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

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The Proposal of Two Volumes

As the work progressed and the manuscript grew, the staff working at Sunnyside proposed issuing two volumes of about six hundred pages each. W. C. White felt that if this plan met the approval of the publishers, the materials for the first volume would be ready in March or April, 1896 (9 WCW, pp. 198, 199). Assuming this would be done, Ellen White was reading the manuscript for the first volume (Letter 90, 1896), and in writing to Edson on February 16, 1896, she indicated that “we now have it about ready for the printer”—Letter 144, 1896. At Cooranbong they were in the midst of the Bible institute, and Ellen White jotted in her diary on February 18: 4BIO 387.3

In the afternoon Brother and Sister Prescott came. We had a good visit with Sister Prescott. Brother Prescott was with Marian in the interest of the book “Life of Christ.” He is reading it, for it is the last reading before publication.—Manuscript 62, 1896. 4BIO 387.4

So Ellen White and her staff thought; but it did not work out that way. Three or four months later there was more material to be added. Wrote Ellen White on June 1, 1896: 4BIO 387.5

In the last discourses reported, Marian has had precious matter to insert, and this has necessitated her obtaining a new set of copies with the addition. 4BIO 387.6

In this letter to Elder Haskell she wrote of ambitious plans for book production, making reference to the decision to lift the parables out of the forthcoming “Life of Christ” and issue them in a separate volume: 4BIO 388.1

Sister Burnham ... is now to work with me in getting out books which I am anxious to prepare. The book on temperance comes first, then Testimony No. 34, and then the parables which Sister Davis will get out in a small book; then close up the second volume on the “Life of Christ”: then the life of the apostles, then to finish the second book of Old Testament history. You see I have work to do.—Letter 167, 1896. 4BIO 388.2

On June 19, Ellen White was still producing material that needed to be included in the early chapters of the book. She wrote: “I am writing upon subjects which stir every fiber of my being. The preexistence of Christ—how invaluable is this truth to the believer!”—Manuscript 65, 1896. 4BIO 388.3