Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Deep Discouragement Overwhelms Her

As might be expected, she met with bitter opposition from those whose lives she had exposed, and from some who were averse to the very idea of a young woman’s standing before them to speak with authority concerning Christian conduct and the Christian life. At one point in her earliest public years the opposition became so great that her spirit seemed to be overwhelmed. She wrote, “Discouragements pressed heavily; and the condition of GOD’s people so filled me with anguish that for two weeks my mind wandered.”—Spiritual Gifts 2:51. EGWC 34.2

A little later in her narrative she refers again to this incident as “the two weeks of my extreme sickness, when my mind wandered, as stated on page 51.”—Spiritual Gifts 2:69. EGWC 34.3

To add to her distress of heart, some skeptical persons in the church companies with which she met, declared that her visions were simply “excitement and mesmerism,” that is, hypnotism. ^* EGWC 34.4

To offset the depression and doubt that pressed upon her own mind as a result of the charge that her visions were only mesmerism, she went alone to pray at times. On some of these occasions she was given a vision. We quote, “The sweet light of heaven shone around me, and there have I been taken off in vision.”—Spiritual Gifts 2:57. EGWC 34.5

But she was not entirely freed of the doubts that were pressed upon her by those who charged “mesmerism.” To this was added the depression of spirit that came when some falsely charged her as being the leader of the fanaticism that she was trying to stop. Says she: EGWC 35.1

“All these things weighed heavily upon my spirits, and in the confusion, I was sometimes tempted to doubt my own experience. And while at family worship one morning, the power of GOD began to rest upon me, and the thought rushed into my mind that it was mesmerism, and I resisted it. Immediately I was struck dumb, and for a few moments was lost to everything around me. I then saw my sin in doubting the power of GOD, and that for so doing I was struck dumb, and that my tongue should be loosed in less than twenty-four hours.... EGWC 35.2

“After I came out of vision, I beckoned for the slate, and wrote upon it that I was dumb, also what I had seen.... Next morning my tongue was loosed to shout the praises of GOD. After that, I dared not doubt my experience, or for a moment resist the power of GOD, however others might think of me.”—Spiritual Gifts 2:59, 60. EGWC 35.3