What Ellen White has Meant to Me

II. The General Conference Bulletin, March 8, 1897, pp. 309, 310

I am sure, as Dr. Riley said to me this morning, that it is impossible for any man who has not made a special study of medicine to appreciate the wonderful character of the instruction that has been received in these writings [Ellen G. White]. It is wonderful, brethren, when you look back over the writings that were given us thirty years ago, and then perhaps the next day pick up a scientific journal and find some new discovery that the microscope has made, or that has been brought to light in the chemical laboratory,—I say, it is perfectly wonderful how correctly they agree in fact. WEWMM 127.1

Now in the preface to Christian Temperance you will find a statement which I presume not very many of you have read. There is no name signed to the preface, but I wrote it. But if you will read it, you will find a statement to the effect that every single statement with reference to healthful living, and the general principles that underlie the subject, have been verified by scientific discovery. I sometimes see some of our brethren appear to be a little shaky on the testimonies; they do not know whether these things come from the Lord or not; but to those I invariably say that if you will study the subject of health reform from the testimonies, and then from the light of scientific discovery,—compare it with what science teaches at the present time,—you will be amazed; you will see what a flood of light was given us thirty years ago. There is, however, a more amazing thing than that, and it is that this light which was given to us at that time, confirmed as it is by scientific discovery,—I say the most amazing thing of all is that we as a people have turned our backs upon this, and have not accepted it, and believed in it as we should. I want to repeat it that there is not a single principle in relation to the healthful development of our bodies and minds that is advocated in these writings from Sister White, which I am not prepared to demonstrate conclusively from scientific evidence.... There is no evidence so powerful that can be deduced in support of these writings and the source from which they come, as the fact that the writings thirty years ago are fully substantiated by the scientific discoveries of today. WEWMM 127.2