Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Letters Reveal Her Personality

A side light on Mrs. White’s habits of life during those first years is provided in this excerpt from a short letter that she wrote to “Dear Bro. and Sister Collins” on February 10, 1850: EGWC 38.1

“The way is now fully open for James [her husband] to go forward in publishing the Present Truth. ^* We love you and love to hear from you. We should have written you before but we have no certain abiding place, but have traveled in rain, snow and blow with the child from place to place. I could not get time to answer any letters and it took all James’ time to write for the paper and get out the hymn book. We do not have many idle moments. Now we are settled, I can have more time to write.”—Letter 4, 1850. EGWC 38.2

A letter that she wrote to “Dear Brother Hastings” on March 18, 1850, on the death of his wife, contains these closing lines: EGWC 38.3

“Dear Brother Hastings, sorrow not as those who have no hope. The grave can hold her but a little while. Hope thou in God and cheer up dear Brother, and you will meet her in a little while. We will not cease to pray for the blessing of God to rest upon your family and you. God will be your sun and your shield. He will stand by you in this your deep affliction and trial. Endure the trial well and you will receive a crown of glory with your companion at the appearing of Jesus.” EGWC 38.4

Of her resolute courage to go forward in her work, despite her distress of heart in being separated from her children, we read in a letter she wrote to a “Dear Brother and Sister Loveland,” December 13, 1850: EGWC 38.5

“I had the privilege of being with my oldest boy two weeks. He is a lovely dispositioned boy. He became so attached to his mother, it was hard to be separated from him; but as our time is all employed in writing and folding and wrapping papers, I am denied the privilege of having his company. My other little one is many hundred miles from me. Sometimes Satan tempts me to complain and think my lot is a hard one, but I will not harbor this temptation. I should not want to live unless I could live to do some good to others.” EGWC 38.6

The space limits of this chapter prevent our going into endless details concerning the early years of Mrs. White’s public ministry, nor is it necessary to do so in order to give a clear picture. As we read the life sketch she wrote, we find there the record, page after page, of the arduous travel and preaching of both her and her husband, despite their poor health. She refers to an experience in 1854 which she describes, in the language of that day, as “a shock upon my left side.... My tongue seemed heavy and numb; I could not speak plainly. My left arm and side were helpless.”—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 151. She describes a similar experience in 1858, and adds, “It was my third shock of paralysis.”—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 162. It was some time before “the effect of the shock had entirely left me.”—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 163. EGWC 39.1

Here is the way she describes a vision she received early in the year 1858: EGWC 39.2

“On Sunday afternoon there was a funeral service at the schoolhouse where our meetings were being held. My husband was invited to speak. He was blessed with freedom, and the words spoken seemed to affect the hearers. EGWC 39.3

“When he had closed his remarks, I felt urged by the Spirit of the Lord to bear my testimony. As I was led to speak upon the coming of Christ and the resurrection, and the cheering hope of the Christian, my soul triumphed in God; I drank in rich draughts of salvation. Heaven, sweet heaven, was the magnet to draw my soul upward, and I was wrapped in a vision of God’s glory. Many important matters were there revealed to me for the church.”—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 161, 162. EGWC 39.4