In December, 1891, Mrs. E. G. White and W. C. White landed in Australia, accompanied by G. B. Starr, Marian Davis, and others.

On the 24th of the month a conference was opened in Melbourne, attended by nearly a hundred representatives from churches in Sydney, Adelaide, Tasmania, and Victoria. It was decided at this meeting to take immediate steps to establish a school for the training of workers. This need was provided for

XOXXOXXOXX

AUSTRALASIAN BIBLE SCHOOL

The beginning of the educational work in Australia was at this place,

in rented quarters in the city of Melbourne, where a Bible Training School was temporarily conducted.

Mrs. White's coming to Australia was an event of farreaching importance in the development of the work in that field. Her labors were in the direction of deepening the spirituality of the believers, and instructing them fully in the principles that underlie the denominational work. When she first arrived in the country, she seemed blessed with even more than her usual degree of strength and energy, and was able to carry heavy responsibilities at the various gatherings of believers.

Her addresses and her wise counsel were much appreciated on the occasion of holding the first Australian camp-meeting, which convened at Middle Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne,

Dec. 29, 1893, and lasted till Jan. 15, 1894. Nearly 500 people were encamped on the ground, and the attendance from the outside was excellent. Thirty-five persons were baptized as a result of the meeting. O. A. Olsen, then visiting Australia, was among the speakers. The success of the gathering far exceeded the anticipations of the brethren, and established campmeetings as an effective means of spreading a knowledge of the message in Australia, as well as of deepening the spiritual life of the members.

Mrs. White's influence was strongly felt also in the founding of the training school for workers. The selection of a site. was a difficult question to settle. A tract of land of about 1,500 acres seventy-five miles north of Sydney, in Cooranbong, N. S. W., was finally selected.. The purchase was made at the express desire of Mrs. White, who had seen this piece of land in a dream and had been told that the soil was good. On the other hand, men supposed to have an expert knowledge of soils reported that the land was not suitable for raising fruit. When the location had been finally settled, Mrs. White bought a piece of land and had it planted to fruit. As early as the second year there was such an abundant yield of peaches that the branches had to be propped.

The estate having been purchased, a building formerly used as a hotel, lying something over a mile from the school site, was rented for the accommodation of the students. Four tents pitched in an adjoining field were occupied by some for whom room could not be found in the building. Each morning at six o'clock the faculty and students met together for morning worship and Bible study, and Mrs. White occupied the hour daily for a time at the beginning of the school year, the meetings thus held being fraught with rich spiritual blessings to the school.

In March the young men began to clear the land on the school property, many of them learning for the first time the use of the ax and the saw. It was a season of drouth, and the ground was very hard. Nevertheless ten or twelve acres were cleared for the plow during the first term of school, and over a thousand fruit trees were planted.

Oct. 1, 1896, Mrs. White laid the corner-stone of the first school building. By the end of December that building was nearing completion, and plans were under way for the second, which was to be a one-story structure for use as a kitchen and dining-room. Mrs. White visited the ground when the foundation of this building was being laid, and asked where sleeping

rooms had been provided for the young men. The reply was that they would occupy the chamber above the sawmill, a very cold, uncomfortable place, wholly unfit for such use. It was finally decided to make the second building two stories instead of one, giving space for sleeping-rooms for the young men at one end of the second story, and a much-needed chapel at the other end.

For some time after the frame of the latter building was up, the work dragged. Available funds had all been used. It lacked only a few weeks of the time fixed for the opening, and there was much yet to be done and no money in the treasury. Mrs. White laid the matter before the church, and called for volunteers. Thirty responded, men and women and children, and they took hold with a will. Every one was put to work, including women and children. Mrs. White's assistants led out. Some helped the men lay the floors, and brought brick for the building of the cistern. Others used the paintbrush. In due time the buildings were ready, and the Avondale school entered upon its career of wide usefulness.

The first faculty consisted of Mr. and Mrs. C. B. Hughes, Elder and Mrs. S. N. Haskell, and Mr. and Mrs. H. C. Lacey. Mr. Hughes was principal, and S. N. Haskell was Bible teacher. The latter held his class daily at an early hour in the morning, and it was attended by a number of persons from the neighborhood, besides the regular students. A school for children was also started at this time.

Not long after the school was well under way, a movement was set on foot for building a church at Cooranbong. For a time the members had worshiped in the loft over the old sawmill in which the school furniture was stored. In winter it was very cold; in summer the sun beating down on the iron roof made the heat almost unbearable. There was nothing about the place to suggest worship. When the second school building was completed, the meetings were held for a time in a room in the second story, but as the school attendance increased, this room was needed for the students.

At a meeting held in August, 1897, when A. G. Daniells and W. L. H. Baker were present to counsel with the brethren in reference to the matter, it was decided to put up a church building, and a suitable location was fixed upon, but for lack of funds. it was felt necessary to let the enterprise wait for a time. However, the night following the council, Mrs. White was aroused at an early hour, the situation was brought before her, and she was bidden to give the message of the prophet Haggai: "Is it

time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways." "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord." Haggai 1: 4, 5, 8.

The message was delivered, and met with a hearty response. The very next night a draft for £200 came from friends in

South Africa to help pay for a church. Other gifts came in from various sources. The carpenters worked with a will, and just before the close of the school term a neat, commodious house of worship was ready for dedication.

The staff of workers was further increased in the early nineties by the coming of L. J. Rousseau, who devoted himself to educational interests; W. D. Salisbury, who took the management of the publishing house; W. A. Colcord and A. S. Hickox, who gave themselves to evangelistic work; and Anna L. Ingels, who with Edith M. Graham, of Australia, took a leading part in the work of the tract and missionary society.

Mrs. White remained in Australia for ten years, during which time the evangelistic work was put on a very strong basis, and a union conference organization was developed which has served as a model for all the other conferences of the de