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- Preparation for the Camp Meeting
- Camp Meeting Opens with Large Attendance
- Beneficial Contacts with Capt. and Mrs. Press
- The Business Session of the Australian Conference
- A Union Conference Is Born
- The Work of the Union Outlined
- The School—Its Character and Location
- Breaking Camp
- Far-Reaching Influence of the Brighton Camp Meeting
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- The Earnest Search for a School Site
- Special Evidence in the Healing of Elder McCullagh
- Report to the Foreign Mission Board
- Making a Beginning
- The Furrow Story
- Norfolk Villa, Prospect Street, In Granville
- Running a Free Hotel
- New Home Is Better for W. C. White
- Work at Cooranbong Brought to a Standstill
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- How the Beginnings Were Made
- The Manual Training Department Succeeds
- Metcalfe Hare Joins the Staff
- Ellen White Buys Acreage from the School
- Planting and Building at Cooranbong
- Counsel and Help from an Experienced Orchardist
- Buying Cows
- A Start with Buildings for Avondale College
- Ellen White Continues to Write
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- Ellen White Employs Fannie Bolton
- The Character of Fannie Bolton's Work
- Ellen White Took Fannie to Australia
- E. G. White Warned in Vision
- Discharged from Ellen White's Service
- A Unique Vision
- Fannie Given Another Trial
- Fannie Bolton Explains her Editorial Work
- The Long-range Harvest of Falsehood and Misrepresentation
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- The Contented Working Family at Sunnyside
- Consulting with W. W. Prescott
- The Birth of Twin Grandsons
- An Appeal to the Wessels Family for Money
- Ellen G. White Stood as a Bank to the Cause
- The Staggering Blow
- The Sawmill Loft Put to Use
- Settlement of the Walling Lawsuit
- Good News! Money from Africa! Building Begins!
- The Adelaide Camp Meeting
- Sunnyside in Early Summer
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- The Work at the School
- The Garden at Sunnyside
- The Need of Competent Leaders
- The Successful Treatment of a Very Critical Case
- Marriage of S. N. Haskell and Hettie Hurd
- Counsel and Encouragement
- Ellen White Calls a Work Bee
- Announcement of the Opening of the School
- The Question of a Primary School
- The Avondale School Opens
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- Prof. C. B. Hughes Chosen to Lead
- S. N. Haskell's Deep Knowledge of God's Word
- A Close Look at Ellen White's Participation
- A Vision Concerning the School
- A Call for Sound Financial Policies
- Confronted with the Problem of Association
- Factors that Encouraged Ellen White
- The Confession of A. G. Daniells
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- “Our School Must Be a Model School”
- The Conference Session in Stanmore
- Medical Missionary Work
- The Medical and Surgical Sanitarium, And the Use of Meat
- The Health-Food Business
- “Try Them”
- The Mollifying Influence of a Vision
- The Earlier Interview at Sunnyside
- Several Locations for the Food Factory Considered
- W. C. White Review of the Experience
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- Initial Writing on the Life of Christ
- Why Did She Copy from Others?
- Work in Australia on the Life of Christ
- Ellen White Writes on Christ's Life and Ministry
- Ellen White in New Zealand and Marian Davis in Melbourne
- The Sequence of Events
- Titles for the Chapters
- Extra-Scriptural Information
- The Proposal of Two Volumes
- Who Will Publish It?
- Decision on the Title
- Illustrations and Finance
- The Last Touches
- Checking Proofs and Illustrations
- A Book That Should be in Every Home
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Chapter 1—(1891) The Call to Australia
To Ellen White the year 1891 gave promise of being a good year for writing and book production. The crisis at the General Conference session of 1888 at Minneapolis and the resistance on the part of some church leaders to the wholehearted acceptance of the message of righteousness by faith had, upon the confessions of certain key men, largely subsided. In her oral ministry and writing Ellen White had for much of two years helped to stem the tide of negative reaction, and the Bible-based doctrine of justification by faith was by 1891 quite generally accepted.4BIO 11.1
During the preceding five or six years she had made good progress, with the aid of her literary assistants, in enlarging and preparing for colporteur sale volumes one and four of The Spirit of Prophecy. The Great Controversy bore the publication date of 1888, and Patriarchs and Prophets came from the press in 1890. Both were substantial, well-illustrated books, appropriate for sale both to the world and to the church. It was now Ellen White's ambition to take up the life of Christ, bringing out a book that would stand between the Patriarchs and Controversy, replacing The Spirit of Prophecy volumes two and three. She felt that if she could just have a good year without too many interruptions, she could get this done and have the book in the field fulfilling its mission.4BIO 11.2
The manuscript for Steps to Christ was in the hands of a religious publisher in Chicago. The little volume had been prepared at the suggestion of evangelists that some of the choice materials from Ellen White on conversion and the Christian life could have a wide sale and most fruitful mission. It was suggested also that if the book were put out by a religious book publisher in Chicago or New York, its circulation and acceptance would be enhanced. Fleming H. Revell was pleased to receive the manuscript for publication.4BIO 11.3
The work of the church was expanding overseas. A decade and a half earlier, in 1874, John N. Andrews had been sent to Europe to lead out in the work there. Indeed, it was on April 1 of that year that Ellen White, residing in California, had been given a vision that the time had come to break away from limited ideas of the work and take broader views. The “young man” she had “frequently seen” in her visions declared:4BIO 12.1
Your light must not be put under a bushel or under a bed, but on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house. Your house is the world.... The message will go in power to all parts of the world, to Oregon, to Europe, to Australia, to the islands of the sea, to all nations, tongues, and peoples.—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 209.4BIO 12.2
Eight months later, at the dedication of Battle Creek College, Ellen White described a vision given the day before in which she saw printing presses in different countries, publishing the message. When James, her husband, pressed her to name the countries, she said she could not recall the names. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I remember one—the angel said ‘Australia.’”—DF 105j, WCW, “A Comprehensive Vision.” S. N. Haskell was present, and he made up his mind he would proclaim the message in Australia. But it was ten years before the church reached the point in growth that it felt it could support him in carrying the message to that faraway land in the South Pacific.4BIO 12.3
At its 1884 session the General Conference took an action to send Haskell to lead out in opening up the work of Seventh-day Adventists in Australia. Being a practical man, he chose four families to help him start the work in the southern continent: J. O. Corliss, evangelist and editor; M. C. Israel, pastor and evangelist; William Arnold, a colporteur; and Henry Scott, a printer. The five families traveled to Australia in 1885, arriving in June, the winter season in Australia. They threw themselves wholeheartedly into the work; through two evangelistic efforts, supplemented by book distribution, there soon was a church of ninety members in Melbourne and a fledgling monthly magazine, The Bible Echo and Signs of the Times.4BIO 12.4
Six years later, 1891, the combined membership in Australia and New Zealand had reached seven hundred; among these were a number of young people eager to enter the work of spreading the church's message in the South Pacific. As Haskell, who had returned to the States, revisited the field, he saw clearly the need for a training school, and voiced his convictions in a letter to O. A. Olsen, president of the General Conference.4BIO 13.1