挪威，克里斯蒂安尼亚(现名奥斯陆)，1885年10月1日
亲爱的巴特勒弟兄：
获悉在你的指示下法恩斯沃思弟兄和伯里尔设法限制纽约帐棚大会的工作，我的悲伤难以言表。你对他们的建议没有比这更坏的了。你不该把他们没有准备好以明智的方式去做的工作放在他们手里。要当心自己不要在任何一个地方阻止圣工的推进。我们在任何地方都做得不够，当然不可压缩传道方面的工作。{PC 379.5}
这些事情我经认真考虑和祈祷之后，记在了我的旅行记录里。我希望在纽约努力工作的人不因这件事情灰心。但我希望警告他们不要在自己的计划中做出任何极端的举动。工人们做得很好，应该受到鼓励和忠告继续他们的工作。在纽约有些人本应该帮助他们，将所需要的捐款投在圣工上。他们得捐助圣工，然后他们才会在真理的恩典和知识上长进。{PC 379.6}
你和你的工人们原应从与你不同的观点看这个问题。你本应对这项工作进行全面的调查，问问你自己，在这些工人所从事的重要工作中，五千美元是不是重得不能承担的债务。你的感化力原应发挥出来使人看到这项工作的重要性，认识到自己有责任起来应付紧急情况。你原应做我在旅行记录中所写的事。但是如果我们的弟兄们在看不到从哪儿得到经济的支援时，就可以随便停止工作，那么圣工不仅在密歇根和纽约会缩减，在美国其它州也会缩减。我们的工人在任何地方前进，都不要拦阻他们，说：“你们只可走这么远，不可越过。”你们关闭了在纽约州罗马的学校，我感到悲伤。我看到奉命负责这所学校的弟兄们没有采取措施，向能够捐助的人募捐，来推进这项工作。在区会中有些人较富裕，却在抱怨所发生的债务。他们原该支持这些工人。在工人们受到责备而灰心的同时，给那些有钱的人所留下的印象是，他们完全有权质疑每一项需要钱财的事业。{PC 380.1}
上帝并没有要求你采取行动，让纽约或其它地方的工人觉得，如果不向你请教，询问你对事情的判断，他们就不可以把工作向前推进。我不认可你有权亲自照管工作的所有细节。否则没有一个工人敢在任何事上运用自己的判断力。工人们如果必须依赖于一个人的头脑和一个人的判断，人们就会因不活动而处在无效的状态中。现在这等人太多了，加在一起也几乎等于零。我写这句话是因为我对这一点深有感受。我们所做的，还不到应做的一半。{PC 380.2}
在南兰开斯特的学校的确需要维持下去，但这不应妨碍我们维持别的学校。我们在各地都应有小学，预备青少年进入我们更高一级的学校。你也许认为关闭在纽约州罗马的学校是明智之举，但我却看不出其中的智慧。关闭这所学校似乎反映了人们对所做一切工作的不信任，也会妨碍他们进一步前进。我看不出你的这个举动有什么收获，也不觉得这符合上帝的命令。它只会造成伤害，不仅伤害那些抱怨债务的人，也伤害了工人们。那些有财产原本可以帮助这个事业的人会松了一口气。这些有钱人会受到鼓励，以后不会为圣工做得更多，而会做得更少。他们会觉得可以随便抱怨任何要花钱的工作。{PC 380.3}
愿上帝引导你!你决不可在任何事上以传闻作为动机，但你有时却这么做了。决不要采取行动限制工作，除非你知道自己是受到上帝圣灵的感动这么做的。我们的信徒正在为国外布道区效力，但有些国内布道区也像国外布道区一样需要他们的帮助。我们应该作出努力，向我们的信徒表明上帝圣工的需要，把对钱财的需要摆在他们面前。那些钱财是上帝委托给他们推进主在国内和国外圣工的。如果不唤起那些能帮助纽约之人的责任感，他们就不会在第三位天使发出大呼声时认出上帝的工作。当亮光发出要照亮这地时，他们不会来帮助主，反而要约束祂的工作以迎合他们狭隘的想法。让我告诉你吧，主会在这最后的工作中以一种超常的，与人的任何计划不同的方式作工。在我们中间，总有人想控制上帝的圣工，对采取的行动指手划脚，尽管这项工作是在那位加入第三位天使、把信息传给世界的天使指导之下前进的。上帝会使用表明祂亲手在掌握缰绳的方式。工人们将因祂要用来开展并完成祂公义之工的简单方法而惊奇。那些被列为好工人的人应亲近上帝，并需要上帝的触摸。他们需要更深地不断就饮于活水的泉源，好看清上帝在各处的工作。工人们可能会犯错误，但是你应该把工作留在他们手里，给他们机会去纠正错误，学会谨慎。{PC 381.1}
怀爱伦(签名)
(H.E.R.重新抄写于1895年2月7日)
October 1, 1885 Christiania, Norway,
Dear Brother Butler,
I was more sorry than I can express, to learn that under your instruction Brother Farnsworth and Burrill sought to restrict the work at the New York camp meeting. You could not have advised them to do a worse thing, and you should not have put a work into their hands that they were not fitted to do in a wise manner. Be careful how you repress advancing work in any locality. There is little enough being done in any place, and it certainly is not proper to seek to curtail operations in missionary lines.?{PC 379.5}
After looking matters over carefully and prayerfully, I wrote as I did in my notes of travel. I wanted to leave the matter in such a shape as not to discourage the laborers in New York in their efforts to do something,?although I desired to give them caution, so that they would not make any extreme moves in their plans. The workers were doing well, and ought to have been encouraged and advised to go on with their work. There are men in New York who should have helped them by making needed donations to invest in the cause. They will have to give to the work before they will grow in grace and the knowledge of the truth.?{PC 379.6}
You and your workers should have looked at this matter from different points of view than you did. You should have investigated the work thoroughly, and asked yourselves if five thousand dollars was too large a debt to incur in the important work in which these workers were engaged. Your influence should have been exerted in such a way as to cause the people to see the importance of the work, and to realize that it was their duty to rise to the emergency. You should have done as I have tried to in my notes of travel. But if our brethren feel at liberty to stop the work when they cannot see where money is coming from to sustain it, then the work will not only be contracted in Michigan and New York, but in every other State in the Union. If our workers are going forward in any place, do not put up the bars, and say, “Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.” I feel sad that you have closed up the school at Rome, N. Y. I see that the brethren sent to look after this enterprise have not taken measures to advance the work by soliciting donations from men who could give. There are rich men in the Conference who have made complaints about the debt that has been incurred, who ought to have sustained these workers. While reproach and discouragement have been cast upon the workers, the impression has been left upon those who have means that they have a perfect right to question every enterprise that calls for money.?{PC 380.1}
God does not require you to take such a course that the workers in New York or anywhere else shall not feel at liberty to make advance movements unless they can consult you, and ask what your judgment of the matter is before they advance. I cannot sanction the idea that you must have a personal oversight of all the details of the work. If I did the result would be that no worker would dare to exercise his own judgment in anything. The workers would have to rely upon one man’s brain and one man’s judgment, and the result would be that men would be left in inefficiency because of their inactivity. There are altogether too many of this class now, and they amount to next to nothing. I write this because I feel deeply on this point. We are not doing one half that we ought to do.?{PC 380.2}
It is true that the South Lancaster school must be sustained, but this need not hinder us from sustaining other schools. We should have primary schools in different localities to prepare the youth for our?higher schools. It may seem to you that it is wise to close up the school in Rome, N. Y., but I fail to see the wisdom of it. To close up this school will seem to reflect discredit upon all that the people have done, and will discourage them from making further advancement. I cannot see that you have gained anything in making the move that you have, nor can I feel that it is in accordance with God’s order. It will work nothing but injury, not only to those that have complained about the debt, but also to the workers. Men who have property, and could have helped this enterprise, will breathe more freely. These moneyed men will be encouraged not to do more for the cause than they have done, but to do less. They will feel at liberty to complain concerning anything that calls for an outlay of means.?{PC 380.3}
O that the Lord might guide you. You should never in a single instance allow hearsay to move you to action, and yet you have sometimes done this. Never take action to narrow and circumscribe the work unless you know that you are moved to do so by the Spirit of the Lord. Our people are doing work for foreign missions, but there are home missions that need their help just as much as these foreign missions. We should make efforts to show our people the wants of the cause of God, and to open before them the need of using means that God has entrusted to them to advance the work of the Master both at home and abroad. Unless those who can help in New York are roused to a sense of their duty, they will not recognize the work of God when the loud cry of the third angel shall be heard. When light goes forth to lighten the earth, instead of coming up to the help of the Lord, they will want to bind about his work to meet their narrow ideas. Let me tell you that the Lord will work in this last work in a manner very much out of the common order of things, and in a way that will be contrary to any human planning. There will be those among us who will always want to control the work of God, to dictate even what movements shall be made when the work goes forward under the direction of the angel who joins the third angel in the message to be given to the world. God will use ways and means by which it will be seen that he is taking the reins in his own hands. The workers will be surprised by the simple means that he will use to bring about and perfect his work of righteousness. Those who are accounted good workers will need to draw nigh to God, they will need the divine touch. They will need to drink more deeply and continuously at the fountain of living water, in order that they may discern God’s work at every point. Workers may make mistakes, but you should give them an opportunity to learn caution by leaving the work in their hands.?{PC 381.1}
(Signed) Ellen G. White
(Recopied February 7, 1895, H. E. R.)
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