At the Geelong Camp Meeting in Victoria

Ellen White was urged to attend the camp meeting in Victoria, scheduled for March 8 to 18 in Geelong (UCR, March 1, 1900). Geelong is a beautiful, well-laid-out city about fifty miles southwest of Melbourne. A Mr. Watson, a church member, gave £25 to encourage the church leaders to have a camp meeting held there, and a tent 55 by 104 feet was pitched in the center of the city. As it was a conservative city, there was some question about attendance, especially when it was known that the local ministers warned their people not to go to the meetings. There were about two hundred church members on the grounds for the meetings, but attendance ranged from five hundred to 1,500. G. B. Starr reported that the Spirit of God stirred the place (Education, April 1, 1900). A. G. Daniells, E. W. Farnsworth, and Mrs. E. G. White were the principal speakers.4BIO 453.3

It was here that she met the reconverted Stephen McCullagh. Of this she wrote:4BIO 453.4

Elder McCullagh and family are here. He seems to be fully in the work and expressed himself at this early-morning meeting as being in full harmony with the testimonies coming from God to Sister White. The more he reads the Bible and the testimonies, the more deep and terribly solemn they appear to him. He talked intelligently.—Letter 198, 1900.4BIO 453.5

The Union Conference Record of April 1, 1900, reported one especially interesting feature of the camp meeting. Delegations from Melbourne on weekends included “the Echo office brass band, composed of sixteen of our own brethren, who had been practicing for some three months on the sacred music usually used in camp meeting. They did well, and added much to the effectiveness of the song service.”4BIO 454.1

By popular vote of the audience, decision was made to continue the Geelong camp meeting for a second week. After this, follow-up meetings were moved to a good rented hall.4BIO 454.2