Ellen G. White: The Later Elmshaven Years: 1905-1915 (vol. 6)

Positive Teaching On The Triumph Of The Church

On Friday morning, May 21, Mrs. Lida Scott, from the East, came to the Elmshaven office to make acquaintance with W. C. White and to ask some questions about the church, its organization, and its stability. She was a relatively new convert, a woman of considerable means, the daughter of Isaac Funk of the Funk and Wagnalls Publishing Company in New York. She had spent some time at the Madison Sanitarium and School in Tennessee, self-supporting institutions. Now church leaders were currying her interest in the College of Medical Evangelists, and particularly in providing facilities in Los Angeles for clinical training of physicians. Of the visit, W. C. White reported on May 23 to Elder E. E. Andross, president of the Pacific Union Conference and a member of the Loma Linda board: 6BIO 428.5

During our conversation, I told her how Mother regarded the experience of the remnant church, and of her positive teaching that God would not permit this denomination to so fully apostatize that there would be the coming out of another church. 6BIO 428.6

I gave her a brief sketch of the various eras in the experience of this church, when, as the result of the teachings and the work of ambitious men, it has swung far away from right principles, and then pointed out how God had provided means to correct the errors that had been brought in by these ambitious men, and bring the church back to loyalty. 6BIO 428.7

I expressed my confidence that God would not leave us to the buffetings of the enemy, but that in every crisis He would provide agencies to correct errors, to awaken our people to a loyalty to those features of the work where there had been growing indifference. 6BIO 428.8

Later, W. C. White reports that in visiting his mother on a rainy day near the close of her long illness, after he had talked with her for a little while, he told her that he had good news regarding the work at Loma Linda. 6BIO 429.1

I then related that a good sister in the East [Mrs. Lida Scott] had offered to make a very liberal gift to the College of Medical Evangelists for the establishment of a students’ home and hospital in Los Angeles. 6BIO 429.2

Mother's lips quivered, and for a moment she shook with emotion. Then she said: “I am glad you told me this. I have been in perplexity about Loma Linda, and this gives me courage and joy.” 6BIO 429.3

After a little further conversation, I knelt down by her side, and thanked the God of Israel for His manifold blessings, and prayed for a continuance of His mercies. Then Mother offered a very sweet prayer of about a dozen sentences, in which she expressed gratitude, confidence, love, and entire resignation.—WCW, in The Review and Herald, September 28, 1916. 6BIO 429.4