Ellen White: Woman of Vision

A. G. Daniells Elected President

The nominating committee brought in the name of A. G. Daniells for president of the Australian Conference, and he was elected. The choice was not an easy one. Writing of the experience to O. A. Olsen six months later, Mrs. White explained that there was an extremely short supply of leadership material available. WV 278.8

In later years Daniells told in rather general terms of this experience: WV 278.9

I was elected to the presidency of the newly organized Australian Conference, and continued in that office during the nine years of Mrs. White's residence in that field. This official responsibility kept me in unbroken association with her. Our mission field was vast. Our problems were heavy, and some of them very perplexing.... WV 279.1

Our membership increased encouragingly, and it became necessary to establish a training school for Christian workers, also church schools for the children of our believers. Then followed the erection of a sanitarium for the treatment of the sick, and the establishment of a factory for the manufacture of health foods. WV 279.2

I was young, and utterly inexperienced in most of these undertakings. As president, I was held more or less responsible for progress in all these endeavors. I needed counsel. This I sought at every important step from Mrs. White, and I was not disappointed. I was also closely associated in committee and administrative work with her son, W. C. White. His counsel was very helpful to me; it was based on a longer experience than my own, and also upon his intimate knowledge of the many messages of counsel that had been given through his mother during past years in meeting conditions similar to those we were facing (AGD, The Abiding Gift of Prophecy, pp. 364, 365). WV 279.3