White, W. C.
Melrose, Massachusetts
September 1, 1904
Previously unpublished.
Dear Son Willie White,—
This is the last day I shall be here. Tomorrow I leave for Middletown camp-meeting. I will, if you think best, leave Middletown Sunday evening or Monday morning. As we are to pass through Battle Creek, I have planned a meeting for Monday and Tuesday merely to give my testimony to all who shall assemble, then go on to the meeting in Omaha. I will give up Omaha if it is considered best for me to continue over Sabbath and Sunday at Battle Creek. I go from here Friday, on the morrow, to Middletown. Edson was born at Rocky Hill, Connecticut. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 1
I have now decided it is best for me to speak at Battle Creek in the week time. If I could merely leave my testimony with them and then pass on to Omaha and not feel that I would have to go again to Battle Creek! So we will meet you in some place, I know not where. Yesterday afternoon I spoke to a large company in the tent. This makes five times I have spoken. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 2
September 2
Dr. Nicola has talked with me considerably. Both he and __________ say that this visit has been to them all a great blessing. Brethren Place and Wheeler have said the same, most decidedly. The benefit of our coming here, they say, cannot be estimated. It has done for the work here that which nothing else could have done. Meetings were reported as excellent. One hundred, they say, came forward for prayers and they are full of courage. Five hundred dollars was raised to help them in Melrose. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 3
I saw Brother Cottrell Thursday. He had a severe cold and was to take treatment. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 4
This morning, Friday, early, in a short time, we leave for the cars. I am writing on the top of satchel. When we shall see you I cannot say, but will be most glad to meet you. The report from Brother Place is successful meetings. I have done all I dared to do. I am stronger than when I came here. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 5
Mother
*****
This is Friday morning. I have received two letters from Dr. Kellogg. But you have read one letter. If you deem it not best to speak in Battle Creek and use my strength in that way, let me know by telegram. I have written I will meet with them and speak in the Tabernacle once or twice if able, and if this is not the best thing to do, I would like to know. I shall speak twice in Middletown and then leave for Omaha. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 6
I know Dr. Kellogg is like a blind man with a cane, striking about to find the road, but all I can say is everything is to me very much like surface work. If he goes no further and deeper, I shall conclude he has considered he had to do something to run the institution and have nurses and associate physicians to be with him. I shall be glad if the awakening is genuine repentance, but he has not fallen on the Rock. Yet I am sure he sees through blind eyes, and I do not think that of all his associates in workers in any line they have any clear conception as to past, present, or future. I will do my best in speaking to them if I tarry a couple of days in Battle Creek. This I must do now. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 7
I am to tell them we are years behind, where we should be years advanced. Had they been true and righteous before God, many souls would have been converted who are now floundering about, unsettled and confused. As you yourself can see, they do not know light from darkness or darkness from light. Shall I speak? Oh, may the Lord be with me is my most earnest prayer. I dread everything of the kind, but it must be done sometime. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 8
I am much stronger than when I came to Melrose. I hope I shall have the clear light shining upon my pathway. I have tried to urge our people under the tent to have a sense of the nearness of the closing up of the work in this world, and yet here are cities unwarned. There must be a revival, a life, a power the church does not now have. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 9
I had a talk with Brother Gilbert. I cannot forbid or discourage him in his work. We need one hundred such men where we now have one. The message must go into the churches; and if this is one of the ways, we will say, God be praised, and not discourage anyone who can preach the Word. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 10
If only E. E. Franke had given evidence he was under the control of the Spirit of God, I would be so thankful to have him give the message to the churches. But what can we say to him? I write him not, because I know not what use he will make of anything I may say, or when. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 11
If this scribbling can be read, I shall be glad. 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 12
Mother