Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 19 (1904)

Lt 401, 1904

White, J. E. and Emma

Nashville, Tennessee

[June 1904]

Previously unpublished. Not sent.

My Children, Edson and Emma,

I am very sick and I may not survive this attack. I feel intensely over many things that will be experienced in your work. If you could withdraw from the work now and leave it in the hands of those who have had so much criticizing to do, and who have made it a science to hinder the work, the Lord would give you other work in places where there are not so many pull-backs. You may be assured ways will open before you in Southern California that you could take hold of and not endanger your life. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 1

When for a short time the heat would be oppressive, there are cool places that you can remove to and labor, but there is a large class of tourists that are to be managed, and there is need of organized efforts to take hold of these matters, to work judiciously and study how to meet the people where they are. You must not be confined to the work and struggles you have been carrying, for your brain nerve power will not stand this. You have had one shock of paralysis, and I have not now one word of encouragement to say, “Stay where you are.” You can do much better work if your mind is not constantly stirred up upon disagreeable subjects, and this field, I have been shown, must be worked. Men must come in and generalship be given. You are not to take this whole thing upon yourself. You could get a home in some place that will be more favorable for health and life. The Lord does not require you to sacrifice your life. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 2

The colored question is to assume a more serious feature than now presents itself. That field, which has been opened before our American people since the release of the blacks from slavery, has been kept open, and yet how little has been done. The diverting of the donations called for has been a serious matter with those who have done this, but you are not to dwell upon this matter and all that was comprehended in it, for the result will be, to the actors in every phase of injustice, such as you would not care to see. God calls for His people to unify. There will be a most decided increase of wickedness demonstrated among the blacks, and no less among the white people who do not keep the law of the Lord. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 3

My children, you are now at an age when trouble of the disagreeable kind which you have had will tell on you and hurt your experience, [your] body and your mind. There is opened before you the Southern California field, which is to be worked, and you can adjust yourselves to the situation of climate. There is much to be thought of in this—who will take right hold of the Southern [California] field and improve, in Los Angeles and San Diego and Santa Barbara and all these fields, the work to be done for unbelieving tourists—much more than is now being done. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 4

There should be sanitariums in Los Angeles and in San Diego. I have not given up the idea of a building in San Diego that we may have, but the Lord knows all about this. In Santa Barbara there should be a well-equipped sanitarium, and this means schools will be there. Well, these fields are opening. I see all the way along the line to St. Louis, New Orleans, to Memphis, Washington, and to the work all along these lines. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 5

Edson, the state of the Huntsville school is so pitiful because the situation is forbidding, but the men who have tried to do any work have not been helped, and some large, broader minds need to come in who will take a rational, Christian view of the situation, who have the heave-e-o-heave in them to venture to plan in the Lord’s way and not call upon some who have planned backward and not forward. Houses might have been built. In the cities of the South little work in a right spirit will lead to larger work. Houses will be offered for sale, and there is work to be done on every hand. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 6

I must present these matters before you, for you must not breast the difficulties that may arise. I feel deeply over these things and am unable to sleep nights. I feel so used up, and I see nothing ahead. If I do live and you keep in the South, my distress of mind will increase rather than decrease. I hope you will move wisely and pray, oh, pray much, that the Lord will manifest Himself and teach all how to work. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 7

But Edson, there is a grand work to be done in Washington. And there is need of men that will carry the work forward with determined effort. Now all these Southern fields are to be fields that call for determined effort. Washington has been an opening that the Lord has made for those who embrace the South to have places to worship. This vexed color line can and will be adjusted if the people will be true to their Bible principles to be kind. 19LtMs, Lt 401, 1904, par. 8