book was in the field less than four months after the close of the General Conference session.
The Chapter on "Sunday Labor"
The short section on religious liberty interests contained a chapter on "Sunday Labor," written August 17, 1902. In this Ellen White counseled that rather than to defy civil authorities where there were Sunday laws, Seventh-day Adventists could well use the day in various lines of missionary endeavors (see pp. 232, 233). This was to cause considerable discussion in the months to come.
There were those who asserted that the chapter actually represented a major switch in Ellen White's teaching and that it advocated Sunday sacredness. A. T. Jones claimed this in an antagonistic leaflet (AGD to WCW, July 4, 1910). Some suggested that a person other than Ellen White may have written the chapter, or perhaps it was material not intended for general reading. In midsummer of 1910, Ellen White wrote positively in dealing with the questions:
I wish to write words that shall remove from the minds of any of my brethren the impression that I did not, before their publication, read the pages in Testimony for the Church, volume 9, relating to Sunday labor.
I read this matter before it went to the printer, and have read it several times from the book, and I can see nothing in it to give anyone reason to say that Sundaykeeping is there taught. Neither does the counsel there given contradict the Bible nor former Testimonies.
I have given not one word to sustain Sundaykeeping. In my writings will be found the most positive statements concerning the Lord's requirements to observe the holy Sabbath, because that on the seventh day Jehovah rested. He sanctified that day and set it apart, and gave it to man to be observed most sacredly.--Letter 94, 1910.
The president of the General Conference at about the same time made a clearcut statement in a letter to a young minister who was troubled about the question, and gave his understanding of the part played by Ellen White's assistants in preparing matter for publication. Said Daniells:
1. Sister White certainly wrote volume 9 of the Testimonies. Volume 9 was prepared the same as other volumes.
2. The testimony to which you refer concerning Sunday laws was written to the leaders of the work in Australasia at a time when they very much needed counsel on the question involved. The same question had come up in Europe, and you are perhaps aware that our brethren in the Basel publishing house took a very firm, unrelenting stand on the question of running the publishing house on Sunday. They defied the authorities, and the authorities closed up the house, sold the furniture and facilities to pay the fines, and lodged Elder Holser in jail for forty days.... [As we look] back upon that experience, it seems that our brethren took an extreme view of their duty, and that the work of God was hindered thereby.
We reached a time in Australia when we needed counsel on this same point, and the testimony above referred to came at the right time, and was followed in a reasonable way. Knowing that our people were needing the same counsel in many parts of the world, Sister White decided to publish that testimony in volume 9. The brethren in Australia did not go to extremes in either direction in this matter.
Then Daniells explained his understanding of how the work was done not only on volume 9 but also in the preparation of the other Testimony volumes:
3 .... Now I will tell you briefly how the work is done. Assisted by one or two literary workers who keep her files and are in close touch with her work, she makes a collection of the most important testimonies she has received, which she feels impressed should be published for the benefit of all the people. There are many which apply locally and are never published; but those which contain important principles which all the people ought to know, she selects to publish in the Testimonies. This plan was followed in preparing volume 9 the same as all other numbers.
The person selected to assist her in her literary work makes corrections and changes and adjustments in the language which will make the Testimonies read more smoothly and clearly, but every such correction or change is submitted to Sister White.
Every night when the secretary has completed his work, the copy with the corrections is placed where Sister White can find it early the next morning. She often rises between one and three o'clock in the morning and does her best work while it is quiet. During the early hours she goes carefully over such matter, to make certain that the thought has not in any way been changed. Thus every line that goes out over her signature goes with her approval.
Coming back to the immediate question, Daniells pointed out that God gives advanced light according to the experience and need of the church:
I do not believe that the testimonies in volume 9 contradict any former testimonies with regard to Sunday labor or any other points. We should bear in mind that Christian experience is progressive, and that the Testimonies have taught advanced principles year by year as the work has progressed and as the people have been prepared to receive new light.
If you examine the first volumes of the Testimonies, you will find that only the ABCs of many principles and truths were at first presented. These have been developed from time to time since. One who is hunting for technicalities and trying to find a basis for doubts will have opportunity to find apparent discrepancies in the Testimonies. This might also be said of the Scriptures.
The Lord has seen fit to present the truth in such a way that those who are inclined to doubt can always find a peg on which to hang their doubts. It is my conviction, however, that there is beautiful harmony running through all the Testimonies from the first to the last, and that these harmonize with the Scriptures.--AGD to W. Duce, June 23, 1910.
Imparting Helpful Information
Daniells sent a copy of this five-page letter to W. C. White, thinking he would be interested in how he had dealt with the questions put to him. As soon as it was received at Elmshaven, W. C. and others read it carefully, and White replied:
Your letter to Elder Duce has been read by me, by Mother, and by Brother Crisler, and it seems to us that you have written to him a very kind and clear answer to his questions. We feel that you have answered him wisely and correctly, and we say Amen to what you have written.--WCW to AGD, July 10, 1910.
White asked Daniells for permission to duplicate his letter for use in answering some questions and queries that were coming from those who were not in harmony with the instruction given in volume 9.
In point number 3 in the Daniells' letter, he, as stated above, had dealt with the work of Mrs. White's secretaries, and in his letter to White he said of this:
I am not sure that you will approve of the liberty I have taken in making such a full statement regarding the work done by your secretaries; but I am under the impression that there is a strong undercurrent at work on this point, and it seemed to me that it would be safest and best to state the matter just as it is. I wish you would give particular attention to what I have written under number 3, and give me any suggestion that will be helpful on this point in the future. In fact, I wish you would give me anything that you feel will help me in answering letters of this kind.--AGD to WCW, July 4, 1910.
In response to this request, W. C. White responded:
No doubt some persons will misunderstand your statement under number 3, and will question and criticize. I find it is almost impossible to make a statement regarding this matter that is not misunderstood, misrepresented, misstated, and oftentimes criticized and condemned. But it seems to me that you have stated the facts wisely and well, and I shall be glad to use your statement if you are willing.--WCW to AGD, July 10, 1910.
Thus, in a natural setting, attention was drawn to a point to which little study had been given.
There is no question but that the church had entered upon a period when some basic principles having to do with the productions of an inspired writer were carefully examined, as was done with an interpretation of Ellen White's Early Writings statement on the "daily" of Daniel 8. Another, which we shall observe in the next few chapters, deals with what has been termed the 1911 revision of The Great Controversy. One thing is ever certain: Ellen G. White was intelligently responsible for all materials, published and unpublished, that appeared over her name.
In The Field Again
Ellen White recovered from the exhaustion of her prolonged Eastern journey rather quickly. She was soon giving long hours to her writing and was testing her strength to see whether she could respond to requests for speaking appointments that were pressed upon her. She was mindful of her advancing age and waning strength and wanted to be certain she would be in the line of duty were she to venture forth. Opportunity came for such a test Sabbath morning, October 9, when she spoke with freedom at the St. Helena Sanitarium chapel. Now she was ready to respond to Elder Haskell's invitation to address those who could attend the week-long Bible institute in San Jose, which she did.
The next Sabbath she spoke at the Sanitarium chapel again, and the last Sabbath in October she ministered to the St. Helena church.
Elder Haskell, in an attempt to revive the churches, had organized a ten-day Biblical institute for the San Joaquin Valley at Lodi, November 5 to 15. She accepted his invitation to help out, and attended the full session, speaking Sabbath, Sunday, Monday, and two or three of the remaining days. She went over to the Normal School twice to speak to the students (Pacific Union Recorder, October 14, 1909 and Ibid., November 25, 1909).
Ellen White was approaching another birthday, her eighty-second. She wrote of it:
On Friday, November 26, I shall be 82 years old. It is a surprise to many that at my age I am able to speak before large congregations of people. But it is the Lord who sustains me in this work. "This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes." He is indeed able to speak through the human agency.--Letter 144, 1909.
On her birthday, W. C. White wrote to old friends, George and Martha Amadon in Battle Creek, and told of what was going on at Elmshaven:
Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. Today Mother is 82 years old. When I met her this morning and congratulated her on another birthday, she looked as well as five years ago, and from all appearance, has as good a prospect for five years of usefulness.
Mother is not working as hard as she did five years ago. She is trying to lay off care and worry and to reserve her strength that she may occasionally attend general meetings and bear her testimony.
Instead of receiving presents today, Mother has taken occasion on her eighty-second birthday to give us instruction to see that all our intermediate schools are supplied with a good set of her books. During the summer we have been supplying the sanitariums with her books, and now we shall gladly take up the work of seeing that the intermediate schools are supplied....
Yesterday Mother told us that she did not want any demonstration of any sort on her birthday and that she did not want any presents of any sort from anybody. So we are working along today as usual.
The next Sabbath, November 27, Ellen White spoke at the Sanitarium chapel, and then on Sunday she slipped away from her writing for an hour or two to join Willie and a portion of his family in picking Japanese persimmons from the trees in his orchard just across the creek from her home. There together, side by side, were Ellen White, her son William and his wife, May, grandson Arthur and his sister Grace, and great-grandson Virgil with his mother, Ella (WCW to J. E. White, December 5, 1909).
Ellen White observed with a great deal of satisfaction that the Lord was sustaining her and blessing her in a marked manner in her public ministry. She felt that she was especially blessed in her work in Lodi, and when Elder Haskell asked her to assist with the Week of Prayer meetings in Mountain View and Oakland in mid-December, she assented, and ministered helpfully in the two churches.
Back home again, Ellen White took up her writing and book work. A letter addressed to Dr. Kress opens, "The Lord has strengthened me to attend important meetings in Mountain View. I know the Lord gave me words to give to the people." With her heart still burdened for a stronger evangelistic thrust, she wrote: "Seed sowing must cover more territory." "Sow the seeds of gospel truth in all places possible and there will be new and interesting fields open in a variety of places."--Letter 182, 1909.
Writing to another worker in the East, late in December she declared, "I expect to visit Mountain View again in a few weeks, at the time of the union conference."--Letter 174, 1909. It was a crucial meeting, and she was there.