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

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Christ Our Saviour

At about the same time she stated that “the book Christ Our Saviour is not yet completed.”—Letter 243, 1899. Her son Edson, working in the Southern States among the blacks in the mid-1890s, saw a fruitful field for a book of modest size on the life of Christ in simple language. Being a good writer himself, he began to prepare the chapters, and then some of his mother's writings on the life of Christ came to his hands. Feeling it excelled his own work, he selected some of the materials, simplified the wording, and blended them with what he had written. In 1896 he published it as a popular book of 158 pages. The idea of blending his writing with that of his mother's was not acceptable to either Ellen White or the field. So as plans were laid for future printings, it was determined that it would all be from her pen, the wording simplified in her Sunnyside office by one of her staff. This work was accomplished, and in 1900 the 182-page book Christ Our Saviour was published. On the title page it carried the words: “By Ellen G. White (Adapted).” It has had a wide distribution in several languages, and now reaches the public under the title Story of Jesus. 4BIO 449.7

Other book tasks to which attention was being given included a book on health intended for general distribution; in 1905 it emerged as The Ministry of Healing. Chapters from the 1890 book Christian Temperance formed the initial basis for this, supplemented by an abundance of other materials. Ellen White wrote several chapters particularly for the opening of this volume, presenting Christ and His ministry as the example in true medical missionary work (11a WCW, pp. 624, 625). 4BIO 450.1

As Miss Sarah Peck, a teacher who had worked in South Africa, was drawn into Ellen White's literary staff, she was assigned the task of assembling the counsels on education written largely in the 1890s as the new start in Christian education was made in Australia. Ellen White had written much along this line. Wrote W. C. White in late September: 4BIO 450.2

During the past two years I think Mother has written more upon the principles of education, the importance of Bible study, and the importance of combining labor with study, and the value of agriculture as the ABC to all agricultural training, than in all the years before. I think she has written more largely upon it than any other branch of our work, and Sister Peck, who came from South Africa to assist her with her work, is preparing these writings for publication.—14 WCW, p. 145. 4BIO 450.3

Miss Peck soon discovered that these writings divided themselves into two groups—those appropriate for Seventh-day Adventists, and for the world generally. The latter found their way into the volume eventually published under the title Education (1903). Then there were those more particularly for the church, which made up one of the sections of Testimonies, volume 6 (1900), and provided resources for Counsels to Parents and Teachers (1913). 4BIO 450.4

Volume six of the Testimonies, then in preparation, would carry nearly one hundred pages on education. 4BIO 451.1