Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (vol. 4)

The Brisbane Camp Meeting Opens

By Friday night and the opening meeting, all anxiety regarding attendance quickly melted. Hundreds of men, women, and children poured onto the grounds. The tent was well filled, with an estimated eight or nine hundred present. 4BIO 366.1

Sabbath morning, the Sabbath school was well attended. Stephen Haskell spoke at the worship hour, taking as his text, “We would see Jesus.” Ellen White spoke in the afternoon on the call to the wedding supper and the guest who came without the wedding garment. Attendance and interest were excellent. In the evening Haskell spoke again to a large congregation. 4BIO 366.2

Three of the six workers who were on the grounds and had been counted on to speak fell ill. This left Elders Daniells and Haskell and Ellen White to carry forward the work (Letter 86, 1898). She reported that the singing talent was not the best. 4BIO 366.3

Saturday night, Ellen White was given a vision concerning worker relationships: 4BIO 366.4

In the night I was instructed that in this meeting we must each one look to the Lord, and not to one another, saying, “What shall this man do?” Each one must seek the Lord earnestly to know for himself what he is to do in the service of the Lord....It takes all kinds of timber fitly to frame this building, and Jesus Christ Himself is to be the Chief Cornerstone, “in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” 4BIO 366.5

This is the work to be done in our camp meetings. We are to build together, not separately. We are to work unitedly. Every stick of timber is to find it's place, that a united framework may be made—a habitation of God through the Spirit.—The Review and Herald, March 28, 1899. 4BIO 367.1

Sunday Daniells spoke in the morning and Ellen White in the afternoon. She reported of this meeting: 4BIO 367.2

The tent was full, and many who could not enter stood outside while I spoke ... on the subject of Christian temperance.—Ibid. 4BIO 367.3

I felt that an angel of God was by my side. In my weakness I was made strong. I spoke one hour and a half, and after the meeting closed the people told those who came on the ground later that they never heard anything like the talk Mrs. White had given them. One man, who wore the blue ribbon [of the temperance forces], said he never saw the temperance question more clearly presented than by a woman of 70. “What a voice she has,” he said, “and she is 70 years old and uses neither tea nor coffee nor meat.”—Manuscript 187, 1898. 4BIO 367.4

Those in her audience observed somewhat with astonishment that she spoke without notes (Letter 86, 1898). Ellen White was pleased to learn that in her audience were members of the legislative assembly. Every chair and seat on the campground was brought to accommodate the large crowd. Most of the church members left their seats to give room to the strangers, and still hundreds had to stand (UCR, October 15, 1898; Manuscript 187, 1898). Noted Ellen White, “The people seem more interested than even those of Stanmore, and the congregation was fully as large, both on Sabbath and Sunday.”—Manuscript 187, 1898. The notices in the Brisbane newspapers that Mrs. White, a woman of 70, would speak Saturday and Sunday afternoons, undoubtedly enhanced the interest of the general public (Manuscript 153, 1898). 4BIO 367.5

A Wesleyan minister in the city, observing the large attendance and the deep interest in the meetings at the camp, proposed to some of his members that he would pitch a tent in the yard of their church and hold meetings every day through the week. “But this,” Ellen White observed, “did not seem to satisfy them entirely. We can understand this. The minister wished to hold them, that they might not stray away to hear that which was preached at the tent.”—Manuscript 187, 1898. 4BIO 367.6