Selected Messages Book 3

Appendix C

W. C. White letter to L. E. Froom, [At that time Elder Froom was an associate secretary of the General Conference Ministerial Association.] January 8, 1928

January 8, 1928

Dear Brother Froom,

Yesterday's mail brought me your letter of January 3. In it you present some queries calling for a reply from me. 3SM 451.1

You refer to a memory of a conversation with me in which you think I remarked that Mother said with reference to some of her writings, “My work is to prepare; your work is to shape it up.” 3SM 451.2

I do not remember of ever hearing Mother make such a statement, and I do not think that any of her helpers ever heard her make such a statement. The thought which would prompt such a statement is not in harmony with her ideas regarding her work and the work of her copyists and secretaries. 3SM 451.3

There is a statement which I have made to several of our leading workers from which the idea conveyed in your query may have developed. I have told them that in the early days of our work, Mother had written a testimony to an individual or to a group, containing information and counsel that would be valuable to others, and the brethren were questioning her as to how it ought to be used. She said to my father often and sometimes to him and his associates—“I have done my part. I have written out what the Lord has revealed to me. Now it is for you to say how it shall be used.” 3SM 451.4

You will readily see that such a proposition was very reasonable. My father and his associates were in contact with all the problems pertaining to the cause of present truth, which has since developed into the work of the General Conference, and it was a wise provision of heaven that they should share in the responsibility of saying how and in what manner the messages should be placed before whom they were intended to benefit. 3SM 452.1

You seem to think that if there was such a statement as referred to in your letter, it would be a benefit to some of our brethren. I cannot comprehend how it would benefit them. Possibly you can make it plain to me. 3SM 452.2

Regarding the two paragraphs which are to be found in Spiritual Gifts and also in the Spirit of Prophecy regarding amalgamation and the reason why they were left out of the later books, and the question as to who took the responsibility of leaving them out, I can speak with perfect clearness and assurance. They were left out by Ellen G. White. No one connected with her work had any authority over such a question, and I never heard of anyone offering to her counsel regarding this matter. 3SM 452.3

In all questions of this kind, you may set it down as a certainty that Sister White was responsible for leaving out or adding to matters of this sort in the later editions of our books. 3SM 452.4

Sister White not only had good judgment based upon a clear and comprehensive understanding of conditions and of the natural consequences of publishing what she wrote, but she had many times direct instruction from the angel of the Lord regarding what should be omitted and what should be added in new editions.... 3SM 452.5

Consider for a few moments the chapter in the first edition of Great Controversy, Volume IV, published by Pacific Press in 1884. In Chapter XXVII, “The Snares of Satan,” you find that about four pages in the latter part of the chapter were omitted from the later editions of Great Controversy. These four pages are to be found in Testimonies to Ministers, pages 472 to 475. The information contained in these four pages is very valuable to Seventh-day Adventists and was very appropriately included in the first edition of Great Controversy, Volume IV, which when it was published was like the other volumes considered to be a message especially to Seventh-day Adventists, and to [all] Christian people sympathizing with them in beliefs and aims. 3SM 452.6

But when it was decided that Great Controversy, Volume IV should be republished in form for general circulation by subscription agents, Ellen G. White suggested that the pages be left out because of the likelihood that ministers of popular churches reading those statements would become angered and would array themselves against the circulation of the book. 3SM 453.1

Why will not our brethren study God's merciful dealings to us by imparting information to us by the Spirit of Prophecy in its beautiful, harmonious, and helpful features, instead of picking and criticizing and dissecting, trying to cut it up into little mechanical concrete blocks such as we buy for our children to play with and then ask somebody else to fit it together so that it will make a pattern that pleases them and leave out the particular parts of the pattern that they do not like? I pray the Lord to give us patience and guidance in doing what we can to help such ones to see the beauty of God's work. 3SM 453.2

You refer to other letters containing questions which I have not answered. I hope to get at them soon, but not this morning. 3SM 453.3

Yours faithfully,

W. C. White