Chapter 13—Getting On With the Book Work

Testimony No. 34, known now as Testimonies for the Church, volume 6, published early in 1901, presented counsels written in Australia. During the nine years she spent there, Ellen White helped to pioneer newly opened fields with the thrust in evangelistic outreach, augmented particularly by evangelistic camp meetings; in church-oriented educational work resulting in the establishment of the Avondale school at Cooranbong; in the medical work represented in treatment rooms and sanitariums; and in church buildings to meet the needs of a growing church and to give stability to the cause. 5BIO 176.1

Many of the testimonies of instruction and counsel penned during this period, while universal in their application, quite naturally relate to these lines of church activity and are strongly represented in the five hundred pages of volume 6. 5BIO 176.2

But with Ellen White back in the United States, another Testimony volume seemed to be needed. The situations that were met in rapid succession during her first two years back in America led to a great deal of writing. She traveled through the South to attend the General Conference session in Battle Creek, which brought her into close touch with the work among the blacks. The 1901 session with its sweeping reorganization brought many administrative matters to her attention. The trip to New York City brought her into close contact with the evangelistic challenge of that great city and other cities of America. 5BIO 176.3

There was the accelerated interest in opening new sanitariums and establishing food factories and vegetarian restaurants. There were the operational problems of two longstanding publishing houses and the establishment of a third in Nashville; the Battle Creek Sanitarium fire and its important lessons; and not least, the many contacts with newly opened colleges and medical institutions as she crossed and recrossed the continent. As noted earlier, she found that “at every place” she “visited there was writing that must be done for that place.”—Letter 213, 1901. 5BIO 176.4