Ellen White and other believers in the Advent message endeavored to spread the knowledge of the third angel's message in Australia they found that the subject of temperance was an opening wedge. The deep interest in temperance provided a receptive audience for new light in the broad field of healthful living: proper nutrition, exercise and rest, care of the sick, the relation of the mind to the body.
True temperance involves the total being: body, mind, and soul.
The Health Home
The first step in the line of medical missionary work in Australia was the opening of the Health Home in Sydney in late 1896. The next step was the publishing of a health journal, the Herald of Health, launched in Melbourne in 1898.
Medical work was just getting a start in Australia. A. W. Semmens, a graduate nurse from Battle Creek, opened the Health Home in Sydney. A large residence was rented, and Ellen White noted, "As he had no money, I furnished him with £25 [$120] to make a beginning" (Letter 70, 1897). To this was soon added £10 [$48]. The Bible Echo, January 18, 1897, carried an advertisement for the newly developed Battle Creek health foods. The public was informed that "some of these valuable foods are already being shipped to this country, and that a proposition is on foot for their manufacture here at an early date." This was a significant project that was to take on large proportions in Australia.
On a Monday in early February 1897 a letter came to Ellen White from
S. N. Haskell, who had just arrived in Sydney. He urged her to hasten to the city so they could counsel together. Although she was much involved in preparations for the opening of the Avondale school, she dropped everything and, with Sara, within three hours was "speeding to the train with" their "fastest team, conjecturing all the four miles and a half [seven kilometers] whether or not we would be able to catch the train to Sydney" (Letter 82a, 1897). They did, and at 11:00 p.m. were at the Health Home at Summer Hill, where Haskell was staying. There they joined in planning.
To help keep the Health Home afloat financially, Haskell had rented and furnished one room. If the home proved a success, he would be paid back from earnings. Ellen White rented one room for $1 a week. She and Sara bought furniture in Sydney for this room so that she could have a place to stay when she was in the city. It could also be used by other workers as they passed through the city. Elder and Mrs. W.L.H. Baker took two rooms, for which they paid 10 shillings a week (Letter 82, 1897; Letter 171, 1897). After explaining these steps to help get the enterprise going, Ellen White noted in a letter, "I hope this Health Home will prove a success, but it is an experiment" (Letter 171, 1897). And to W. C. White she wrote on the same day:
In regard to the Health Home, I cannot see anything very flattering in patients as yet. But it is no use to look on the discouraging side. We must walk by faith. We must talk faith and act faith and live faith (Letter 188, 1897).
Dr. Kellogg had sent from Battle Creek a shipment of the newly developed health foods, apparently as a donation to the enterprise, so Ellen White reported to him:
I have learned that Brother Semmens is doing well selling the health foods.... We feel thankful that you could give them this timely assistance. They appreciate it very much, for they have been in most straitened circumstances (Letter 82a, 1897).
In mid-February the mail brought £50 ($240) from Peter Wessels. As Ellen White acknowledged the gift she declared:
It came exactly at the right time. We were at the Health Home trying to get means to furnish some rooms in the humblest style.... When our means gave out, we had to wait; and when that money came, we rejoiced, and were glad. Now we can finish furnishing the rooms (Letter 130, 1897).
The enterprise did succeed. By advertisements in each issue of the Bible Echo and in other media, the public was informed that at the Health Home they were prepared to "treat by the most approved rational methods paralysis, rheumatism, sciatica, neuralgia, and other disorders of the nervous system, also all manner of stomach and bowel disorders."
These diseases will be treated by the most approved methods of hygiene, hydrotherapy, electrotherapy, massage, manual Swedish movement, diet, et cetera. Electric baths, electric vapour baths, sitz baths, salt glows, hot packs, wet sheet packs, massage, et cetera, can be had (The Bible Echo, January 11, 1897, and throughout the year).
After some months the Bible Echo on November 15 carried a back-page note to the effect that "the Sydney Health Home is having a good patronage at present--about all it can do."
The Successful Treatment Of A Very Critical Case
The little struggling health institution soon proved its worth as Professor Herbert Lacey, having become seriously ill during a visit in school promotion in Tasmania, was nursed back to health. On Friday, February 28, a telegram was received by his wife, Lillian, at Cooranbong to the effect that Lacey, desperately ill, would arrive by train in Sydney that day. Lillian hastened to Sydney and arrived just as her husband was arriving from Melbourne. They went immediately to the Health Home, where his case was thought to be typhoid fever. He had lost 20 pounds (seven kilograms) in one week, and his wife wrote that he was "very poor, nothing but skin and bones."
At the Health Home Elders Haskell and Baker were joined by Mr. Semmens in praying for his recovery (Letter 189, 1897). Semmens began using hydrotherapy treatments. Lillian reported to her husband's father, who resided at Cooranbong, that "Brother Semmens was using ice on his bowels" (Ibid.). His vitality was low, and when Ellen White learned of the ice remedy, she hastened off a telegram to Semmens, "Use no ice, but hot applications" (Ibid.). Of course there was a reason for this, as she explained in a letter to W. C. White:
In several cases light had been given me that the ice remedy was not as efficacious as the hot water. I was afraid. His vitality, I learned, was very low and to put ice on head and chest I knew was a mistake. It would tax his vitality....
There must be no risk run over Herbert's case. I was not going to be so delicate in regard to the physician as to permit Herbert Lacey's life to be put out.... There might be cases where the ice applications would work well. But books with prescriptions that are followed to the letter in regard to ice applications should have further explanations, that persons with low vitality should use hot in the place of cold....
Hot fomentations in fever will kill the inflammation in nine cases out of ten where ice applications will, according to the light given me, tax the vitality unsafely. Here is where the danger comes in of not using judgment and reason in regard to the subject under treatment (Ibid.).
A week later in reporting to her son, she mentioned the steps being taken in connection with Lacey's illness:
The case is critical, but I believe the Lord will raise him up. We are praying for him. He is having everything done for him possible....Brother Semmens gives his whole time to the sick man, and they are having Dr. Deek, who is watching the case of the hygienic methods of treatment with great interest. He says he is doing just as well as he could possibly do under this attack (Letter 181, 1897).
In her diary she noted:
We have made his case a special subject of prayer. We wrote a few lines to him each day to call his attention to that which the Lord was ready and willing to do for him. The angels of God have presided over him all through his sickness (Letter 172, 1897).
Ellen White rejoiced when on Friday, April 9, she could send her carriage to the railway station to meet Herbert Lacey and his wife. She reported, "He is feeling real well and means to engage in the school at the beginning. I am so pleased."
But it was in the winter of 1898 that the various lines of medical missionary work really began to blossom in Australia. One matter of concern was that of priorities in the use of available funds. Responding in June to questions asked by A. G. Daniells, president of the union conference, Ellen White enunciated two principles:
All should be able to see eye to eye before we determine how means shall be appropriated. It is necessary that we see how we stand financially in all our lines of work (Letter 52, 1898).
In June she reported, "The Health Home is full.... We see a large number of people who are destitute of a knowledge of how to take care of themselves. We feel a great desire to advance the work" (Letter 56, 1898). Then came a report indicating progress, published in the Union Conference Record of July 15.
Those of our people who read the Herald of Health ... will have noticed that the Sydney "Health Home" has changed its name. Henceforth this institution will be known as the "Medical and Surgical Sanitarium" of Summer Hill.
Nor is this a change in name alone. The entire institution has been placed upon a higher scientific plane; in fact, a sanitarium plane.
A physician has taken charge of the medical and surgical work.... A thoroughly competent chemist and microscopist is at the head of a new complete laboratory of investigation. Medical gymnastics and other special facilities are being added to assist in the recovery of the sick.
A School For Nurses
The next step was the development of a school for nurses. The Union Conference Record of January 15, 1899, carried the following notice:
Sanitarium training school for nurses
The sanitarium school for nurses is an institution for the training of young men and women to engage in various lines of medical and other philanthropic work under the direction of regularly organized missionary boards of the Australasian Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association. The school is evangelical, but highly scientific.
As to what might be expected in training and financial arrangements, the notice stated:
The Course: The course of instruction covers a period of three years, the terms commencing April 1 and October 1 each year....
Remuneration: During the first year of the course, students receive uniforms and books, besides room, board, and tuition, and are required to work full time--ten hours each day. After the first year's examinations are passed, a small salary, as determined by the Sanitarium medical board, will be paid in addition to room and board, provided the work is done satisfactorily.
Soon Dr. S. C. Rand joined the forces, bringing the medically trained staff to four--two physicians and two graduate nurses. God blessed the work carried by the dedicated personnel laboring with limited facilities in cramped quarters. In response to Ellen White's almost heartbreaking pleas pointing out the dire need of building and equipping a sanitarium in Sydney, Dr. J. H. Kellogg, his brother, W. K. Kellogg, J. N. Loughborough, and others sent some funds with which to make a beginning in the erection of a well-planned medical institution.
It was reported that at the end of June there were 21 employees in the little Medical and Surgical Sanitarium of Summer Hill.
Firm Plans For Erecting A Sanitarium
In connection with the union conference session held at Cooranbong, a formal meeting was held of the Australasian Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association on Thursday morning, July 20, and recorded in the July 24 Union Conference Record. Fifteen resolutions were brought in for consideration. Three related to a proposed new building, the first of which read:
That we earnestly invite a hearty cooperation of our conferences and associations, and friends of our cause in general, in the erection and equipment of a medical and surgical sanitarium, to be located in the vicinity of Sydney; and that we suggest that this enterprise be undertaken according to plans for a building capable of accommodating one hundred patients.
This was followed by two lengthy resolutions relating to finance, the opening sentence reading:
That we undertake to raise the sum of £8,000 ($38,400) for the purpose named in the foregoing resolution.
The resolutions appealed to the constituency for strong support and the exercise of self-denial and "strict economy, that all may have means to offer for this cause." The common sentiment was that they should "look directly to God for help, committing our cause to Him and appealing through Him to the friends of the work."
At this point Ellen White was given an opportunity to speak. Her statement, which filled more than six columns in the July 21 Union Conference Record, opened with the words:
My husband and I took an interest in the sanitarium in Battle Creek from the time it was first started. It was very hard work to get right ideas fixed in the minds of the workers in regard to what the sanitarium should be. We had to go over the ground again and again, teaching them line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.
After reviewing the initial steps taken in Sydney, she declared: "From the light I have received, I know that if ever there was a country where a sanitarium was needed, it is New South Wales, and I may say also, Victoria." She told of how the hospitals of the world could not suffice, and declared:
We should have a sanitarium under our own regulations, that the truth of God on health reform may be given to the world. Those connected with such an institution who are being educated as nurses should be trained to go forth from the institution as solid as a rock upon the principles of health reform and other points of truth.
She assured the delegates that it could be done. "The Lord has instructed me," she said, "that we can have a sanitarium here if everyone will do as I was reading this morning in the eighth and ninth chapters of Second Corinthians." She referred to the dire needs of the believers driven from Jerusalem and the manner in which means were raised for their relief.
"Their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves." Some who had no money gave part of their wearing apparel. Some divided the store of food they had, living poorly, that those who were suffering in Jerusalem might be fed. "Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift."
She drew lessons from this experience and recounted God's providences in the beginning already made in Australia. "We need a sanitarium," she urged. "We desire that every soul here shall be interested in this work, because God is interested in it."
This is the work the Lord desires to have done. Then let it be hindered no longer. God help us to take hold of it. No one man is to do the whole work. Let us all help to the best of our ability.... Nothing that we have is our own. All is the Lord's, and we are to do His work. God will put His Spirit upon those who will do something, and do it now.
At this point a vote was called for and the resolutions were adopted unanimously.
A Surprise Move
After the vote, E. W. Farnsworth stood and said that he did not know whether what he was about to propose was in order, but it seemed to him that they could not do better than to make a practical beginning of the matter right there. To start the fund, he would pledge £50 ($240). This pledge was quickly followed by others, and a list of the pledges (which was reproduced in the July 31 Union Conference Record) was made. The opening lines read:
£ [$]
E. W. Farnsworth 50 [240]
Mrs. E. G. White 100 [480]
C. B. Hughes 40 [192]
S. N. Haskell and wife 55 [264]
G. B. Starr and wife 10 [48]
F. Martin 10 [48]
The list grew to 71 entries and £905, or the equivalent of more than $4,500.
A few months later Ellen White wrote of the fruitage of sanitarium work in Sydney:
Several wealthy people who have come to our sanitarium in Sydney have embraced the truth, among them a man who has donated £500 ($2,400) to our sanitarium. He is an invalid. He and his wife have taken their stand fully (Letter 11, 1900).
The sanitarium work in Australia was coming of age! The new sanitarium building in Sydney opened January 1, 1903, with Dr. D. H. Kress as medical director.
Medical Missionary Work At Cooranbong
In the vicinity of Cooranbong the medical missionary work was getting under way with a slow and humble beginning. First there was the selfless and dedicated work of Miss Sara McEnterfer, Ellen White's traveling companion, nurse, and private secretary. Sara, a graduate nurse from Battle Creek, involved herself in caring for the sick and injured in the community for some miles around. The nearest physician was 20 miles (32 kilometers) distant and charged £5 ($24) to make a visit.
Daily there were urgent calls for help. Many times it was children who had had accidents of various kinds. Sometimes the patient would be brought to either Ellen White's or W. C. White's home and nursed back to health.
A few excerpts from Mrs. White's diary through the early part of September 1897 yield a picture of this work of community ministry:
Wednesday, September 1: While I was reading the mail, a woman from Dora Creek came up with her baby for instruction on what to do for the child.
Thursday, September 2: We went to see the child that was brought to our house yesterday that was sick. Sara prescribed for her, and the mother followed the prescription. We learned today the child was relieved....
The father of the first child that had appealed for help asked me if we did not receive pay for our trouble. We told him no, we did not do the work for pay, only to relieve suffering humanity as Christ did when He was in our world. They seemed very thankful.
The Ellen G. White-sponsored medical missionary program right there in Cooranbong went quietly on. This was made possible because Sara McEnterfer was willing to serve as community nurse without charge, and to help families in which there was dire need of food, clothing, and bedding. But Mrs. White, in letters, and at times in her oral presentations, continued to call for a hospital at Cooranbong.
The Health Food Work
It took quite a struggle to get the health food work in Australia on its feet. While the delegates and visitors in July 1899 were spending three weeks at Cooranbong attending the Australasian Union Conference session, they could observe the steps being taken to convert the sawmill structure into an efficient food factory.
The 1897 session of the Australasian Union Conference was held in connection with the Stanmore camp meeting. Ellen White attended but few of the meetings, but the groundwork was laid there for the manufacture of health foods in Australia. While in the United States, W. C. White, at the request of the union conference committee, had made quite a thorough investigation in Battle Creek of what might be done in health food manufacture in Australia.
On July 2, 1897, he had addressed a communication to the executive committee of the Australasian Union Conference reporting on his findings regarding the arrangements that could be made with the Kelloggs. In this letter he stated:
Believing that the granose [wheat flakes] was a very valuable health food, that it would find a large sale in the colonies, and that it would aid us greatly in building up the market for a fine line of health foods, I had several conversations regarding its manufacture, during which I learned that the doctor [Kellogg] had expended more than £1,000 [$4,800] in experimenting with the manufacture of granose and developing the method of making it, and that his plan for permitting those in foreign countries to make the product was to lease them the mill and charge them a small royalty on all that they made.... I concluded to accept the terms and have ordered a granose mill which will be forwarded with some other machinery to Sydney to be held in bond there until we shall decide where it shall be put in operation (11a WCW, pp. 63, 64).
Two days later he reported in a letter to the Australasian Union Conference executive committee that he had secured the services of Mr. Halsey, who was skilled in the manufacture of the Battle Creek health foods, to come to Australia and lead out in making the new products. White also sent samples of the foods for the members of the board to taste, so they would be better prepared to make decisions on his return (Ibid p. 80). So, following the union session in Sydney, and after spending just a few days at home, White was off to Melbourne, where he would give full reports to the appropriate committees, and actions could be taken in pioneering this new line of work in Australia.
As the church leaders worked in Melbourne, there emerged a "Report of the Committee on Health Foods" consisting of 13 points, among them:
That we proceed at once to establish a health-food factory in Melbourne....That immediate steps be taken to make and place upon the market
Granola, and Caramel Cereal, and that these be followed by Granose Biscuits, and a general line of healthful biscuits, and other foods, as quickly as possible (Ibid., p. 358).
The Adventist-sponsored manufacture and distribution of health foods in Australia was on its way.
The Medical And Surgical Sanitarium, And The Use Of Meat
While at the sessions of the New South Wales Conference held in the Stanmore church, Ellen White attended an early-morning meeting on Monday, July 25, 1898, to discuss the dietary program of the new sanitarium. Drs. E. R. Caro and S. C. Rand, newly come to the institution, were present; also A. W. Semmens,
W. C. White, and G. B. Starr. In her diary she reported what took place:
The consideration was in regard to the meat question. Shall the sanitarium maintain the principle of nonmeat eating for the patients who have not been instructed in a vegetarian diet? The question was, "Would it not be well to let them have meat at first, educate them away from the appetite by lectures, and then bring them where they will be instructed by the lectures on the evil of meat eating?"
I replied that to condemn meat eating and show its injurious effects and then bring the injurious article and give it to the patients, and prescribe it for some of the patients as some had thought best to do, was a denial of their principles and would not be in accordance with the teachings of our people on this question of health reform. We felt there must be no drawing back on this question (Manuscript 184, 1898).
She pointed out that the increase of disease in the animal kingdom was a strong argument in favor of her position. The subject in various aspects came up in formal and informal discussions at the conference on both Monday and Tuesday, and Ellen White noted:
We are to be sure that we commence the work in right lines. No tea, no coffee; avoid drugs. We are to take our position firmly in regard to the light given us that the consumption of the dead flesh of animals is counterworking the restoring of the sick to health. It is not a safe and wholesome diet....
However great the goodness of God and however abundant His promises to any people, continued transgression of the laws of God in our nature brings disease. Therefore we cannot present meat before the patients (Ibid.).
The impact of the discussions and Ellen White's firm position were reflected in the resolutions passed at the session, two of which read:
Resolved, That in the prosperity attending the work of the "Health Home," which has now grown into a "Medical and Surgical Sanitarium," we recognize the blessing of God upon right principles in dietetic reform, and the use of rational, or nature's remedies in the treatment of disease; ...
Resolved, That we pledge our support of these principles by our practice and our influence, and with our means (UCR, August 15, 1898).
A few days after returning to Cooranbong, Ellen White wrote:
We greatly hope that our physicians in the Health Home may be soundly converted to correct principles in health reform. I was glad that up to the present time flesh meat has not found its way upon the tables at the sanitarium, and we hope it never will disgrace the health-reform table (Letter 180, 1898).
The next day, July 31, she reported that Willie "leaves Wednesday for Melbourne to have plans laid in regard to medical missionary work, to establish it upon a good basis" (Letter 181, 1898). Medical personnel generally would be there, and, of course, plans would be laid for the developing health food business.
By this time health foods were being imported on a regular basis. P. B. Rudge was brought from New Zealand to manage sales, which were promising. The June 15, 1898, Record carried an interesting advertisement:
"Try Them"
We invite all our readers to improve their diet by eating granola and nut butter, and by drinking caramel cereal. They are the great food correctives for indigestion and constipation. We also invite you to assist this good enterprise by selling the foods to others. Liberal discounts are offered to all agents. Address, Sanitarium Health Food Agency, 251 St. George's Road, North Fitzroy, Victoria.
Two months later the Record reported the arrival in Australia of G. W. Morse, who was to "devote his time to the interests of the Australasian medical missionary work, giving special attention to the health-food business." He was present at the Melbourne meeting of the newly formed Australasian Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association. An early and prime concern was where the food factory should be located. Melbourne was the well-established center of the work in Australia, and workers and believers there quite naturally felt that there was little need for such a study. Others felt there were other important considerations, and a committee on the location of the manufacturing plant was appointed, made up of A. G. Daniells, Dr. E. R. Caro, G. W. Morse, W. C. White, and E. R. Palmer.
Long-Distance Counselor
During the nine years that Ellen White was in Australia she did not lose sight of what was going on in America. Although her mind was burdened and pushing forward the message in Australia and New Zealand, choosing sites for schools and tent meetings, she managed to keep up an almost overwhelming amount of correspondence across the sea.
Mail each way across the Pacific took a full month, and mail boats ran once a month. Preparing the mail to go on schedule was no small task for Ellen White and her secretaries. There were serious problems and agonizing situations. Her diary records the depth of concern she felt for leaders and individuals.
On April 9, 1894, she wrote of preparing the American mail while the house was full of visitors. "Elder Starr had to do most of the entertaining," she wrote, "for my letters must be prepared for the American mail" (Manuscript 23, 1894). And on April 16, the day the mail closed, as she finished her letter to A. T. Jones, she, in weariness, declared: "I can write no more. This mail carries out more than one hundred pages" (Letter 68, 1894). The May American mail carried 150 pages, some addressed to the president of the General Conference.
The communications ran from four to 12 pages of double-spaced typewritten material, and the few lines quoted in this volume, although selected as epitomizing the thrust of a respective message, represent but very brief samples of the many, many messages painstakingly penned.
Meeting Offshoot Teachings
The day before the New Zealand camp meeting opened in April 1893 Ellen White addressed a letter to a Mr. Stanton in America, who had begun to teach that the Seventh-day Adventist Church had, through apostasy, become Babylon. She wrote:
Dear Brother Stanton,
I address to you a few lines. I am not in harmony with the position that you have taken, for I have been shown by the Lord that just such positions will be taken by those who are in error. Paul has given us a warning to this effect: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils."
My brother, I learn that you are taking the position that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon, and that all that would be saved must come out of her. You are not the only man whom the enemy has deceived in this matter. For the last forty years, one man after another has arisen, claiming that the Lord has sent him with the same message. But let me tell you ... that this message you are proclaiming is one of the satanic delusions designed to create confusion among the churches. My brother, you are certainly off the track (Letter 57, 1893).
As she wrote most earnestly to him she touched on several points:
Do not seek to misinterpret and twist and pervert the testimonies to substantiate any such message of error. Many have passed over this ground, and have done great harm. As others have started up full of zeal to proclaim this message, again and again I have been shown that it is not the truth....
God has a church upon the earth, who are His chosen people, who keep His commandments. He is leading, not stray offshoots, not one here and one there, but a people. The truth is a sanctifying power, but the church militant is not yet the church triumphant (Ibid.).
Good News From America
Mail, both going and coming, was an important part of the program of Ellen White and those who were with her in New Zealand.
Sunday, April 23, 1893, she arose early--at half past three--to prepare the mail bound for Melbourne, expecting it to leave on Monday.
That same Sunday, in came a large stack of letters. There was a long letter from O. A. Olsen, president of the General Conference, giving a full summary of the General Conference session and reporting on the confession of a number of prominent men who had taken a wrong position at the 1888 General Conference session.
Another letter was from Leroy Nicola, a prominent pastor in Iowa. It was the Nicola letter that brought her special rejoicing. It was "a most thorough confession of the part he acted in Minneapolis."
The Anna Phillips Experience
One of Ellen White's concerns at this time was the mishandling on the part of some leading brethren in America of Anna Phillips and her claims to special revelations from God.
Miss Anna Phillips--sometimes spoken of as Anna Rice, for she had been taken into the Rice family--felt she had been called by God to serve as a special messenger to the church, inspired by heavenly visions.
She wrote "testimonies," first to the Rices and then to other husbands and wives, touching on their personal experiences. These were earnest appeals for purity of life, with teachings that went beyond the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. Messages were directed to the leaders of the church aimed at giving guidance in administering the work.
Correspondence from America called the matter to Ellen White's attention. On November 1, 1893, she wrote to Elder and Mrs. Rice cautioning them not to become involved with Anna Phillips and her writings. Almost two months went by before she addressed herself again to the matter. On her journey back from New Zealand she had a few days in Sydney. There, on December 23, she wrote a general warning in the form of a 10-page letter addressed to "Dear Brethren and Sisters." It opened:
I have a message to you from the Lord. Brother Rice is not engaged in the work which the Lord would have him to do.... He cannot see the outcome of this work which he has taken up. Anna Phillips is being injured; she is led on, encouraged in a work which will not bear the test of God.
In a nine-page letter written January 14, 1894, in Melbourne to A. T. Jones, Mrs. White discussed several matters. On page 5 she reported that word had reached her that Jones was giving encouragement to Anna Phillips, and even reading some of her messages in public in such a way that people found it hard to discern when he was reading from her writings and when he was reading from Ellen White's pen. She urged, "I want you to consider this carefully, for the Lord has given me light to the effect that the attention of the people is not to be called to Anna Phillips" (Letter 37, 1894).
In the first paragraph of her 10-page letter to Jones, written March 15, 1894, she dealt quite fully with the situation. She pointed out that God had not called Anna Phillips to follow on after the testimonies. She wrote:
Many things in these visions and dreams seem to be all straight, a repetition of that which has been in the field for many years; but soon they introduce a jot here, a tittle of error there, just a little seed which takes root and flourishes, and many are defiled therewith (Letter 103, 1894 [see also Selected Messages 2:85-87]).
W. M. Adams, who was a student at Battle Creek College in 1894, has recounted his experience. He heard Elder Jones preaching in the Battle Creek Tabernacle. In the sermon Jones intermingled some of the messages of Anna Phillips with those he read from the testimonies, and asked the congregation whether they did not hear the same voice in each. The people were left in confusion.
The next morning Adams was at the post office in the Review and Herald building, writing a postcard home. Jones came in and asked for his mail. He was handed a long envelope with Ellen White's name in the return address. He dropped on the bench, tore the envelope open, and began to read. Adams reports that as Jones read, tears came to his eyes and fell on the sheets of paper.
Soon A. O. Tait came in, and Jones addressed him. "Oscar, come here. Sit down. You heard me preach that sermon yesterday?"
"Yes," replied Elder Tait.
"Well, read this," Jones said as he handed him the testimony he had just received from Ellen White. After Tait had read it, Jones asked, "Who told Sister White a month ago that I was going to preach that sermon about Anna Phillips as a prophetess?"
"Ah, you know, Alonzo," Tait answered in his calm yet firm way.
"Yes, I do know. God knew what I was going to do, and He impressed Sister White a month before I preached the sermon to send the testimony that I am wrong. Look at that date."
It was a thoughtful week for the brusque and ever-ready A. T. Jones. Adams reported that the next Sabbath he again preached in the tabernacle and that he read portions of the testimony he received Sunday morning. He said, "I am wrong, and I confess it. Now I am right" (The Review and Herald, July 7, 1949).
Elder W. W. Prescott also became a supporter of Anna Phillips, but a few hours before he was to address the students at Walla Walla College, intending to introduce some of her messages, he was handed a copy of a letter from Mrs. White dealing with the matter. It was the first to come to his attention, and he dropped his plans. S. N. Haskell, president of the California Conference, happened to be at Walla Walla at the time. He exclaimed as he wrote to Ellen White of the incident, "I have heard about testimonies coming just in season, but I never experienced such providence before" (S. N. Haskell to EGW, March 31, 1894).
J. H. Kellogg And The Medical Missionary Work
Another matter of vital importance that was pressing hard upon Ellen White in the year 1899 was the distressing course being pursued in the medical missionary work in America. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was taking steps to divest this work of its denominational ties, in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, the medical school, and the work for the outcasts and socially deprived classes in Chicago. This last mentioned was a fast-burgeoning work that divided his interests and overburdened his body and mind.
Calling for earnest attention were the inroads of pantheistic philosophy insidiously creeping into the teachings of Seventh-day Adventists, threatening the basic theology of the church. A three-week-long General Conference session would open at South Lancaster, Massachusetts, on February 15, and Ellen White applied herself to the preparation of messages to sound solemn warnings and to guard the cause.
In progressive steps Dr. Kellogg worked toward placing the medical work of Seventh-day Adventists on a nondenominational basis. As Kellogg led out in the establishment of the American Medical Missionary College in 1895 (as explained in chapters 23 and 24 of The Story of Our Health Message), he rather stealthily imposed on this important phase of educational work an undenominational identity. The students who enrolled in this medical college were told by Kellogg:
This is not a sectarian school. Sectarian doctrines are not to be taught in this medical school. It is a school for the purpose of teaching medical science, theoretically and practically, and gospel missionary work. It is not to be either a Seventh-day Adventist or a Methodist or a Baptist or any other sectarian school (The Medical Missionary, October, 1895 [quoted in The Story of Our Health Message, 294, 295]).
Through the year 1898 Ellen White penned 17 letters to Dr. Kellogg, aggregating some 113 pages; many were messages of caution. In 1899 she wrote another 26 letters to him, averaging nine pages each. The messages that dealt with various phases of medical missionary work were presented first. In the main these were but an amplification of what she had been writing in letters to him over a period of a year or two. Some of the letters contained words of commendation for certain phases of his work; some just newsy reports of developments in Australia, particularly in medical missionary lines; some sounded an alarm; some contained solemn warnings. All were written kindly, carefully, and with understanding. On February 13, 1898, she began her message to the doctor, whom she had known since he was a lad and whom she loved as her own son:
It would give me great satisfaction to have a long visit with you. I have much to say to you, and you have much to say to me. Sometimes I have a strong impression that I shall again bear my testimony upon the old field of Battle Creek (Letter 21, 1898).
To see the man, who had been used so mightily by God and by whose side she had stood through the years, veer away from the message and lose sight of the real objectives of medical missionary work tore Ellen White's soul. Nonetheless, she continued to labor and pray and to communicate through letters.
Meeting The Inroads Of Pantheism
Only as God had revealed it to her could Ellen White have known that pantheistic teachings would be presented at the 1899 General Conference session. She was led to write and send in advance an article to be read entitled "The True Relation of God and Nature." At the Tuesday-morning meeting, February 21, as the health message was being discussed at the session, Dr. Kellogg declared that he would be glad to hear from Dr. E. J. Waggoner and W. W. Prescott "on this question of healthful living," for both had been giving interesting and helpful talks at the sanitarium. As Waggoner spoke, he did so in the framework of pantheistic philosophy, which carried apparent support of at least a part of the audience. Some days later the mail brought Ellen White's message, which was read to the session on Sabbath afternoon, March 4.
It opened with these words:
Since the fall of man, nature cannot reveal a perfect knowledge of God, for sin has brought a blight upon it, and has intervened between nature and nature's God (The General Conference Bulletin, 1899, 157).
Excerpts from her address reveal the straightforward way she came to grips with the issues that had been so subtly raised at the church's world headquarters:
Christ came to the world as a personal Saviour. He represented a personal God. He ascended on high as a personal Saviour, and He will come again as He ascended to heaven--a personal Saviour. We need carefully to consider this, for in their human wisdom, the wise men of the world, knowing not God, foolishly deify nature and the laws of nature....
The Father in heaven has a voice and a person which Christ expressed. Those who have a true knowledge of God will not become so infatuated with the laws of matter and the operations of nature as to overlook or to refuse to acknowledge the continual working of God in nature. Deity is the author of nature. The natural world has in itself no inherent power but that which God supplies. How strange, then, that so many make a deity of nature! God furnishes the matter and the properties with which to carry out His plans; Nature is but His agency (Ibid.).
But at this time Kellogg was not prone to receive messages of caution and reproof. He took offense at the cautions Ellen White sounded and declared that she had turned against him. He threatened to resign from his work and all connection with Seventh-day Adventists. This almost stunned her. On August 15 she wrote in her diary:
I lose my courage and my strength and cannot call to mind the very things I ought to write. I have a letter--two, yes, three--written for Dr. Kellogg, but I am so afraid of being misunderstood that I dare not send them. I feel intensely, and want to help his mind in many things, but how can I do it? My words are misapplied and misunderstood, and sometimes appear to be so misunderstood by humans that they do more harm than good. This has been the case with Dr. Kellogg (Manuscript 189, 1899).
Correspondence With G. I. Butler
Some of her correspondence buoyed her soul. This was the case in the exchange with G. I. Butler. At the time of the General Conference session of 1888, held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Butler, who had long served as president of the General Conference, was ill and could not be present. Relieved of his responsibilities at that meeting, he retired in Florida, planted an orange grove, and for more than a decade faithfully cared for his wife, who, soon after moving to Florida, suffered paralysis. Being for some years on the negative side of the issues that had surfaced at Minneapolis in 1888, he felt that Ellen White had written him off. When he received word that at her direction one of the first copies of The Desire of Ages to come from the press was to be sent to him, he was elated and took heart. He wrote to her expressing his gratitude for her thoughtfulness of him.
After five years in retirement he had come to see some things more correctly and had changed his attitude. He wrote a letter of confession in 1893, published in the Review and Herald. In this he stated:
I freely admit that for a period I stood in doubt in regard to the agitation of these subjects ["the doctrines of justification by faith, the necessity of appropriating Christ's righteousness by faith in order to (attain) our salvation"] I have here so freely endorsed. I did not attend the General Conference in Minneapolis, where differences were agitated, being at the time sick in Battle Creek.... My sympathies were not with those leading out in bringing what I now regard as light before the people.
He was glad that he could testify:
I am well satisfied that additional light of great importance has been shining upon these subjects, and fully believe that God has greatly blessed it to the good of those who have accepted it (June 13, 1893).
Thus while Ellen White was helping to pioneer the work in Australia, battling what seemed to be almost insurmountable difficulties, stalwart leaders at the home base of the church functioned as if she were in their presence, and benefited from her pen.