Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Critics Disclose No Secret

And are we dependent on her critics for most of this information? No; we secure it from James White, Mrs. White, and those associated with them. That is an important point. If she were a deceiver, if she really had not received any direct illumination from Heaven, and was wholly dependent on others, would not her consciousness of that fact prompt her to conceal, as far as possible, from her readers the fact that there were other reformers teaching more or less the same as she, and certainly to conceal from her readers the fact that she had actually visited one of these health reform institutions! EGWC 392.1

In the year 1865, Ellen G. White and her husband, James White, published a series of six pamphlets bearing the general title How to Live, and numbered consecutively from 1 to 6. For each of these pamphlets ^* Mrs. White wrote an article under the general head “Disease and Its Causes.” The rest of the material in each pamphlet was taken largely from the writings of various health reformers. The names of the writers and of their publications are given, so that the reader need be in no doubt as to the source of the matter. In other words, when Mrs. White began to write extensively on the theme of disease and its causes, she placed those writings alongside the writings of others on the same subject. And it is in the very first of the six pamphlets that we find the article by her husband, James White, telling of their visit to Dr. Jackson’s institution. The article begins thus: EGWC 392.2

“In the month of September, 1864, Mrs. W. and self spent three weeks at the health institute at Dansville, Liv. Co., N. Y., called, ‘Our Home.’ Our object in this visit was not to take treatment, as we were enjoying better health than usual; but to see what we could see, and hear what we could hear, so as to be able to give to many inquiring friends a somewhat definite report.”—How to Live, no. 1, p. 12. EGWC 392.3

We do not know how more effectively or openly the fact could have been stated that Mrs. White was making no claims to exclusive possession of light on the subject of health reform. EGWC 393.1