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Ellen G. White in Europe 1885-1887

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    The Little Flock at Drammen

    About 20 miles southwest of Christiania lay the town of Drammen. On Tuesday, Mrs. White took the train for a visit to the little congregation of Adventists there. The best hall that could be secured was still not very representative, but though the Drammen church had only 20 members, 700 turned out to hear her speak. She used John 3:16 as the text on which she based her remarks.EGWE 118.1

    She describes the hall as a room “used for balls and concerts, about thirty-six by eighty feet in size, with a narrow gallery on each side, and a huge stove in each end. There was no pulpit nor place for one. Six beer tables, brought in from an adjoining room, served to make a platform. A square carpet was thrown over this platform, and another table set on top for light-stand and pulpit, while steps were made with chairs and stools. We doubt if the hall or beer tables were ever put to so good use before.”—Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 207.EGWE 118.2

    The next morning Mrs. White made her way back to Christiania. This time, however, the fog that had obscured her view on the trip to Drammen had lifted.EGWE 118.3

    “The scenery is very fine. The country is broken. There are high bluffs and rocky mountains, lakes and islands. In summer this would be a very pleasant place to live in.”—Manuscript 27, 1885.EGWE 118.4

    Busy though she was with her tasks at this center of the work in Norway, she did not forget the needs of the cause back in America. She was writing newsy, encouraging letters to her niece, Addie Walling, who was learning to set type and read proof at the Pacific Press in Oakland. She was corresponding with Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in Battle Creek and already warning him that the sanitarium was getting too big. She was also concerned that the doctor was working too hard.EGWE 118.5

    In Healdsburg, California, where a new college was beginning, a revival was under way. There was danger of extremism on the one side and danger that the Spirit of God would be quenched on the other. She was writing letters of counsel to leaders on both sides to keep things in balance! And often her letters of counsel would arrive just in time to meet some critical situation.EGWE 118.6

    On Thursday, November 5, she continued her writing and made up for the rainy, disagreeable weather with a “very pleasant, profitable visit” with Brother L. Hansen. Hansen, a building contractor who had become an Adventist, was a key figure in the Christiania church at this time. He was in charge of the construction of the new publishing house and meeting hall, and he had also been the architect for the publishing house in Basel. As he and Mrs. White chatted through their interpreter, she shared with him some of her own pioneer experiences in the work. She also told him of her early health-reform visions and how these visions had led her to alter her eating habits.*The most important of the health-reform visions came to her on June 6, 1863. Cautions and warnings came from the Lord, pinpointing the dangers to health present in man's diet, women's dress, and the drugging by the physicians of the time. Attention was called to a simple diet, the natural use of water, and to nature's remedies generally. Later visions provided additional light from heaven. Her five books and numerous periodical articles on the subject made Adventists the most health-conscious people in Christendom. The Christmas Day vision of 1865 in Rochester, New York, led church leaders to establish at Battle Creek in 1866 the first of a series of health centers that now belt the globe.EGWE 119.1

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