3. 1900-1915—The Crowning Years
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3. 1900-1915—The Crowning Years
In 1900, when Ellen White returned from nine years in Australia and New Zealand, she was 72 years of age. It might be expected that she would go into quiet retirement. But such was not the case. During the last fifteen years of her life she worked diligently in perfecting and preparing some of her most important books. Education, Ministry of Healing, the last four volumes of the Testimonies, and final revision and expansion of the Conflict of the Ages books, are a few of the major projects she worked on.RIEWWE 15.2
Though she was in the waning years of a full ministry, she also actively participated in several developments in the church. More visions were given, again in private. She gave direct counsel at the 1901 General Conference for reorganization. (She was 73). She actively supported the opening of work among the blacks in the United States by her son, Edson, and others. She helped to establish Loma Linda in 1905, when she was 77. And so it went.RIEWWE 15.3
These last years should have been a time when the fruits of her long years of labor would bring universal acceptance of her prophetic role. But such was not the case. She continued to have to reaffirm her prophetic mission by public pronouncement and private letters. These comments provide us with a rich source of information as to her work as she perceived it. For example, in commenting on the preparation of Testimonies, Volume 6, she wrote:RIEWWE 15.4
I must select the most important matters for the testimony and then look over everything prepared for it, and be my own critic; for I would not be willing to have some things which are all truth to be published because I fear that some would take advantage of them to hurt others....
I try to bring out general principles, and if I see a sentence which I fear would give someone excuse to injure someone else, I feel at perfect liberty to keep back the sentence, even though it is all perfectly true (Letter 32, 1901).
Writing to Doctor Kellogg she did not hesitate to hold back certain counsel till a more opportune time:RIEWWE 15.5
I must not write more now, although there is much more that I shall write when I know that the time has fully come (Letter 124, 1902; Selected Messages 3:56).
We noted earlier that Ellen White used her own words largely in the presentation of her subjects. But she makes the following comment:RIEWWE 15.6
He [God] works at my right hand and at my left. While I am writing out important matter, He is beside me, helping me. He lays out my work before me, and when I am puzzled for a fit word with which to express my thoughts, He brings it clearly and distinctly to my mind (Letter 127, 1902).
Commenting on her books at age 75 she said:RIEWWE 16.1
Physically, I have always been as a broken vessel, and yet in my old age the Lord continues to move upon me by His Holy Spirit to write the most important books that have ever come before the churches and the world. The life that He spares I will use to His glory. And when He may see fit to let me rest, His messages shall be of even more vital force than when the frail instrumentality through whom they were delivered, was living (Ms 122, 1903; Selected Messages 3:76, 77).
Little insights into how inspiration occurred come up in letters:RIEWWE 16.2
When, as I write, a new thought comes into my mind, I reverentially thank God for the appropriate word or sentence brought to my mind (Letter 260, 1903).
I am trying to catch the very words and expressions that were made in reference to this matter, and as my pen hesitates a moment, the appropriate words come to my mind (Letter 123, 1904; Selected Messages 3:51).
Sometimes her message was given in symbols. Writing to a minister who presented truth in an obnoxious way, she said:RIEWWE 16.4
Your work has been presented to me in figures. You were passing round to a company a vessel filled with most beautiful fruit. But as you offered them this fruit, you spoke words so harsh, and your attitude was so forbidding, that no one would accept it. Then another came to the same company, and offered them the same fruit....So courteous and pleasant were His words and manner as He spoke of the desirability of the fruit, that the vessel was emptied (Letter 164, 1902; Selected Messages 3:44, 45).
The last years of Ellen White’s ministry were often lonely years. Referring to earlier times she wrote:RIEWWE 16.5
Since twenty-one years ago, when I was deprived of my husband by death, I have not had the slightest idea of ever marrying again. Why? Not because God forbade it. No. But to stand alone was the best for me, that no one should suffer with me in carrying forward my work entrusted to me of God. And no one should have a right to influence me in any way in reference to my responsibility and my work in bearing my testimony of encouragement and reproof. My husband never stood in my way to do this, although I had help and encouragement from him and oft his pity (Ms 227, 1902; Selected Messages 3:66, 67).
Another unusual insight into her experience as a speaker and a special messenger of God, comes from these later years:RIEWWE 17.1
I am never left alone when I stand before the people with a message. When before the people there seems to be presented before me the most precious things of the gospel and I participate in the gospel message and feed upon the Word as much as any of the hearers. The sermons do me good, for I have new representations every time I open my lips to speak to the people. I can never doubt my mission for I am a participant in the privileges and am nourished and vivified, knowing that I am called unto the grace of Christ (Ms 174, 1903; Selected Messages 3:75, 76).
Still another interesting fact is that she did not always understand at first what the message was or its significance. Writing about the use of salt in the diet, contrary to urgent teaching by a respected authority, she said that a little salt was to be used—“The whys and wherefores of this I know not, but I give you the instruction as it is given me” (Counsels on Diet and Foods, 344).RIEWWE 17.2
In later years she emphasized the same thing:RIEWWE 17.3
Often representations are given me which at first I do not understand. But after a time they are made plain by a repeated presentation of those things that I did not at first comprehend, and in ways that make their meaning clear and unmistakable (Letter 329, 1904; Selected Messages 3:56).
Was she a prophet? Some have made a great deal of her disclaimer to the title “prophetess.” In these later years she spoke to this point:RIEWWE 17.4
To claim to be a prophetess is something that I have never done. If others call me by that name, I have no controversy with them. But my work has covered so many lines that I cannot call myself other than a messenger, sent to bear a message from the Lord to His people, and to take up work in any line that He points out (The Review and Herald, July 26, 1906; Selected Messages 1:34).
The messenger felt a special burden that her books be published in other languages. This conviction was stated in her last will, prepared in 1912, three years before her death. Writing in the Review, June 14, 1906, she said:RIEWWE 17.5
My faith in the ultimate triumph of the third angel’s message and everything connected with it, has been substantiated by the wonderful experiences through which I have passed. This is why I am anxious to have my books published and circulated in many languages. I know that the light contained in these books is the light of heaven (Selected Messages 3:39).
Looking down to our day, and reflecting as one aged person (78) on the counsel of another, she said:RIEWWE 17.6
I ask you to study the instruction that is written in these books. To John, the aged apostle, came the message, “Write the things which thou
hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.” The Lord has bidden me write that which has been revealed to me. This I have done (Ibid).RIEWWE 18.1
To the very end of her life, Ellen White was clear as to the source of her message:RIEWWE 18.2
Sister White is not the originator of these books. They contain the instruction that during her life God has been giving her....In my books the truth is stated, barricaded by a “Thus saith the Lord.” The Holy Spirit traced these truths upon my heart and mind as indelibly as the law was traced by the finger of God upon the tables of stone (Colporteur Ministry, 125, 126).
In a very comprehensive statement made in these last years of her life., she defined revelation and how we are to relate to it:RIEWWE 18.3
Revelation is not the creation or invention of something new, but the manifestation of that which, until revealed, was unknown to human beings. The great and eternal truths contained in the gospel are revealed through diligent searching and humbling of ourselves before God. We have a divine Teacher who leads the mind of the humble searcher for truth; and by the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the truths of the Word are revealed to him. And there can be no more certain and efficient knowledge of the truth than to be thus guided into all truth. Through the impartation of the Holy Spirit, we are to understand God’s Word. We are admonished to seek the truth as if searching for hidden treasure. The Lord opens the understanding of the true seeker. The Holy Spirit enables the mind to grasp the facts of revelation, and divine light communicates with the soul (Ms 59, 1906).