Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Mrs. White’s Second Statement Supposedly Supporting Bates

“In a view given June 27, 1850, my accompanying angel said, ‘Time is almost finished. Do you reflect the lovely image of Jesus as you should?’ Then I was pointed to the earth, and saw that there would have to be a getting ready among those who have of late embraced the third angel’s message. Said the angel, ‘Get ready, get ready, get ready. Ye will have to die a greater death to the world than ye have ever yet died.’ I saw that there was a great work to do for them, and but little time in which to do it.”—Early Writings, 64. EGWC 257.2

“Some of us have had time to get the truth, and to advance step by step, and every step we have taken has given us strength to take the next. But now time is almost finished, and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months. They will also have much to unlearn, and much to learn again.”—Early Writings, 67. EGWC 257.3

This statement by Mrs. White, which we have quoted at greater length than does the critic, provides the remaining ground for the charge that she accepted Bates’s idea on the seven-year period; in other words, that she was teaching that the end of the world would come in a few months. EGWC 257.4

But let us look more closely. What proof can be presented that Bates’s pamphlet setting forth his seven-year time period was written in the first half of 1850? No proof at all. None is possible. He might as easily have written it in the last half of the year. But there is no question as to the date when Mrs. White made the statement just quoted from her, namely, June 27, 1850. Second, Mrs. White does not declare that Christ will come “in a few months,” but that “what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months.” EGWC 257.5

It is now evident why the critic from whom we quoted wished the reader to think that in the first of her two statements she used the key phrase, “a few months.” That first statement speaks only of time, and “that time can last but a very little longer.” Her second statement, now before us, speaks not only of time and the need of readiness in general but also of the time involved in “learning,” that is, learning the truth. If time is short and greater battles against our wily foe, Satan, impend, might it not be necessary for believers more quickly to learn the truth than had formerly been the case? When war is imminent the citizenry have to learn quickly the arts of war and the manual of arms. In our warfare with Satan it is the knowledge of the truth that arms us for battle. The “learning” of it is therefore a most important point, and the time element in the learning of it may be equally important. But to conclude that this is equivalent to declaring that “in a few months” Christ will come is wholly unwarranted. EGWC 258.1