Ellen G. White and Her Critics

A Further Testimony in 1867

To continue the story: Still later in 1867 Mrs. White wrote Testimony No. 12, which contains a section entitled “The Reform Dress.” In this she refers to the experience of the children of Israel and God’s counsel to them, to put upon the fringe of their garments a ribbon of blue to distinguish them from the heathen. Drawing from the principle of this ancient counsel, she adds immediately: EGWC 151.3

“God would now have His people adopt the reform dress, not only to distinguish them from the world as his ‘peculiar people,’ but because a reform in dress is essential to physical and mental health. God’s people have, to a great extent, lost their peculiarity, and have been gradually patterning after the world, and mingling with them, until they have in many respects become like them.”—Testimonies for the Church 1:525. EGWC 151.4

The critic quotes a portion of the first sentence from this passage and plays on the word “now,” attempting to make it appear that when in 1867 Mrs. White said “God would now have his people adopt the reform dress,” she was really reversing a statement she had made in 1863. But the context reveals clearly that Mrs. White does not at all have in mind a “now” in contrast to her 1863 statement. The “now” is intended to provide a certain comparison or parallel to an ancient practice enjoined by God, and simply reiterates what she had written earlier. EGWC 151.5