A Quick Trip to Southern California

Ever since the vision of New Year's Day, Ellen White felt impelled to spend a little time in southern California, where her counsel was needed in the new medical institutions, but the trip, for various reasons, had been repeatedly postponed. By mid-April the time seemed propitious, so on Thursday, April 18, she was off with W. C.; Dr. and Mrs. D. H. Kress, en route from Australia to the new sanitarium in Washington, D.C.; Dr. H. F. Rand, medical superintendent of the St. Helena Sanitarium; Dores Robinson; and Sara McEnterfer.6BIO 130.3

She visited the school at San Fernando, and then Loma Linda. At the newly developing College of Evangelists, forty students were enrolled; some were completing the first year of medical studies (The Review and Herald, August 1, 1907; Pacific Union Recorder, May 23, 1907). She went on south to the Paradise Valley Sanitarium for a week, where she addressed the board of directors and the patients. She counseled the matron, her longtime friend and fellow investor in the institution, regarding more liberal policies in dealing with the patients and a less dictatorial attitude toward other members of the Sanitarium staff. On Thursday, May 9, she and Dores Robinson were driven forty-five miles north to San Pasqual, where on Friday she spoke to the church school children and on Sabbath took the morning worship service in the church.6BIO 131.1

On Sunday she returned ten miles to Escondido, where she spoke Sunday afternoon in the attractive brick church. The meeting had been announced in the local paper, and on Sunday morning it was also announced in the pulpits of several Protestant churches. Half of her Sunday-afternoon audience were non-Adventists. Present also were three clergymen, one each from the Baptist, Christian, and Congregational churches. Of this meeting she reported:6BIO 131.2

I felt richly blessed of God as I stood before this congregation and presented the Christian duties as set forth in the first chapter of Second Peter. The working of God on our behalf according to the plan of multiplication, and our duty to work on the plan of addition, are here set forth....6BIO 131.3

We are to add the grace of temperance. There needs to be a great reformation on the subject of temperance.... The Christian will be temperate in all things—in eating, in drinking, in dress, and in every phase of life.—The Review and Herald, August 29, 1907.6BIO 131.4

Her trip north called for a few more days at Loma Linda. She spoke twice to the students and on Sabbath morning spoke under the shady pepper trees to a large audience made up of Sanitarium workers and guests, and members of the neighboring churches. She was pleased that the Sanitarium entertained the visitors with a Sabbath lunch served on the lawn. That afternoon she went in to Los Angeles, where she spoke in the centrally located Carr Street church to a packed house.6BIO 131.5

She had promised to spend a few days at the Merced camp meeting, which would open on Thursday night, May 23, so she rested the few intervening days at Glendale Sanitarium before continuing her homeward journey.6BIO 132.1

On Sabbath and Sunday she spoke in the big tent at Merced, and once especially to the young people. An interesting feature of their camp meeting was that some of the Protestant ministers canceled their midweek meetings to give their members the opportunity to attend camp meeting. The ministers attended too.6BIO 132.2

Monday, May 27, Ellen White was on her way north again to Elmshaven. It had been a busy six weeks, and she was glad to be home.6BIO 132.3