Ellen G. White: The Early Elmshaven Years: 1900-1905 (vol. 5)

Ellen White Working Through A. T. Jones

Just a week later, on Sunday, April 19, she wrote to A. T. Jones, who, as a General Conference Committee member would be, attending the meetings in Battle Creek. Jones and Kellogg had worked very closely together, sympathized with each other on the principles of organization, and seemingly had a good rapport. Jones would be in a position to approach Dr. Kellogg. To Elder Jones she wrote: 5BIO 264.1

Dear Brother: I am sending to you three manuscripts to be read to the brethren assembled at Battle Creek in council. These I desire that you shall read to the brethren when you discern that the time has come. You know my anxiety regarding the work—my desire that everything possible shall be done to establish unity and drive out dissension. We must do all in our power to save Dr. Kellogg and his associates from the result of the mistakes they have made, and to help them to see and understand the way of the Lord.—Letter 59, 1903. 5BIO 264.2

Elder Jones received the letter and the documents on Thursday, April 23, and shared them with Elder Daniells, who on Friday wrote to W. C. White: 5BIO 264.3

Our hearts are all made exceedingly glad by the arrival of the documents your mother has sent. They bring relief to the situation.... 5BIO 264.4

The crisis is here. The settlement must now be made. We shall do everything in our power to win every brother over to the right side, but we cannot compromise nor surrender the banner at this time.... We feel that your mother has certainly been inspired to send us what she has, and we shall endeavor to use it as we ought.—AGD to WCW, April 24, 1903. 5BIO 264.5

She had already sent several other documents and she promised that more would follow. One of the letters sent to Jones was addressed to Kellogg. This course of action reveals how at times she was impressed by the Spirit of God to do her work. She wrote: 5BIO 264.6

I am also sending to you a copy of a letter that I have written to Dr. Kellogg. In it there are very many plain admonitions. Some of these it may be difficult for the doctor to understand. I have not yet sent him a copy of this letter, nor shall I do so at present. My wish is that you shall talk and pray with him, and then read the letter to him, when you think that the time has come. I greatly desire that he shall see his danger, and turn to the Lord.... 5BIO 265.1

I could not speak of his dangers in open conference; for there were some present who would have misunderstood and stumbled, making an unwise use of any statements made that were unfavorable to him.—Letter 59, 1903. 5BIO 265.2

The letter she sent for Elder Jones to read to the medical missionary workers assembled was written on April 16, and was addressed “To Those in Council at Battle Creek, Michigan.” The opening sentence calls for the members of the Medical Missionary Association to work in concert with “responsible men of the General Conference” (Letter 54, 1903). The whole communication is an appeal for unity: “Seek for unity, and seek it in faith,” she wrote. And then she reminded the group: 5BIO 265.3

Our work is not left in the hands of finite men. God rules, and He will turn and overturn. He will not allow His work to be carried forward as it has been. His medical missionary work is not to be ruled, controlled, and molded by one man, as for some years it certainly has been. The exercise of such a power, if continued, will mar the work, and will be the certain ruin of the man exercising control.—(Ibid. 5BIO 265.4

She promised that God would work with men carrying large responsibilities if they humbly worked in His way. But she warned that watchmen on the walls of Zion must “take heroic action to save the man and the cause” if anyone set himself up “as being above God” (Ibid.) 5BIO 265.5

She recounted an incident she had recently read of an artist painting on a high scaffold. He stepped back to admire his work, then watched in horror as an assistant rushed forward and smeared the delicate work. One more step backward would have plunged the artist to his death. His angry surge forward saved his life. Ellen White asked: “Will our brethren in peril consent to be saved from the dangers they are in?” (Ibid.). 5BIO 265.6

She reproved God's watchmen for their blindness: 5BIO 266.1

They should have been wide awake to see that one man's mind, one man's judgment, was becoming a power that God could not and would not endorse. To invest one man or a few men with so much power and responsibility, is not in accordance with God's way of working.— Ibid.

Then, as she did at the 1901 General Conference session, she called for a complete change—a reorganization: 5BIO 266.2

There must be a reorganization.... At the General Conference of 1901 the light was given, Divide the General Conference into union conferences. Let there be fewer responsibilities centered in one place. 5BIO 266.3

Let the work of printing our publications be divided. The principles that apply to the publishing work apply also to the Sanitarium work.... The gospel ministry, medical missionary work, and our publications are God's agencies. One is not to supersede the other. But you have sought to make the medical missionary work the whole body, instead of the arm and hand.—Ibid. 5BIO 266.4

Her appeal closed with clear-cut concepts. The medical missionary work, properly conducted, was but a means to an end: 5BIO 266.5

By the ministry of the Word, the gospel is preached; by medical missionary work the gospel is practiced. The gospel is bound up with medical missionary work. Neither is to stand alone, bound up in itself. The workers in each are to labor unselfishly and unitedly, striving to save sinners.—Ibid. 5BIO 266.6

Other documents were in Elder Jones's hands to be read. One in which she addressed herself to “Our Leading Brethren, to Our Ministers and Especially to Our Physicians,” made a strong appeal to banish both pride and a desire for prominence. “The Lord calls for a decided reformation,” she wrote. “And when a soul is truly reconverted; let him be rebaptized.”—Letter 63, 1903. 5BIO 266.7

While copies of these documents were entrusted to A. T. Jones as one who might most effectively bring them to the medical personnel assembled in Battle Creek, copies had also been sent to other church leaders. The meeting of medical personnel had opened on Tuesday, April 21, but Jones did not reach Battle Creek till Thursday, April 23, during the extended and heated debate over the removal of the Review and Herald publishing plant to some point in the East. It was Friday evening when he finally got together with the General Conference Committee to consider how the Ellen White testimonies should be used. They reached no final decision, but came back together Sabbath morning, April 25, before the eleven-o'clock service to give the documents more study and to try to decide whether they should be presented in a general meeting to all the people or in some other way. Again no decision was reached, and the General Conference Committee, with Jones present, met from 5:00 P.M. Saturday evening until late at night. The biggest issue seems to have been whether harmony could be reached without either the General Conference leaders or Dr. Kellogg actually yielding their positions on the various issues in question. 5BIO 267.1