At the Elmshaven Office

As to book work in the office, the staff was concentrating on Gospel Workers. In addition, a new line of work with the E.G. White books was getting under way. As the church was stretching forth to new lands, the people working at Elmshaven and the General Conference Committee were giving study as to how to make such books as The Desire of Ages, Patriarchs and Prophets, and The Great Controversy available in a size that could be produced within the financial reach of peoples of different countries, especially the Orient. After the 1913 session, three men of mission experience were asked by the General Conference to go to Elmshaven for a few months to make selections from Ellen White's writings that might be translated later into many languages (WCW to S. N. Haskell, October 7, 1913).6BIO 397.1

In early October, R. W. Munson, who had been in mission service in Indonesia, and J. S. James and L. J. Burgess, both missionaries to India, were at Elmshaven undertaking this new task. Burgess was soon looking through Patriarchs and Prophets, selecting materials that would make several pamphlets of forty to sixty pages each. As Ellen white considered the matter, she declared that it was much better for 10,000 people to have half a loaf than it was for only 1,000 to have a whole loaf (WCW, as told to A. L. White). Thus began the work of making abridgments of the E. G. White books for publications in lands where the work of the church was just beginning. Writing to A. G. Daniells on December 31, W. C. White reported the work well under way.6BIO 397.2