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

Good News from America

Mail, both going and coming, was an important part of the program of Ellen White and those who were with her in New Zealand. 4BIO 85.4

Sunday, April 23, she arose early—at half past three—to prepare the mail bound for Melbourne, expecting it to leave on Monday. 4BIO 85.5

That same Sunday, in came a large stack of letters. There was a long letter from O. A. Olsen, president of the General Conference, giving a full summary of the General Conference session and reporting on the confession of a number of prominent men who had taken a wrong position at the 1888 General Conference session. 4BIO 85.6

Another letter was from Leroy Nicola, a prominent pastor in Iowa. It was the Nicola letter that brought her special rejoicing. It was a confession, “a most thorough confession of the part he acted in Minneapolis.” Of this Ellen White wrote: “It is thorough, and I praise the Lord for the victory he has gained over the enemy who has held him four years from coming into the light. Oh, how hard it is to cure rebellion! How strong the deceiving power of Satan!”—Manuscript 80, 1893. 4BIO 86.1

Ellen White could scarcely sleep that night. She writes: 4BIO 86.2

The good news from America kept me awake. Oh, how my heart rejoices in the fact that the Lord is working in behalf of His people—in the information in the long letter from Elder Olsen, that the Lord by His Holy Spirit was working upon the hearts of those who have been in a large measure convinced of their true condition before God, yet have not humbled their hearts before to confess!

The Spirit of the Lord moved them to the point at this conference. Elder Morrison, who has been so long president of the Iowa Conference, made a full confession. Madison Miller, who has been under the same deceiving power of the enemy, made his confession, and thus the Lord is indeed showing Himself merciful and of tender compassion of His children who have not received the light He has given them, but have been walking and working in darkness.—Ibid. 4BIO 86.3

As she wrote the next day of Leroy Nicola's experience to Harmon Lindsay, treasurer of the General Conference, she said, “I knew if he walked in the light that this must come.... My heart is rejoiced that he has yielded to the influence of the Holy Spirit. It has taken four years of striving of the Spirit of God to bring him to this.”—Letter 79, 1893. 4BIO 86.4