Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Large Building Plans Develop

As nearly as we can reconstruct the picture from the news items in the Review and Herald, the building plans and the urge to build immediately seemed to grow as the months passed by. In August, 1867, less than twelve months after the opening of the institution, E. S. Walker, the secretary of the Health Reform Institute, announced through the church paper that certain building materials for the new structure had been delivered and paid for, but that the funds were exhausted, and $15,000 was “wanted immediately.” Here is how he calls on Mrs. White’s words to support his appeal for more funds: EGWC 498.1

“We have no doubt that you all know your duty, but we are all so liable to forget that we think a few short quotations from Testimony No. 11, would not be amiss to stir up our minds by way of remembrance.”—The Review and Herald, August 27, 1867, p. 169. ^* EGWC 498.2

Two thirds of Walker’s article consists of quotations from this particular testimony (No. 11). The only conclusion that any reader could draw from his article, which was typical of the promotion employed for the new, “large building,” was that Mrs. White gave to all this expansive building program her unqualified endorsement. But her Testimony No. 11, published in January, 1867, gave no such endorsement. It was based on a vision given December 25, 1865, and called for the support of the brethren in founding a medical institution. James White, who had been a leading spirit, and who has been described, even by the critics of Adventism, as an astute businessman, had seen in that testimony no license to engage in unsound building expansion, because, as already noted, he heartily endorsed what she had written. ^* But as things had developed, there was grave danger that the Health Institute, so well begun, in modest dimensions, would, under enthusiastic but inexperienced leadership, become top heavy and collapse under debt. In view of the imminent financial danger from overexpansion, that confronted the Institute, Mrs. White included in Testimony No. 12, published in September, 1867, a chapter entitled “The Health Institute.” ^† As might be expected the chapter is filled with counsel against overexpansion and other dangers For example: EGWC 498.3