Ellen G. White: The Lonely Years: 1876-1891 (vol. 3)

The Week-Long Council Meeting

The business of the Fourth Missionary Council was quite routine, with reports from the different fields of labor, resolutions aimed at improving the evangelistic thrust, the election of officers, and the choice of the location for the next annual council meeting. Norway was selected. Ellen White's diary reveals a note of disappointment, and she observed revealingly: 3BIO 354.1

How important are these councils where business is being transacted which shall reach into eternity. And earnestly should everyone seek God and make most earnest efforts to rid the soul of everything of a selfish character that love and union and harmony may characterize these meetings. None should watch to see if they cannot find an opportunity to dissent from their brethren's propositions.—Manuscript 59, 1886. 3BIO 354.2

Reporting to George Butler, she declared: 3BIO 354.3

I tell you, these hard spots in my experience make me desire the climate of California, and the refuge of home. Have I any home? Where is it?—Letter 114, 1886.

Not often would she allow herself to pen words of discouragement, but it is not difficult to read between the lines in this letter to one with whom she had worked closely through the years: 3BIO 354.4

I have many things to communicate and would say, dear brother, that my trust is in the Lord. As the parties go to America I am strongly inclined to attend the General Conference, but know that if I get on the other side of the ocean it will be to stay, not to come back here. But there is a work to be done here yet, and there seems to be very much to be done to set the work rolling right, and I do not feel released yet.... When I recover I have some writing to do to different ones, which is not the most pleasant kind of work.—Ibid. 3BIO 354.5

In this letter she told Butler, “Tonight I leave for Nimes to labor again.” 3BIO 355.1