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Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (vol. 4)

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E. G. White Warned in Vision

Late in 1893, during the last month of her stay in New Zealand, Ellen White was shown in vision Fannie Bolton and certain temptations along the line of personal ambition and pride to which she was succumbing. Of this she wrote: 4BIO 240.7

Not long before I left New Zealand, while in camp meeting, it was represented to me. We were gathered in a room of quite a company, and Fannie was saying some things in regard to the great amount of work coming from her hands. She said, “I cannot work in this way. I am putting my mind and life into this work, and yet the ones who make it what it is are sunk out of sight, and Sister White gets the credit for the work.” ... 4BIO 240.8

A voice spoke to me, “Beware and not place your dependence upon Fannie to prepare articles or to make books.... She is your adversary.... She is not true to her duty, yet flatters herself she is doing a very important work.”—Letter 59, 1894. 4BIO 241.1

Fannie had apparently been talking in this vein over a period of a number of months (Letter 88, 1894). 4BIO 241.2

A few weeks later at the Brighton camp meeting held early in 1894, Fannie Bolton talked with her friends and at times with new believers concerning the difficulties attending her work, and of the faulty way in which some of Ellen White's manuscripts were written. She dwelt upon the “great improvements” made by the editors as they handled the materials, and belittled Ellen White's work. Again she expressed her decided conviction that the talents of the copyists should receive public recognition. 4BIO 241.3

Writing of this to her son W. C. White on February 6, 1894, Ellen White declared: 4BIO 241.4

I want not her life, or words, or ideas in these articles. And the sooner this bubble is burst, the better for all concerned.... I have now no knowledge of how we shall come out, and what I shall do. I am afraid that Fannie cannot be trusted.... 4BIO 241.5

If she has done the work as she has represented to other minds she has done, so that she thinks credit should be given her for her talent brought into my writings, then it is time that this firm is dissolved. 4BIO 241.6

If she has done this work, which she has represented to others has been as much her talent, her production of ideas and construction of sentences, as mine, and in “beautiful language,” then she has done a work I have urged again and again should not be done.... And she is unworthy of any connection with this work.—Ibid. 4BIO 241.7

The day before, in writing to O. A. Olsen, who was just then in Australia, Ellen White told of how a voice spoke to her: 4BIO 241.8

Beware and not place your dependence upon Fannie to prepare articles or to make books. She cuts out words that should appear, and places her own ideas and words in their stead, and because she had done this she has become deceived, deluded, and is deceiving and deluding others. She is your adversary.—Letter 59, 1894. 4BIO 242.1

In a letter to Fannie February 6, Ellen White declared: 4BIO 242.2

Every time I can distinguish a word of yours, my pen crosses it out. I have so often told you that your words and ideas must not take the place of the words and ideas given me of God.—Letter 7, 1894.