Ellen G. White: The Lonely Years: 1876-1891 (vol. 3)

The Spirit of Prophecy the Real Issue

The next day Ellen White, seeing clearly that they were in a time when decisions were being made, “called a meeting,” as she said, “of the prominent ones, Elders U. Smith, Leon Smith, Olsen, Fero, Watt, Prescott, Waggoner, McCoy, Larson, Porter, Colcord, Ballenger, Webber, Dan Jones, Wakeham, G. Amadon, Eldridge, Breed, and Prof. Miller” (Letter 83, 1890). By this time it was clear that the real issue was the reliability of the testimonies and the basis of her writing. On Monday, March 10, she had responded to a letter of inquiry from Elder Colcord in which she made a soul-revealing statement about her call and work: 3BIO 458.1

Your question I will answer as best I can. I take no credit of ability in myself to write the articles in the paper or to write the books which I publish. Certainly I could not originate them. I have been receiving light for the last forty-five years and I have been communicating the light given me of heaven to our people as well as to all whom I could reach. I am seeking to do the will of my heavenly Father. 3BIO 458.2

I have never passed through such a scene of conflict, such determined resistance to the truth—the light that God has been pleased to give me—as since the Minneapolis meeting. 3BIO 458.3

I have again and again felt that I must make a decided move out of this determined opposing element, but every time the Lord has made known to me [that] I must stand at my post of duty and [that] He would stand by me. 3BIO 458.4

This has been the hardest long and persistent resistance I have ever had. There is now a settled purpose with me to write my experience in full as soon as I can get the time to do so, that these events shall be recorded as they have occurred. [Ellen White's determination to write out fully the story of just what happened is reflected in the lengthy letters to W. C. White and to mary, which she anticipated would form the basis of the documentation of the history that was transpiring.] Thank God that victory has come.—Letter 60, 1890. (Italics supplied.) 3BIO 458.5