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

W. C. White's Appraisal

On the Friday before the session was to close, W. C. White took time to write to Smith Sharp, a minister working in Topeka, Kansas: 3BIO 410.2

We are just at the close of another General Conference, and in a few days, the delegates will be scattered to their respective fields, and another year's work begun. 3BIO 410.3

This has been a very interesting conference, and although not accompanied with all that peace and harmony that sometimes has been manifest, it is perhaps as profitable a meeting as was ever held, for many important principles were made prominent, and some conclusions arrived at, that will be of great value, as they may influence our future work. Many go forth from this meeting determined to study the Bible as never before, and this will result in clearer preaching. 3BIO 410.4

As you have no doubt noticed in the Bulletin, many advance steps have been taken as to our foreign missions, also some good moves for the advancement of the work in the South.—WCW to Smith Sharp, November 2, 1888. 3BIO 410.5

In another letter, written a month later to O. A. Olsen, newly elected president of the General Conference, who was not present at Minneapolis, W. C. White described the interesting and somewhat baffling conference session: 3BIO 410.6

In many respects this conference was a peculiar one. I suppose that many of your friends have written to you about it. There were some features of it that I could not understand, and some other features which I thought I could understand, that are not very pleasant to write about. Certain influences had been working for some time which culminated at this meeting in a manifestation of a spirit of pharisaism. So Mother named it. 3BIO 410.7

The delegates at the close of the meeting carried away very different impressions. Many felt that it was one of the most profitable meetings that they ever attended; others, that it was the most unfortunate conference ever held. Some who left the meeting before it closed carried highly colored reports to Battle Creek and other places, of quite a discouraging character. Mother has met this spirit, and rebuked it at every turn, and there is quite a change in the aspect of matters in this State [Michigan]. 3BIO 411.1

Mother is now getting out Testimony No. 33, which I trust will let in considerable light. Yesterday was her sixty-first birthday, and although quite feeble when she left California, she is now quite strong and is doing lots of work.—WCW to O. A. Olsen, November 29, 1888. 3BIO 411.2