power” and authority, the counsels that man should not look to his
fellowmen for guidance in every detail of the work, are carefully
balanced with counsels concerning independence of spirit and action,
as recorded on pages 314-316. It is urged that conference presidents
should be trusted and sustained, as recorded on pages 327, 328.
These are the backgrounds of the 1890’s and of the messages in
Testimonies to Ministers. This is the picture of the conditions which
were worsening from month to month, from year to year, as the
Seventh-day Adventist church, pushing forward in an ever-widening
evangelistic, institutional, and missions program, approached the turn
of the century.
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1901
Ellen G. White, just back in the United States after a nine-year
sojourn in Australia, was invited to attend the General Conference
session of 1901, held in Battle Creek. It was the first session she had
attended in a ten-year period. The president of the General Conference,
G. A. Irwin, made his opening address. Then Ellen White pressed to the
front of the assembly, desirous of speaking. Earnestly she addressed the
conference, pointing out the manner in which the work of God had been
circumscribed as a few men in Battle Creek carried the responsibility of
a work far beyond their grasp. She testified that these men and the cause
were injured as they encouraged others to look to them for guidance in
every phase of the work. She pointed out that there were some men in
responsible places who had lost the spirit of consecration so essential
to their work. At that meeting she cried out, “What we want now is
a reorganization. We want to begin at the foundation and build on a
different principle.”—The General Conference Bulletin, April 3, 1901.
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What took place in the ensuing three weeks is a thrilling story. The
message was heeded. Carefully the brethren went to work. Union
conferences were formed, binding local conferences together in smaller
units, with the responsibilities carried by men in the field. The several
associations which represented the branches of general church activity,
such as the Sabbath school work and the home-missionary work, took
steps to become departments of the general conference. The General
Conference Committee, consisting of thirteen men, was enlarged to
twenty-five. In 1903 the committee was further enlarged to include
those connected with the newly organized departments of the General
Conference. Within a few years’ time, five hundred men were carrying
the responsibilities that prior to the General Conference of 1901 had
been carried by a handful of men.
Through this reorganization, provision was made for those who
were in local fields to make decisions relating to the work in hand.
So sound were the foundations laid, that when continued growth made
it advisable, the denomination was able to move without any great
problems into the development of divisions of the general conference.
In this plan, great areas of the world field were knit together, union
conferences becoming units in the division organization.
BATTLE CREEK INSTITUTIONS SUFFER GOD’s JUDGMENTS
Unfortunately, not all of the counsels sounded by Ellen White at
that General Conference session of 1901 were heeded. Changes which
should have been made in two of the institutions at Battle Creek were
not made. Before twelve months rolled around, during the night of
February 18, 1902, the sanitarium burned.
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Before 1902 passed, the publishing house was also in ashes. This great
loss of denominational property was recognized as a judgment from
God, inflicted because men failed to heed and follow the counsel given.
Warnings had been sounded, but they had gone unheeded. Now God
spoke in a way that none could misunderstand.
The church headquarters was moved away from Battle Creek with
its attendant problems and, in the providence of God, established in
Washington, D.C. The publishing house was reestablished in the capital
of the nation, and the leaders resolved that the time of the employees
and equipment should be devoted 100 percent to the publication of the
message of the church. The sanitarium was rebuilt in Battle Creek,
but unfortunately its great interests were soon wrested from the church.
Battle Creek ceased to be the denominational center, as the world
headquarters was transferred to Takoma Park.
“EXCEPT AS WE SHALL FORGET”
The closing section of this volume is drawn essentially from
communications written in 1907 and 1914. Ellen White had
occasion to review “vital principles of relationship,” particularly in the
article “Jehovah Is Our King,” a message she read at the Southern
California camp meeting in August, 1907; and the article, “Individual
Responsibility and Christian Unity,” read by her at the 1907 session of
the California Conference held in January. These articles recapitulate
the points comprising the main themes of the volume. These counsels,
restated, reminded all that to lose sight of these principles would imperil
the church.
History can repeat itself, and human beings can be guilty of
forgetting. Earnest endeavors have been made
34
to avoid a repetition of the mistakes made at battle creek. Wrote Mrs.
White, “We have nothing to fear for the future except as we shall
forget the way the Lord has led us.”—Page 31. The administrators and
ministerial laborers of the church have ever before them these messages
of warning and admonition, to help them avoid making the mistakes
of former years. And, closely associated with these more specific
warnings, are general warnings relating to the high moral and spiritual
plane of the work of the minister.
The messages in this volume, dealing so intimately with the hearts
and souls of those who stood as shepherds of the flock and of those
who carried administrative responsibilities, would apply today only if
the conditions described existed again. None should err in applying the
reproofs to all ministers at any and all times. Nor should the intimate
knowledge of some of the problems and crises met through the years
ever dim our confidence in the glorious triumph of the cause of God.
Ellen white, to whom God had revealed the secrets of the hearts
of men and the weaknesses and deficiencies of humanity, did not
lose confidence in God’s chosen workmen. To her, the fact that God
sent messages of reproof to those who erred, was not an indication
that they were forsaken, but rather an evidence of God’s love, “for
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” Nor did the setbacks which
came to the cause as the battle raged between the forces of evil and
the forces of righteousness leave her with despondency of heart, for
she discerned that “we have as Bible Christians ever been on gaining
ground” (Selected Messages 2:397), and that “The God of Israelis still
guiding his people, and that he will continue to be with them, even to
the end” (Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 437, 438).
