Ellen G. White and Her Critics

What of That Visit to “Our Home”?

Let us look, in conclusion, at the key statement on which this charge rests. As already noted, James White wrote in 1865 that he and Mrs. White made a three weeks’ visit to Dr. Jackson’s health institution, called “Our Home,” at Dansville, New York, in September, 1864. Her writings in How to Live were in 1865, and her voluminous discussions of health in other bound books were later still. Hence, say the critics, it is clear that she gained her knowledge of the main ideas of healthful living at “Our Home.” EGWC 399.3

But there are some facts that the critics forget to state when they are presenting this apparently simple chronological proof of Mrs. White’s dependence on others for her ideas on health. Let us list these briefly: EGWC 399.4

1. Dr. H. S. Lay, a Seventh-day Adventist physician, who became a member of the staff of “Our Home” in the summer of 1864, and the editor of The Health Reformer in 1866, wrote thus, in 1863, to James White as to the significance of certain reform work that he and Mrs. White had been doing: EGWC 399.5

“I now see clearer than ever before that while you both have so ardently labored to discountenance the use of tobacco, tea, and coffee among us, you have been doing the work of God.”—Letter, October 11, 1863. EGWC 399.6

2. In the spring of 1864 Mrs. White’s pamphlet entitled An Appeal to Mothers was published. This dealt chiefly with one aspect of health and reveals that Mrs. White’s mind and pen were already exercised on the care of the body. She includes in this a discussion of proper diet. EGWC 399.7

3. Not later than July, 1864, Mrs. White completed the writing of Spiritual Gifts, volume 4, for the preface is dated “July,” and it was published in August. Pages 120 to 151 constitute a chapter entitled “Health.” In this chapter she discusses at length the subject of diet, the evils of drugging as then senselessly practiced, and other principal aspects of the broad subject of health. ^* EGWC 400.1

4. James White, in his article in How to Live, number 1, which tells of their visit to “Our Home,” specifically states as to the diet there: “As we had lived almost entirely without meat, grease, and spices, for more than a year, we were in a condition to have our wants in the line of food fully met at the tables at ‘Our Home.’”—Page 16. Evidently he and Mrs. White did not go there to learn those features of reform! EGWC 400.2

5. While at the 1897 General Conference session Dr. J. H. Kellogg delivered an address in which he said, in part: EGWC 400.3

“Just before I came to the Conference I had a talk with Dr. Lay, and he told me of how he heard the first instruction about health reform away back in 1860, and especially in 1863. While he was riding in a carriage with Brother and Sister White, she related what had been presented to her upon the subject of health reform, and laid out the principles which have stood the test of all these years—a whole generation.”—General Conference Daily Bulletin, March 8, 1897, p. 309. ^† EGWC 400.4