A Critique of the Book Prophetess of Health

Miss Fanny Bolton

On page 195 and 196 Miss Fanny Bolton is mentioned and her statements, as given by Merritt Kellogg, are cited at length. Miss Bolton was one of Mrs. White’s literary assistants during the early 1890’s. Her charge that Ellen White’s handwritten materials came to her “illogically written, full of illiteracies, awkward writing, and often wrong chronology” is cited in the text of Prophetess of Health (page 195). This is followed by Merritt Kellogg’s recollections of Fanny Bolton’s complaints made at the time she was working for Ellen White. In this report Miss Bolton claimed that she was virtually the author of Mrs. White’s writings (Ibid.). CBPH 89.7

Merritt Kellogg, at the time he recalled Fanny Bolton’s charges, was himself siding with his brother John H., upon whom he was dependent for financial support and who was making attacks on the church and Ellen White. So here the reader of Prophetess of Health is treated to recollections of an unfavorable witness who reports a hostile critic’s charges and the only hint of the possible unreliability of the whole account is an admission in the footnote that Fanny Bolton was a “troubled” young woman who later spent time in a mental hospital. Nothing is said about Merritt Kellogg’s possible motives or biases in his report of Miss Bolton’s words. Nor is the reader alerted to the fact that Fanny Bolton three times made similar charges and three times voluntarily recanted them. All through these episodes, Mrs. White continued to employ her because Miss Bolton confessed yielding to the temptation of self-exaltation and pleaded that she not be separated from Mrs. White’s work. In 1901, Miss Bolton even wrote and signed a confession denying the truth of her accusations. In this she declared: CBPH 89.8

I have for years disseminated an influence against the work of God through His prophet. God only knows how widespread is the evil influence of my uttered doubts and questionings. God has at last found me in a place where He could open the true principles upon which His work stands vindicated and infallible, and which eliminates all my objections, and clears up my difficulties.—Confession Concerning the Testimony of Jesus Christ. (1901) White Estate document File #445. CBPH 89.9

Then addressing herself to what her work had been while in Mrs. White’s employ, she wrote: CBPH 89.10

The editors in no wise change Sister White’s expression if it is grammatically correct, and is an evident expression of the evident thought. Many times her manuscript does not need any editing, often but slight editing, and again a great deal of literary work; but article or chapter, whatever has been done upon it, is passed back into her hands by the editor, and the Spirit of Prophecy then appropriates the matter, and it becomes, when approved, the chosen expression of the Spirit of God.—Ibid. CBPH 89.11

A number of individuals assisted Mrs. White in preparing her materials for print. For some reason the quality of Mrs. White’s writings is unchanged regardless of her literary assistants. For Ellen White’s statement about their work see Selected Messages 1:50. CBPH 89.12