Chapter 56—At the 1909 General Conference

Thursday evening, September 9, 1909, Mrs. White returned to her home near St. Helena, California, after an absence of five months and four days, during which time she had traveled more than eight thousand miles, and spoken to audiences, large and small, seventy-two times, in twenty-seven places, from California to Maine, and from Alabama to Wisconsin.

The chief purpose of this journey was to attend the quadrennial session of the General Conference, which convened at Washington, D. C., in the spring of 1909. Her visits to other places were in response to urgent invitations, and were made possible by the merciful bestowal of strength and courage, as she proceeded from place to place.

A few days before starting on her journey, she remarked that as she was eighty-one years of age and in feeble health, it would doubtless be best for her to take the most direct route to Washington; but that she could not disregard the calls to visit Los Angeles, Loma Linda, and Paradise Valley, in southern California, nor the invitation to stop in College View, Neb., and speak to the five hundred students in Union College. She said: “I must also visit my son Edson, in Nashville, Tenn., and if the Lord gives me strength, I should be pleased to visit Brethren Sutherland and Magan at the Madison school.” She also expressed a desire to stop off a day at Asheville, N. C., where Prof. S. Brownsberger lived, and where Sister Rumbaugh had built and given to the conference a commodious meetinghouse and parsonage.

During the four weeks occupied with the journey to Washington, Mrs. White was able to speak four times at College View; twice each at Loma Linda, Nashville, and Asheville; and once each at Paradise Valley, Madison, Hillcrest, Huntsville, and the Alden mission school near Hilltop. Upon her arrival at Washington, she went at once to Takoma Park, where she was entertained at the home of Elder G. A. Irwin.

A Representative Gathering

The General Conference of 1909 was attended by representatives from many lands. The delegations from abroad were unusually large, nearly if not quite a full quota being present from the conferences and missions across the seas. The attendance from the home field also was large.

From the opening day of the session, Mrs. White bore a heavy burden in behalf of the spiritual interests of the various classes of believers encamped on the grounds. In several of her public talks she urged the brethren and sisters to lay hold on God, and to seek Him most earnestly for guidance and blessing. Those in attendance were to gather courage and inspiration for the carrying forward of a mighty work throughout the world. In all their planning, they were to keep constantly before their minds the needs of the perishing, and the importance of occupying places where God is marvelously opening the way for the entrance of present truth.

The Work in the Cities

Particularly was this pointed out to be the case with the great cities of the nations. “Behold our cities,” she urged, “and their need of the gospel. The need for earnest labor among the multitudes in the cities has been kept before me for more than twenty years. Who is carrying a burden for our large cities? Some will say, We need all the money we can get to carry on the work in other places. Do you not know that unless you carry the truth to the cities, there will be a drying up of means? When you carry this message to those in cities who are hungry for truth, and they accept the light, they will go earnestly to work to bring that light to others. Souls who have means will bring others into the truth, and will give of their means to advance the cause of God.” —The General Conference Bulletin, May 24, 1909.

The necessity of planning in an extraordinary way for the preaching of the third angel’s message in the crowded centers of population, constituted one of the chief burdens of Mrs. White’s discourses throughout the Conference.

“A little is being done in our world,” she declared; “but, O that the good work might spread abroad and reach every needy soul! O that the present truth might be proclaimed in every city! This great need is kept before me night and day....”

“Men and women are going forth more and more to carry the gospel message. We thank God for this, but we need a greater awakening.... It is our privilege to see the work of God advancing in the cities. Christ is waiting, waiting for places to be entered. Who are preparing for this work? We will not say that we are destitute of laborers. We are glad that there are some; but there is a greater, a far greater work to be done in our cities.” —The General Conference Bulletin, May 17, 1909.

Special Efforts in New England

“The work we have to do is a wonderfully great work,” she said in another of her discourses during the Conference. “There is a world to be saved.” In this connection she referred especially to the blessing that would come to the cause of God through a strong and united effort to proclaim the message in the cities of New England, where the first and second angels’ messages had been given with mighty power. “We must bring to these same cities the glory of the third angel’s message,” she said. “Who among us is trying to scatter the rays of light where the truth was so favorably received in the early days of the message?” —The General Conference Bulletin, May 31, 1909.

In one of her appeals regarding the work to be done in the cities of New England and the Atlantic States, she said:

“What is being done in the Eastern cities where the advent message was first proclaimed? The cities of the West have had advantages, but who in the East have been burdened to take up the work of going over the ground that in the early days of the message was baptized with the truth of the Lord’s soon coming? The light has been given that the truth should go again to the Eastern States, where we first began our work, and where we had our first experiences. We must make every effort to spread a knowledge of the truth to all who will hear, and there are many who will listen. All through our large cities God has honest souls who are interested in what is truth. There is earnest work to be done in the Eastern States. ‘Repeat the message, repeat the message,’ were the words spoken to me over and over again. ‘Tell My people to repeat the message in the places where it was first preached, and where church after church took their position for the truth, the power of God witnessing to the message in a remarkable manner.’” —The General Conference Bulletin, May 24, 1909.

Delegations from Abroad

The presence at the 1909 General Conference of over a hundred delegates from abroad, gave Mrs. White opportunity to meet old friends with whom in former years she had been associated in labor. Often during the Conference she was visited by groups of brethren present from some foreign conference or mission field, who conveyed to her personally their greetings, and reported the progress of the third angel’s message in the fields they represented. Thus opportunity was afforded nearly all from abroad, both old friends and those who had never before made her acquaintance, to assure her of their courage in God and of their determination to do their part in the finishing of the work.

“I felt very deeply,” Mrs. White said publicly, after enjoying one of these occasions, “when our brethren who had come from foreign fields told me a little of their experiences and of what the Lord is doing in bringing souls to the truth.” —The General Conference Bulletin, May 21, 1909. And at another time, addressing them especially while speaking before the Conference, she said:

“Here are workers who have come from foreign countries. They have come to see and to understand. They are determined to improve every privilege, that they may go back to their fields of labor with a renewal of grace and the power of the Spirit of God. As teachers and leaders in the work, they are to gather precious truths which they will, if faithful, present to their fellow laborers who are working in many places and in various ways to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth. My brethren, in your fields of labor, you may be surrounded by unfavorable circumstances; but the Lord knows all about this, and He will supply your lack by His own Holy Spirit. We need to have much more faith in God.” —The General Conference Bulletin, May 21, 1909.

Strife among the Nations

Mrs. White solemnly charged the brethren who had come to the meeting as representatives of the cause of present truth from every part of Europe, from Asia, Africa, South America, Australasia, and the islands of the sea, to prepare their hearts for terrible scenes of strife and oppression beyond anything they had conceived of, soon to be witnessed among the nations of earth. “Very soon,” she declared, “the strife and oppression of foreign nations will break forth with an intensity that you do not now anticipate. You need to realize the importance of becoming acquainted with God in prayer. When you have the assurance that He hears you, you will be cheerful in tribulation; you will rise above despondency, because you experience the quickening influence of the power of God in your hearts. What we need is the truth. Nothing can take the place of this,—the sacred, solemn truth that is to enable us to stand the test of trial, even as Christ endured.” —The General Conference Bulletin, May 21, 1909.

And in the farewell service marking the close of the Conference, she once more appealed to the delegates assembled from all parts of the world, to endure as beholding the Invisible. She exhorted every worker to go forth in the strength of the Mighty One of Israel. She declared that while she might never have the privilege of meeting her brethren in another Conference like this one, yet she would pray for them, and prepare to meet them all in the kingdom of glory.

Important Counsels

It was during the 1909 General Conference that Mrs. White read a manuscript calling for loyalty to the principles of health reform; [This manuscript was afterward published in Testimonies for the Church 9:153-166.] and she also spoke to the delegates on the same subject. [See The General Conference Bulletin, May 30, 1909.] Another manuscript read was “A plea for Medical Missionary Evangelists;” and still another “The Loma Linda College of Evangelists” [For these, see Testimonies for the Church 9:167-178.]

Following the Conference session, Mrs. White met twice with the members of the General Conference Committee, before going on to Philadelphia and other cities of the East, and thence to camp meetings and institutions in the Central States and the Middle West, en route to her California home.

In her interviews with the General Conference Committee, Mrs. White read manuscripts dealing with some of the problems that were perplexing the brethren. The call to do a much larger work in the cities at home and abroad, than had hitherto been attempted, could be responded to only as men and means could be found to use in the carrying forward of such work. In order that a broad and far-reaching campaign might be inaugurated quickly and effectively, Mrs. White suggested the advisability of releasing for evangelistic service some of the workers bearing heavy burdens in institutional centers. She said:

“For the conduct of affairs at the various centers of our work, we must endeavor, as far as possible, to find consecrated men who have been trained in business lines. We must guard against tying up at these centers of influence men who could do a more important work on the public platform, in presenting before unbelievers the truths of God’s word....”

“To us, as God’s servants, has been entrusted the third angel’s message, the binding-off message, that is to prepare a people for the coming of our King. Time is short. The Lord desires that everything connected with His cause shall be brought into order. He desires that the solemn message of warning and of invitation shall be proclaimed as widely as His messengers can carry it. The means that shall come into the treasury, is to be used wisely in supporting the workers. Nothing that would hinder the advance of the message, is to be allowed to come into our planning....”

“For years the pioneers of our work struggled against poverty and manifold hardships, in order to place the cause of present truth on vantage ground. With meager facilities, they labored untiringly; and the Lord blessed their humble efforts. The message went with power in the East, and extended westward, until centers of influence had been established in many places. The laborers of today may not have to endure all the hardships of those early days. The changed conditions, however, should not lead to any slackening of effort. Now, when the Lord bids us proclaim the message once more with power in the East, when He bids us enter the cities of the East, and of the South, and of the West, and of the North, shall we not respond as one man and do His bidding? Shall we not plan to send our messengers all through these fields, and support them liberally? ...”

“What are our conferences for, if not for the carrying forward of this very work? At such a time as this, every hand is to be employed. The Lord is coming. The end is near; yea, it hasteth greatly! In a little while from this we shall be unable to work with the freedom that we now enjoy. Terrible scenes are before us, and what we do, we must do quickly. We must now build up the work in every place possible. And for the accomplishment of this work we greatly need in the field the help that can be given by our ministers of experience who are able to hold the attention of large congregations....”

“Before leaving home I promised the Lord that if He would spare my life, and enable me to come to this Conference, I would deliver the message He had repeatedly given me in behalf of the cities, in which thousands upon thousands are perishing without a knowledge of the truth. As I have borne this message to the people, the blessing of God has rested on me richly. And now, my brethren, I appeal to you in the name of the Lord to do your best, and to plan for the advancement of the work in God’s appointed way....”

“As we do this work, we shall find that means will flow into our treasuries, and we shall have means with which to carry on a still broader and more far-reaching work. Shall we not advance in faith, just as if we had thousands of dollars? We do not have half faith enough. Let us do our part in warning these cities. The warning message must come to the people who are ready to perish, unwarned, unsaved. How can we delay? As we advance, the means will come. But we must advance by faith, trusting in the Lord God of Israel.” [From a manuscript, portions of which have been published in Testimonies for the Church 9:98, 99.]