“All our medical institutions are established as Seventh-day Adventist institutions, to represent the various features of gospel medical missionary work, and thus to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord,” wrote Mrs. White in 1903, when the development of medical missionary work in southern California was under consideration.
“If we are to go to the expense of building sanitariums in order that we may work for the salvation of the sick and afflicted, we must plan our work in such a way that those we desire to help will receive the help they need. We are to do all in our power for the healing of the body; but we are to make the healing of the soul of far greater importance. Those who come to our sanitariums as patients are to be shown the way of salvation, that they may repent, and hear the words, Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace and sin no more.”
It was because of extraordinary opportunities presenting themselves for the winning of souls, that Mrs. White bore a decided testimony in favor of establishing a group of medical institutions in southern California. “From the light given me when I was in Australia, and renewed since I came to America,” she wrote in 1902, “I know that our work in southern California must advance more rapidly. The people flocking to that place in search of health must hear the last message of mercy. . . .
“From many places in southern California the light400is to shine forth to the multitudes. Present truth is to be as a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid.
“In southern California there are many properties for sale on which buildings suitable for sanitarium work are already erected. Some of these properties should be purchased, and medical missionary work carried forward on sensible, rational lines. Several small sanitariums are to be established in southern California for the benefit of the multitudes drawn there in the hope of finding health. Instruction has been given me that now is our opportunity to reach the invalids flocking to the health resorts of southern California, and that a work may be done also in behalf of their attendants. . . .
“Instead of investing in one medical institution all the means obtainable, we ought to establish smaller sanitariums in many places. Soon the reputation of the health resorts in southern California will stand even higher than it stands at present. Now is our time to enter that field for the purpose of carrying forward medical missionary work.”
During the years when such counsels as these were being given, Mrs. White visited southern California on several occasions, in the hope of encouraging the brethren to persevere in their search for properties suitable for use as medical institutions. At times, in visions of the night there were given her flash-light pictures of sanitariums in running order. These representations she endeavored to write out and pass on to the brethren in responsibility. At other times there was brought vividly before her mind instruction given in past years as to the aim and object of medical missionary work, and as to the pattern that should be401followed in establishing and maintaining sanitarium enterprises in different parts of the world.
While the eyes of some of the brethren were turned toward the cities, Mrs. White called attention to the advantages of country locations, and the benefits that would come to patients far removed from the distracting influences of modern city life. Considerable portions of this instruction were published in “Testimonies for the Church,” Volume 7. Among the presentations set forth were the following:
“In the night season I was given a view of a sanitarium in the country. The institution was not large, but it was complete. It was surrounded by beautiful trees and shrubbery, beyond which were orchards and groves. Connected with the place were gardens, in which the lady patients, when they chose, could cultivate flowers of every description, each patient selecting a special plot for which to care. Outdoor exercise in these gardens was prescribed as a part of the regular treatment.
“Scene after scene passed before me. In one scene a number of suffering patients had just come to one of our country sanitariums. In another I saw the same company, but, oh, how transformed their appearance! Disease had gone, the skin was clear, the countenance joyful; body and mind seemed animated with new life. . . .
“Many of the sick and suffering will turn from the cities to the country, refusing to conform to the habits, customs, and fashions of city life; they will seek to regain health in some one of our country sanitariums. Thus, though we are removed from the cities twenty or thirty miles, we shall be able to reach402the people, and those who desire health will have opportunity to regain it under conditions most favorable.
“God will work wonders for us if we will in faith coöperate with Him. Let us, then, pursue a sensible course, that our efforts may be blessed of heaven, and crowned with success.”
The counsels regarding the extension of medical missionary work were not limited to any one favored section. “God has qualified His people to enlighten the world,” Mrs. White wrote while her mind was especially exercised concerning the opportunities before Seventh-day Adventists in southern California. “He has entrusted them with faculties by which they are to extend His work until it shall encircle the globe. In all parts of the earth, they are to establish sanitariums, schools, publishing houses, and kindred facilities for the accomplishment of His work. . . . In many lands medical missions are to be established, to act as God’s helping hand in ministering to the afflicted.”
“Christ coöperates with those who engage in medical missionary work. Men and women who unselfishly do what they can to establish sanitariums and treatment rooms in many lands will be richly rewarded. Those who visit these institutions will be benefited physically, mentally, and spiritually — the weary will be refreshed, the sick restored to health, the sin-burdened relieved. In far-off countries, from those whose hearts are by these agencies turned from the service of sin unto righteousness, will be heard thanksgiving and the voice of melody. By their songs of grateful praise a testimony will be borne that will win others to allegiance to and fellowship with Christ.”
At the time of the dedication of the Loma Linda Sanitarium, April 15, 1906, Mrs. White reviewed some of the remarkable providences that had attended the efforts of the brethren to secure sanitarium properties in southern California. She also outlined briefly the divine purpose that is to be wrought out through such agencies. In the course of her remarks, she declared:
“Solemn is the responsibility resting upon medical missionaries. They are to be missionaries in the true sense of the term. The sick and the suffering who entrust themselves to the care of the helpers in our medical institutions, must not be disappointed. They are to be taught how to live in harmony with heaven. As they learn to obey God’s law, they will be richly blessed in body and in spirit.
“The advantage of outdoor life must never be lost sight of. How thankful we should be that God has given us beautiful sanitarium properties at Paradise Valley and Glendale and Loma Linda! ‘Out of the cities! out of the cities!’—this has been my message for years. We cannot expect the sick to recover rapidly when they are shut in within four walls, in some city, with no outside view but houses, houses, houses,—nothing to animate, nothing to enliven. And yet how slow some are to realize that the crowded cities are not favorable places for sanitarium work!
“Even in southern California, not many years ago, there were some who favored the erection of a large sanitarium building in the heart of Los Angeles. In the light of the instruction God had given, we could not consent to the carrying out of any such plan. In the visions of the night the Lord had shown me unoccupied properties in the country, suitable for sanitarium purposes, and for sale at a price far below the original cost.
“It was some time before we found these places. First we secured the Paradise Valley Sanitarium, near San Diego. A few months later, in the good providence of God, the Glendale property came to the notice of our people, and was purchased and fitted up for service. But light came that our work of establishing sanitariums in southern California was not complete; and on several different occasions testimonies were given that medical missionary work must be done somewhere in the vicinity of Redlands.
“In an article published in the Review of April 6, 1905, I wrote:
“On our way back to Redlands, as our train passed through miles of orange groves, I thought of the efforts that should be made in this beautiful valley to proclaim the truth for this time. I recognized this section of southern California as one of the places that had been presented to me with the word that it should have a fully equipped sanitarium.
“ ‘Why have such fields as Redlands and Riverside been left almost unworked? . . . The Lord would have brave, earnest men and women take up His work in these places. The cause of God is to make more rapid advancement in southern California than it has in the past. Every year thousands of people visit southern California in search of health, and by various methods we should seek to reach them with the truth. They must hear the warning to prepare for the great day of the Lord, which is right upon us. . . . Workers who can speak to the multitudes are to be located where they can meet the people, and give them the warning message. . . . Let them be quick to seize opportunities to place present truth before those who know it not. Let them give themessage405with clearness and power, that those who have ears to hear may hear.’
“These words were written before I had learned anything about the property at Loma Linda. Still the burden of establishing another sanitarium rested upon me. In the fall of 1903 I had a vision of a sanitarium in the midst of beautiful grounds, somewhere in southern California, and no property I had visited answered to the presentation given in this vision. At the time, I wrote about this vision to our brethren and sisters assembled at the Los Angeles camp meeting early in September, 1903.”
“While attending the General Conference of 1905, at Washington, D. C., I received a letter from Elder J. A. Burden, describing a property he had found four miles west of Redlands, five and one half miles southeast of San Bernardino, and eight miles northeast of Riverside. As I read his letter, I was impressed that this was one of the places I had seen in vision. . . .
“Later, when I visited this property, I recognized it as one of the places I had seen nearly two years before in vision. How thankful I am to the Lord our God for this place, which is all prepared for us to use to the honor and glory of His name!”
To the delegates assembled at the 1909 General Conference, Mrs. White outlined some of the experiences connected with the establishment of medical missionary work on a solid basis in southern California, and referred particularly to the prospering hand of God in providing facilities for the training of many medical missionary evangelists for world-wide service. In this connection she said:
“One of the chief advantages of Loma Linda is the pleasing variety of charming scenery on every side.”406The extensive view of valley and mountain is magnificent. But more important than magnificent scenery and beautiful buildings and spacious grounds is the close proximity of this institution to a densely populated district, and the opportunity thus afforded of communicating to many, many people a knowledge of the third angel’s message. We are to have clear spiritual discernment, else we shall fail of discerning the opening providences of God that are preparing the way for us to enlighten the world.
“With the possession of this place comes the weighty responsibility of making the work of the institution educational in character. Loma Linda is to be not only a sanitarium, but an educational center. A school is to be established here for the training of gospel medical missionary evangelists. . . .
“In Loma Linda we have an advantageous center for the carrying on of various missionary enterprises. We can see that it was in the providence of God that this sanitarium was placed in the possession of our people. We should appreciate Loma Linda as a place which the Lord foresaw we should need and which He gave us. There is a very precious work to be done in connection with the interests of the sanitarium and the school at Loma Linda, and this will be done, when we all work to that end, moving unitedly in God’s order.”
THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
Thursday afternoon, April 12, 1906, Mrs. White left her home to attend the annual meeting of the Southern California Conference, at Los Angeles, and the dedicatory exercises of two sanitariums—Paradise Valley, near San Diego, and Loma Linda, in the San Bernardino Valley. The first few days were spent in Loma Linda, and during this time she had a remarkable experience, which she has briefly described thus:
RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENTS
“While at Loma Linda, Cal., April 16, 1906, there passed before me a most wonderful representation. During a vision of the night, I stood on an eminence, from which I could see houses shaken like a reed in the wind. Buildings, great and small, were falling to the ground. Pleasure resorts, theaters, hotels, and the homes of the wealthy were shaken and shattered. Many lives were blotted out of existence, and the air was filled with the shrieks of the injured and the terrified.
“The destroying angels of God were at work. One touch, and buildings so thoroughly constructed that men regarded them as secure against every danger, quickly became heaps of rubbish. There was no assurance of safety in any place. I did not feel in any special peril, but the awfulness of the scenes that passed before me I cannot find words to describe. It seemed that the forbearance of God was exhausted, and that the judgment day had come.
“The angel that stood by my side then instructed me that but few have any conception of the wickedness existing in our world to-day,408and especially the wickedness in the large cities. He declared that the Lord has appointed a time when He will visit transgressors in wrath for persistent disregard of His law.
“Terrible as was the representation that passed before me, that which impressed itself most vividly upon my mind was the instruction given me in connection with it. The angel that stood by my side declared that God’s supreme rulership, and the sacredness of His law, must be revealed to those who persistently refuse to render obedience to the King of kings. Those who choose to remain disloyal, must be visited in mercy with judgments, in order that, if possible, they may be aroused to a realization of the sinfulness of their course.
“Throughout the following day I pondered the scenes that had passed before me, and the instruction that had been given. During the afternoon we journeyed to Glendale, near Los Angeles; and the following night . . . I seemed to be in an assembly, setting before the people the requirements of God’s law. I read the scriptures regarding the institution of the Sabbath in Eden at the close of the creation week, and regarding the giving of the law at Sinai; and then declared that the Sabbath is to be observed ‘for a perpetual covenant,’ as a sign between God and His people forever, that they may know that they are sanctified by the Lord, their Creator.
“Then I further dwelt upon the supreme rulership of God above all earthly rulers. His law is to be the standard of action. Men are forbidden to pervert their senses by intemperance, or by yielding their minds to satanic influences; for this makes impossible the keeping of God’s law. While the divine Ruler409bears long with perversity, He is not deceived, and will not always keep silence. His supremacy, His authority as Ruler of the universe, must finally be acknowledged, and the just claims of His law vindicated.
“Much more instruction regarding the long-sufferance of God and the necessity of arousing transgressors to a realization of their perilous position in His sight, was repeated to the people, as received from my instructor.”
“It has taken me many days to write out a portion of that which was revealed those two nights at Loma Linda and Glendale.”
“On April 18, two days after the scene of falling buildings had passed before me, I went to fill an appointment in the Carr Street church, Los Angeles. As we neared the church, we heard the newsboys crying, ‘San Francisco destroyed by an earthquake!’ With a heavy heart I read the first hastily printed news of the terrible disaster.”
WORKING THE CITIES FROM OUTPOST CENTERS
In the course of her talk before the conference, Mrs. White exalted the sacredness of God’s law, and spoke decidedly regarding the necessity of prompt action and of acquainting the people with the meaning of the things coming upon the earth. She referred particularly to the advantages to be gained by working the cities from outpost centers.
“Out of the cities, out of the cities!” she declared; “this is the message the Lord has been giving me. The earthquakes will come; the floods will come; and we are not to establish ourselves in the wicked cities,410where the enemy is served in every way, and where God is so often forgotten. The Lord desires that we shall have clear spiritual eyesight. We must be quick to discern the peril that would attend the establishment of institutions in these wicked cities. We must make wise plans to warn the cities, and at the same time live where we can shield our children and ourselves from the contaminating and demoralizing influences so prevalent in these places.”
SCENES OF DESTRUCTION
Two weeks later Mrs. White returned to her St. Helena home by way of San Jose, Mountain View, and San Francisco. “As we traveled northward,” she wrote in an account of this journey, “we saw some of the effects of the earthquake; and when we entered San Jose, we could see that large buildings had collapsed, and that others had been seriously damaged.”
“At Mountain View, the new post office and some of the largest stores in town had been leveled to the ground. Other buildings had partially collapsed, and were badly wrecked.”
“On our way home from Mountain View, we passed through San Francisco, and, hiring a carriage, spent an hour and a half in viewing the destruction wrought in that great city. Buildings that were thought to be proof against disaster, were lying in ruins. In some instances, buildings were partially sunken in the ground. The city presented a most dreadful picture of the inefficiency of human ingenuity to frame fireproof and earthquake-proof structures.”
WARNINGS AND EXHORTATIONS
As regards her teachings and warnings concerning the necessity of earnest endeavor in proclaiming the third angel’s message in the cities, in view of the calamities that were to befall populous centers as the end of the world draws nigh, Mrs. White has written thus:
“Since the San Francisco earthquake, many rumors have been current regarding statements I have made. Some have reported that while in Los Angeles, I claimed that I had predicted the San Francisco earthquake and fire, and that Los Angeles would be the next city to suffer. This is not true. The morning after the earthquake, I said no more than that ‘the earthquakes will come; the floods will come;’ and that the Lord’s message to us is that we shall ‘not establish ourselves in the wicked cities.’”
“Not many years ago, a brother laboring in New York City published some very startling notices regarding the destruction of that city. I wrote immediately to the ones in charge of the work there, saying that it was not wise to publish such notices; that thus an excitement might be aroused which would result in a fanatical movement, hurting the cause of God. It is enough to present the truth of the word of God to the people. Startling notices are detrimental to the progress of the work.”
Under date of Aug. 3, 1903, Mrs. White further wrote regarding this sensational report:
“How comes the word that I have declared that New York is to be swept away by a tidal wave? This I have never said. I have said, as I looked at the great buildings going up there, story after story:412‘What terrible scenes will take place when the Lord shall arise to shake terribly the earth! Then the words of Rev. 18:1-3 will be fulfilled.’ The whole of the eighteenth chapter of Revelation is a warning of what is coming on the earth. But I have no light in particular in regard to what is coming on New York, only I know that one day the great buildings there will be thrown down by the turning and overturning of God’s power. From the light given me, I know that destruction is in the world. One word from the Lord, one touch of His mighty power, and these massive structures will fall. Scenes will take place the fearfulness of which we cannot imagine.”
On Sept. 1, 1902, Mrs. White wrote:
“Well equipped tent meetings should be held in the large cities, such as San Francisco; for not long hence these cities will suffer under the judgments of God. San Francisco and Oakland are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Lord will visit them in wrath.”
June 20, 1903: “The judgments of God are in our land. The Lord is soon to come. In fire and flood and earthquake, He is warning the inhabitants of this earth of His soon approach. O that the people may know the time of their visitation! We have no time to lose. We must make more determined efforts to lead the people of the world to see that the day of judgment is at hand.”
June 3, 1903: “There are many with whom the Spirit of God is striving. The time of God’s destructive judgments is the time of mercy for those who have no opportunity to learn what is truth. Tenderly will the Lord look upon them. His heart of mercy is touched; His hand is still stretched out to save.”
Nov. 12, 1902: “The time is nearing when the great crisis in the history of the world will have come, when every movement in the government of God will be watched with intense interest and inexpressible apprehension. In quick succession the judgments of God will follow one another,— fire and flood and earthquakes, with war and bloodshed. Something great and decisive will soon of necessity take place.”
Feb. 15, 1904: “When I was last in New York, I was in the night season called upon to behold buildings rising story after story toward heaven. These buildings were warranted to be fireproof, and they were erected to glorify the owners. Higher and still higher these buildings rose, and in them the most costly material was used. . . .
“As these lofty buildings went up, the owners rejoiced with ambitious pride that they had money to use in glorifying self. . . . Much of the money that they thus invested had been obtained through exaction, through grinding the faces of the poor. In the books of heaven, an account of every business transaction is kept. There every unjust deal, every fraudulent act, is recorded. The time is coming when in their fraud and insolence men will reach a point that the Lord will not permit them to pass, and they will learn that there is a limit to the forbearance of Jehovah.
“The scene that next passed before me was an alarm of fire. Men looked at lofty and supposedly fireproof buildings, and said, ‘They are perfectly safe.’ But these buildings were consumed as if made of pitch. The fire engines could do nothing to stay the destruction. The firemen were unable to operate the engines.
“I am instructed that when the Lord’s time comes, should no change have taken place in the hearts of proud, ambitious human beings, men will find that the hand that has been strong to save will be strong to destroy. No earthly power can stay the hand of God. No material can be used in the erection of buildings that will preserve them from destruction when God’s appointed time comes to send retribution on men for their insolence and their disregard of His law.”
CALLS TO REPENTANCE
The mercy of God in sparing so many lives during the dreadful calamity befalling San Francisco and near-by communities, was pointed out by Mrs. White as constituting a strong appeal to all classes to recognize the supreme rulership of Jehovah and the binding claims of His law. She urged that evangelistic efforts be carried on in the cities about the bay, in order that the people might have every opportunity to learn the meaning of the judgments coming upon the inhabitants of the earth.
Accordingly, for many months following the earthquake, special and continued efforts were made to proclaim the third angel’s message in San Francisco and Oakland and other bay cities. Mrs. White did what she could to encourage the workers stationed in these places, and made several visits herself to the companies of laborers busily engaged in teaching the people. When meeting with those who were familiar with the truths of God’s word, she appealed to them to lend willing assistance to the efforts of the workers. At the same time she wrote also of the far-reaching work that is to be done in every land.
“The world is filled with transgression,” she declared. “A spirit of lawlessness pervades every land, and is especially manifest in the great cities of the earth. The sin and crime to be seen in our cities is appalling. God cannot forbear much longer. Already His judgments are beginning to fall on some places, and soon His signal displeasure will be felt in other places.
“There will be a series of events revealing that God is master of the situation. The truth will be proclaimed in clear, unmistakable language. As a people we must prepare the way of the Lord under the overruling guidance of the Holy Spirit. The gospel is to be given in its purity. The stream of living water is to deepen and widen in its course. In all fields, nigh and afar off, men will be called from the plow and from the more common commercial business vocations that largely occupy the mind, and will be educated in connection with men of experience. As they learn to labor effectively, they will proclaim the truth with power. Through most wonderful workings of divine Providence, mountains of difficulty will be removed, and cast into the sea. The message that means so much to the dwellers upon the earth, will be heard and understood. Men will know what is truth. Onward and still onward the work will advance, until the whole earth shall have been warned; and then shall the end come.”
LVI
AT THE 1909 GENERAL CONFERENCE
Thursday evening, Sept. 9, 1909, Mrs. White returned to her home near St. Helena, California, after an absence of five months and four days, during which time she had traveled more than eight thousand miles, and spoken to audiences, large and small, seventy-two times, in twenty-seven places, from California to Maine, and from Alabama to Wisconsin.
The chief purpose of this journey was to attend the quadrennial session of the General Conference, which convened at Washington, D. C., in the spring of 1909. Her visits to other places were in response to urgent invitations, and were made possible by the merciful bestowal of strength and courage, as she proceeded from place to place.
A few days before starting on her journey, she remarked that as she was eighty-one years of age and in feeble health, it would doubtless be best for her to take the most direct route to Washington; but that she could not disregard the calls to visit Los Angeles, Loma Linda, and Paradise Valley, in southern California, nor the invitation to stop in College View, Neb., and speak to the five hundred students in Union College. She said: “I must also visit my son Edson, in Nashville, Tenn., and if the Lord gives me strength, I should be pleased to visit Brethren Sutherland and Magan at the Madison school.” She also expressed a desire to stop off a day at Asheville, N. C., where Prof. S. Brownsberger lived, and where Sister Rumbaugh had built and given to the conference a commodious meetinghouse and parsonage.
During the four weeks occupied with the journey to Washington, Mrs. White was able to speak four417times at College View; twice each at Loma Linda, Nashville, and Asheville; and once each at Paradise Valley, Madison, Hillcrest, Huntsville, and the Alden mission school near Hilltop. Upon her arrival at Washington, she went at once to Takoma Park, where she was entertained at the home of Elder G. A. Irwin.
A REPRESENTATIVE GATHERING
The General Conference of 1909 was attended by representatives from many lands. The delegations from abroad were unusually large, nearly if not quite a full quota being present from the conferences and missions across the seas. The attendance from the home field also was large.
From the opening day of the session, Mrs. White bore a heavy burden in behalf of the spiritual interests of the various classes of believers encamped on the grounds. In several of her public talks she urged the brethren and sisters to lay hold on God, and to seek Him most earnestly for guidance and blessing. Those in attendance were to gather courage and inspiration for the carrying forward of a mighty work throughout the world. In all their planning, they were to keep constantly before their minds the needs of the perishing, and the importance of occupying places where God is marvelously opening the way for the entrance of present truth.
THE WORK IN THE CITIES
Particularly was this pointed out to be the case with the great cities of the nations. “Behold our cities,” she urged, “and their need of the gospel. The need for earnest labor among the multitudes in the cities has been kept before me for more than twenty years. Who is carrying a burden for our large cities? Some418will say, We need all the money we can get to carry on the work in other places. Do you not know that unless you carry the truth to the cities, there will be a drying up of means? When you carry this message to those in cities who are hungry for truth, and they accept the light, they will go earnestly to work to bring that light to others. Souls who have means will bring others into the truth, and will give of their means to advance the cause of God.”
The necessity of planning in an extraordinary way for the preaching of the third angel’s message in the crowded centers of population, constituted one of the chief burdens of Mrs. White’s discourses throughout the Conference.
“A little is being done in our world,” she declared; “but, O that the good work might spread abroad and reach every needy soul! O that the present truth might be proclaimed in every city! This great need is kept before me night and day. . . .
“Men and women are going forth more and more to carry the gospel message. We thank God for this, but we need a greater awakening. . . . It is our privilege to see the work of God advancing in the cities. Christ is waiting, waiting for places to be entered. Who are preparing for this work? We will not say that we are destitute of laborers. We are glad that there are some; but there is a greater, a far greater work to be done in our cities.”
SPECIAL EFFORTS IN NEW ENGLAND
“The work we have to do is a wonderfully great work,” she said in another of her discourses during the Conference. “There is a world to be saved.”419In this connection she referred especially to the blessing that would come to the cause of God through a strong and united effort to proclaim the message in the cities of New England, where the first and second angels’ messages had been given with mighty power. “We must bring to these same cities the glory of the third angel’s message,” she said. “Who among us is trying to scatter the rays of light where the truth was so favorably received in the early days of the message?”
In one of her appeals regarding the work to be done in the cities of New England and the Atlantic States, she said:
“What is being done in the Eastern cities where the advent message was first proclaimed? The cities of the West have had advantages, but who in the East have been burdened to take up the work of going over the ground that in the early days of the message was baptized with the truth of the Lord’s soon coming? The light has been given that the truth should go again to the Eastern States, where we first began our work, and where we had our first experiences. We must make every effort to spread a knowledge of the truth to all who will hear, and there are many who will listen. All through our large cities God has honest souls who are interested in what is truth. There is earnest work to be done in the Eastern States. ‘Repeat the message, repeat the message,’ were the words spoken to me over and over again. ‘Tell My people to repeat the message in the places where it was first preached, and where church after church took their position for the truth, the power of God witnessing to the message in a remarkable manner.’”
DELEGATIONS FROM ABROAD
The presence at the 1909 General Conference of over a hundred delegates from abroad, gave Mrs. White opportunity to meet old friends with whom in former years she had been associated in labor. Often during the Conference she was visited by groups of brethren present from some foreign conference or mission field, who conveyed to her personally their greetings, and reported the progress of the third angel’s message in the fields they represented. Thus opportunity was afforded nearly all from abroad, both old friends and those who had never before made her acquaintance, to assure her of their courage in God and of their determination to do their part in the finishing of the work.
“I felt very deeply,” Mrs. White said publicly, after enjoying one of these occasions, “when our brethren who had come from foreign fields told me a little of their experiences and of what the Lord is doing in bringing souls to the truth.” And at another time, addressing them especially while speaking before the Conference, she said:
“Here are workers who have come from foreign countries. They have come to see and to understand. They are determined to improve every privilege, that they may go back to their fields of labor with a renewal of grace and the power of the Spirit of God. As teachers and leaders in the work, they are to gather precious truths which they will, if faithful, present to their fellow laborers who are working in many places and in various ways to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth. My brethren, in your fields of labor, you may be surrounded by unfavorable421circumstances; but the Lord knows all about this, and He will supply your lack by His own Holy Spirit. We need to have much more faith in God.”
STRIFE AMONG THE NATIONS
Mrs. White solemnly charged the brethren who had come to the meeting as representatives of the cause of present truth from every part of Europe, from Asia, Africa, South America, Australasia, and the islands of the sea, to prepare their hearts for terrible scenes of strife and oppression beyond anything they had conceived of, soon to be witnessed among the nations of earth. “Very soon,” she declared, “the strife and oppression of foreign nations will break forth with an intensity that you do not now anticipate. You need to realize the importance of becoming acquainted with God in prayer. When you have the assurance that He hears you, you will be cheerful in tribulation; you will rise above despondency, because you experience the quickening influence of the power of God in your hearts. What we need is the truth. Nothing can take the place of this,—the sacred, solemn truth that is to enable us to stand the test of trial, even as Christ endured.”
And in the farewell service marking the close of the Conference, she once more appealed to the delegates assembled from all parts of the world, to endure as beholding the Invisible. She exhorted every worker to go forth in the strength of the Mighty One of Israel. She declared that while she might never have the privilege of meeting her brethren in another Conference like this one, yet she would pray for them, and prepare to meet them all in the kingdom of glory.