Experiences in Australia

Ellen G. White spent nine years in Australia, from the year 1891 to 1900. Here are a few experiences that she made while she was in Australia.

A woman from the city of Melbourne decided to obey God’s teachings and to observe the Sabbath after hearing Sister White speak. Her decision made her husband terribly angry. “You either give up this silly seventh-day Sabbath notion or get out of here,” he shouted after she tried to explain what she was going to do.

When she refused to stop worshipping on the Sabbath, he ordered her to leave their home. Although she was a timid woman, she had enough faith to help her stay by her decision. She left. A little later her sixteen-year-old daughter also decided to join the church. The girl told her mother about her plans, and her mother promised to come and take the teenager to live with her. When she appeared at the house to pick up her daughter, the angry husband saw her and exclaimed, “Well, you have decided to give up that Sabbath nonsense, have you? And you have come back to live with me?”

She shook her head. “No,” she answered, “I have come for my daughter, whom you have also driven out of the house.” Confused, the man did not know what to reply. “What are you going to do now?” he demanded after thinking a moment. “I am going to support myself and my daughter,” his wife said simply. “She will help me all she can. Somehow we’ll manage.”

The husband’s conscience began to trouble him. He realized that as a father and husband he should support his family.
In a melodramatic gesture typical of the nineteenth century, he dropped to his knees and begged his wife to give up her “terrible doctrines” and return to him.

For a moment the wife’s will and courage wavered, but God strengthened her to keep her vow. “No,” she said firmly, “I shall never give up the Sabbath. I shall observe it as long as I live. Although I have a duty to obey you, I have a greater duty to obey God.”

Seeing that he could not force his wife to change her mind, he became worried and tried another approach. “If you will come back to me,” he offered, “you may keep the Sabbath. But only promise me that you will never go to any Adventist meetings again.”

She sadly shook her head, tears in her eyes. “I cannot make such a promise, though I will be a faithful wife in everything else.

But you don’t understand. You want me to be a faithful wife, yet you also want me to disobey God. If I ignore His will for me, how can anyone ever say I was being a faithful wife? Could I possibly be a good wife then?”

“Now I don’t know what to do,” he groaned. Dropping into a nearby chair, he sat for several moments holding his head. “Will you go with me to see our minister about this?” he asked, glancing up at her. The woman hesitated before answering. Something about the idea bothered her. But because her husband begged her to go, she finally consented.
Hitching the horse to the family buggy, they drove through the dark Melbourne streets and reached the minister’s house about ten o’clock.

The minister had gone to bed, but their knocking woke him up. Sleepily he invited them in and listened to their problem. The husband told the preacher how he made his wife leave because she had kept the Sabbath. “Now,” he asked in puzzlement, “did I do the right thing?”

The minister’s eyes blinked in the light of the kerosene lamp. Setting it on the table, he replied, “You did perfectly right under the circumstances.”

For a moment the husband stared in amazement at the minister. Suddenly angry, he told him, “You’re wrong. I didn’t do right. I abused my wife. I failed as a husband and father. I mistreated my oldest child. I have acted terrible, and you should have told me so. Instead you approved of what I did. What kind of minister are you?”

Turning to his wife, he asked her forgiveness. Together they went out to the carriage and drove home. Never again did he try to control how she worshipped. His wife found peace and happiness. But something still troubled the man – his relationship with God – made him feel guilty. He wanted a life like hers. Sister White, learning about the case, wrote in a letter that after the night at the minister’s house, the man began to show a real interest in Adventism.

The more Sister White spoke, the greater her reputation as an evangelist grew. It spread to Broken Hill, a silver mining town about 600 kilometres northwest of Melbourne. Mrs. Roberts, a Sabbath keeper, learning about the woman prophet and preacher, wanted to hear her speak.

She spoke constantly to her friends and neighbours about Ellen G. White until some of them knew almost as much about her as Mrs. Roberts did. One day Mrs. Roberts mentioned to a neighbour woman that she planned to visit Melbourne and hear Mrs. White. The neighbour – who owned a local shop – had listened to Mrs. Roberts talk so much about Sister White that she became sceptical that anyone could possibly have the talents and abilities Mrs. Roberts claimed she had. She particularly doubted that Sister White could hold the attention of a large audience for several hours and often expressed her belief on the matter to Mrs. Roberts.

As Mrs. Roberts described her planned trip, the woman suddenly remarked, “You know, I’ve always wanted to take a holiday to Melbourne. If you don’t mind, I will go with you.”

”What about you shop?” The Adventist asked in surprise.
“I’ll arrange for someone to run it.”
The journey to Melbourne was long. No direct train connection existed between Broken Hill and the larger city. They had to follow a longer route that swung west, then south. In Melbourne they learned that Sister White was scheduled to speak in one of the city’s larger halls. Hiring a carriage, they arrived at the hall and found it crowded.

When Sister White walked onto the platform, the neighbour noticed her small size. “That’s the woman you’re always talking about?” She whispered to Mrs. Roberts. “That little lady?”

After the introduction and preliminaries, Sister White rose to speak. Momentarily she stood looking around at the audience, something she usually did before each sermon. Occasionally her gaze rested on a particular person.
Nervously the woman whispered to Mrs. Roberts. “I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” her friend asked.
“That woman is looking straight at me. I’m sure of it. She knows all about me.”
Sister White began her sermon. Her voice, which some said reminded them of the clear tones of a bell, reached each person in the large crowd. The people sat attentive throughout the long meeting. The neigh-bour seemed as interested in it as every-body else. At its close, as the people filed out of the hall, she turned to Mrs. Roberts and said, “I must send a telegram to Broken Hill immediately.”

“What’s our hurry?” “I want to notify those at home to close my shop on the Sabbath.” Besides speaking to large groups, Sister White also did personal evangelism. Near her home in Cooranbong, New South Wales – which she called Sunnyside – lived a farmer who owned a large fruit farm. She had a great interest in the family. The father raised excellent oranges and lemons. An avid reader, he had learned much about Adventist doctrines, but he never fully accepted them. Although he knew better, he clung to many of his old habits. Sister White felt disappointment that the farmer and his family did not join the church. In a vision one night an angel stood by her bed and directed her to visit the citrus grower with copies of her books. THE books, the angel said, would help convert him. Obeying the instructions, the next day she collected a few of her longer books and placing them on the buggy seat beside her, drove over to the fruit farm. Although the man was working out in the orchards, he came up to the house when he learned that she had stopped by.

In a few minutes Sister White turned the conversation to religion. Speaking to him as she would to a Seventh-day Adventist church member, she said, “You have great responsibilities. Here are your neighbours all around you.” She motioned to the distant farms with her hand. “You are accountable for every one of them because you have Biblical knowledge they don’t have. If you love what you know and follow it, you will help convert many to Christ.”

He looked at her strangely. His expression seemed to be trying to tell her that he had long ago given up those points of Adven- tist belief that he had accepted. But Sister White knew it already. Ignoring his expression, she continued to talk to him as if he were an Adventist. “We are going to hold you to begin to convert your neighbours.”

She balanced the books on her lap. “I want to give you a present of some books you can use.”
The farmer politely tried to refuse them. “We have a local library from which to get books,” he protested, trying to think of a way to change the subject. She looked around the room. “I don’t see any here. Apparently you have returned all those you have borrowed. Perhaps you don’t like to go to the bother of taking out books from the public library.” Libraries then had much stricter rules about who could take books and how they could do it. “I have brought some books for you and your children to read.” By ignoring his protests, she silenced them, and he finally accepted the books. Before she left, Sister White knelt down and prayed with him.

When they stood again, tears rolled down his leathery cheeks. “I’m glad you came to see me. I thank you for the books,” he repeated over and over again.

The next time she visited the fruit farm, the man told her that he had read part of Patriarchs and Prophets.
“There is not one syllable I could change,” he commented. “Every paragraph speaks to the soul.”
“Which book do you consider the most important?” she asked.

“I lend them all to my neighbours, and the hotelkeeper thinks The Great Controversy is the best.” Suddenly his lips began to quiver. “But I think Patriarchs and Prophets is the best. It is the one that has pulled me out of the mire.”
Sister White understood human nature. She knew that a person becomes most interested in those things he is actively involved in. Getting the farmer to work for his neighbours by lending them books made him interested in Adventism again. Read- ing Sister White’s books also touched his heart. He and his family joined the church, and together they helped bring in several neighbouring families. Sister White’s influence on one man had far reaching results.