Messenger of the Lord

Salamanca Vision

The crucial presence of Ellen White during the March 1891 General Conference in Battle Creek, Michigan, kept the leadership from making a serious mistake regarding the church’s religious liberty program and other publishing policies. ⁸ The usefulness of the vision’s purpose and relevancy is highlighted in the timing of its presentation in public. Although given to Mrs. White in November 1890, in Salamanca, New York, and though she found many opportunities to apply much of the vision’s message to current conditions, the central feature of the vision was held from her memory until the exact moment when it would be most effective. MOL 151.8

If she had reported the whole vision (as she tried to do on several occasions) at any other time than after that famous Saturday night secret meeting, it would have been considered patently false information. ⁹ MOL 151.9

But it was not only with General Conference matters that denominational leaders recognized the timely counsel provided through the Spirit of prophecy. Those involved in crises such as the proposed sale of the Boulder (Colorado) Sanitarium would never forget the prompt, propitious, and lucid direction that the situation demanded—wisdom that leadership could not see without the inspired witness of Ellen White. MOL 151.10

The Boulder Sanitarium crisis in the closing months of 1905 is a case study in how “reasonable” certain business plans may appear, even when higher principles and purposes are neglected. At that time conference leadership and leading laymen believed that they were doing the denomination a favor by selling the institution. However, Ellen White made clear that it was not in God’s purpose that another sanitarium should be built in Boulder or in Canon City, one hundred miles south of Boulder—at least not by Adventists. Her unambiguous counsel written to the key players turned the tide although such admonition came as a heavy blow to the leaders. ¹⁰ MOL 152.1