Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 21 (1906)

Lt 391, 1906

White, J. E.

1906

Portions of this letter are published in 6Bio 100-101.

J. E. White

My Son:

What kind of a move was it that you made in rushing to Battle Creek and saying to those there that W. C. White, your own brother, for whom you should have respect, manipulated my writings? This is just what they needed to use in their councils to confirm them in their position that the testimonies the Lord gives your mother are no longer reliable. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 1

If this is your position, then why do you ask me to sustain you? Must I have such a impression go out? It is false, and I am sorry that you stand as you do. I know not what Elder Irwin or Elder Daniells are contemplating doing, but I deny your position and nothing is done as you suppose. You have regarded your brother in a strange, false light and persist in doing this. This has been the grief of my life. Your stubborn persistence forces me to speak now. I will not keep silent. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 2

You are wrong in thus regarding your brother, but your regarding him thus reveals a dullness of comprehension. All that have a knowledge of his work appreciate it as consistent and sound. I know that he occupies a position appointed of God. Your sentiments are the prevailing sentiments of a deceived mind. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 3

If you can link up with Frank Belden and Dr. Kellogg, whose position I well understand, what kind of a position will our leading men find you in? Think you that I can depart from what I know to be light to vindicate your course of action at Berrien Springs, when at this very time the Lord is revealing to me the position of these men and you? If you have an impression that W. C. White can be made to appear as your enemy, you will present the same to these men. I am required to present their cases before them, and in warnings charge our people not to allow their children to go to Battle Creek. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 4

And when I am trying to save Frank Belden, you step in; and supposing W. C. White has said or done something that does not agree with your view of matters, you do a work to injure your mother’s influence and confirm the men for whom I have had reproofs for ten and fifteen years. It is through your own misjudging that you are led to insinuate that W. C. White is not true and reliable. I am placed where I cannot be of any use to you, for your bent of mind is contrary to the light God has given me. I will write you a few lines, but I cannot now speak as I would be only too glad to speak. The bent of your mind is such that I have not confidence in your spiritual discernment. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 5

There is Willie. For years he has been where if I spoke one word in his favor to you he has said, “Mother, take that out. Do not in any way mention my name to Edson to vindicate anything I may say or do.” But when it comes to saving you from shipwreck, he would do all he possibly could to give you advantage. He does not own his own house. His home was made larger than he designed, for there was no place where the workers in the food factory could board. His wife boarded and cared for her own children and boarded everyone she could find room for, so that the limited wages he received would not have to be increased. His buildings are not paid for. They would have been less expensive in creating if it had not been planned that he board the food factory hands. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 6

Ministry of Healing I have given to relieve the debts of the sanitariums. But the exceptions are those that are bound up with and sustaining Dr. Kellogg in his position of working against truth and righteousness. Those who bind up with him cannot be helped. To put means into their hands would be vindicating their course of action. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 7

I stand where I cannot vindicate your course any more, for God forbids. When you find your bearings, and will see things in a rational light, then I can present things more fully to you. Until then you will not receive the impressions I have had from the Lord, and I will not deviate from the light God has given me. If you and W. C. White should both turn from me, I should not turn from the counsels God has given me. I should pity your blindness, but to say or do anything that would be contrary to the light God has given me would be of no use or good to you in the end. So please do not think I will deviate from the straight course God has given. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 8

If the party of J. H. Kellogg and Frank Belden, and those who have been following their own course of action, is the party that you choose, I will not vindicate you or them. I have tried to state things to you. Your statements go away back to the time before Father died, and you tell others your grievances. Silence with you is eloquence. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 9

W. C. White had nought to do with your leaving the office [Pacific Press]. His father was not in his right mind, and in my presence W. C. White knelt before your father and begged him not to do the very thing he was purposing to do—to have you separated from the office. You could have helped matters had you been more spiritually minded, but when pleading in your behalf some things occurred which you will never know. You had better stop right where you are, for you are working in the fog. I think the very best thing you can do is to let the things that transpired before your conversion remain without being stirred up. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 10

God pity you, is my prayer, for I am unable to help you. I will not dare to encourage your sentiments in regard to W. C. White, for they are false and not true. He has worked with might and main to save you, and I have worked with him. When he knows how you regard your brother, he will act in your behalf just as though you were fully in harmony with him. Expressions in your letter of going back of that conversion, when the Lord wrought for you, are dishonoring to God; and I want that these things shall come to an end. Do not fear that W. C. White will injure you, for he is only seeking to save you from ruining yourself. I write this that you may not, in your imagination, let the enemy work you; for your prejudice against W. C. White is unjust and cruel, and I will not vindicate you in it. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 11

Must I be compelled to hold my peace while you are warring against your brother? Then your own injudicious course of action, taking the position you do against your own brother, is so strange, so unnatural, that it has been the very grief of my life. When you are converted, then you will see things in a different light. This is the hold Satan has upon you to carry out your own bitter hatred against your own brother. This will certainly require me to have something to say—to state the truth. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 12

If you had followed the Word of God just as it reads in reference to these things, I would not need to say a word, but you keep up your hatred against one whom God has chosen and set in his work, notwithstanding the Lord has blessed and sustained him. He is not your enemy, but you regard him as such. You have made many mistakes. Your defeat has come through your own course, but you charge it to W. C. White. I want to leave this now. Stop right where you are. I do not advise you to do anything until you come to your senses, for you will mar the work of God. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 13

Willie refuses to let me write a line such as I am now writing, but how can I die and leave you with this bitterness in your heart, so contrary to the Word of God? I would be relieved of a great burden to see you converted on these lines, because Satan rejoices. My heart is grieved. I shall not make any move to bring you in personal companionship. I address you as one deceived by the enemy for long years, and without any cause to justify your course of action. I know what I am writing about, and therefore I cannot vindicate your impressions. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 14

And how do you suppose God looks upon this matter? I know that your spirit will have to change decidedly before you can stand acquitted before God of your assumptions and your hatred. I present to you the scriptures: 1 John 2:7-11; chap. 3:11-15; chap. 4:7, 16-21. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 15

I hope and pray now that you will come to your senses and that you will not treasure up things against your brother, which I know to be untrue and displeasing to God. For your suppositions are not true but false; and if it need be, I shall have to leave statements to this effect before I shall die. I have the same sealed up, similar to this I have written. If you choose to harbor such sentiments as you express, it is to your present and eternal injury; and how can you expect those who are acquainted with W. C. White and his years of service to look upon your estrangement from him? It does not give them confidence in your good sense, in your discernment of what is righteous and what is unrighteous. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 16

Your position is a grievous thing to your mother and wears upon the life of your brother. He has declared he will not consent, but that my property of books shall be equally left to each. But I cannot have it, for I am charged before the Lord in reference to your future should I be removed by death. I have not one particle of confidence in your keeping up this hatred against your brother. Your mistakes have caused him sleepless nights. I have found him at times crying as if his heart would break, considering your case. He did not know I had opened the door, but I stepped back and he did not know I saw. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 17

But the grief to my soul is your keeping up this prejudice, when I know from the circumstances of the case he could not in justice vindicate your course and advise you to do certain things which you desired to do. I shall have to speak. I cannot and will not suffer reproach to come upon the cause of God and my work that God has given me to do, by your saying he manipulates my writings. It is falsehood—but what a charge is this! Not one soul manipulates my writings. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 18

He, W. C. White, has wished me to change a word that expressed the action of ministers so that it would not be too strong, so those who had judgment would not handle such men severely, and hurt them, because that is so easy to do—to exercise no mercy, but to be severe and overbearing—if they have an opportunity to show their authority. He has kept me from writing to you the burden of my soul lest someone would hear of it and make it an excuse to hurt you. He has wept like a child again and again over these things. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 19

I hope that you will see the injustice you are doing to your own brother and to Jesus Christ, who has ordained him for his work, to be one who would be used by the Lord to sustain me and the work God had given me to do. I now say that you grieve the Spirit of Christ. You have not any reason for the continuation of this matter, so that you cannot blend together in your work. The Lord will not justify any such course. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 20

I leave this with you. I take a copy of it. 21LtMs, Lt 391, 1906, par. 21