Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Writers Quoted in “The Great Controversy”

The charge against Mrs. White is that her book The Great Controversy was “taken largely” from the following named works: Andrews’ History of the Sabbath, D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation, Wylie’s History of the Waldenses, Uriah Smith’s Sanctuary, and James White’s Life of Wm. Miller. The problem before us is not whether she borrowed, but how much she borrowed and whether she borrowed in such a way as to deceive the reader. The first question to consider is this: Were these five works here mentioned unfamiliar to Seventh-day Adventists so that citations from them, without quotation marks, could easily be palmed off on the unsuspecting membership, preachers and laity alike, as the words and thoughts of Mrs. White? This is obviously a most important question. Fortunately, an unequivocal answer can be given EGWC 413.3

What of D’Aubigne’s History? Mrs. White specifically encouraged, not only our ministers, but our people at large, to read this work. Less than two years before the 1884 edition of The Great Controversy was published, she wrote: EGWC 414.1

“Provide something to be read during these long winter evenings. For those who can procure it, D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation will be both interesting and profitable. From this work we may gain some knowledge of what has been accomplished in the past in the great work of reform.”—The Review and Herald, December 26, 1882, p. 789. ^* EGWC 414.2

Wylie’s History of the Waldenses must also have been in a great many Adventist libraries, both ministerial and lay. This fact Mrs. White knew. So enthusiastic were the Adventist leadership regarding the book that in January, 1883, it was offered as a premium with Review and Herald subscriptions. (See the Review of Jan. 2, 1883, p. 16.) This was almost a year and nine months before the 1884 edition of The Great Controversy came from the press. In January, 1884, the Signs of the Times, published by the Pacific Press Publishing Association, and widely circulated both within and without the denomination, offered the book as a premium with subscriptions. (See The Signs of the Times, January 31, 1884, p. 80.) This was many months before The Great Controversy was published. ^† Needless to remark, Mrs. White was acquainted with these premium offers. EGWC 414.3

And what of Uriah Smith’s Sanctuary, J. N. Andrews’ History of the Sabbath, and James White’s Life of Wm. Miller? These three Seventh-day Adventist books were certainly in most ministerial libraries and in the libraries of a great many of the laity. The membership had been encouraged to read them carefully. This fact, of course, Mrs. White knew. EGWC 414.4

Now what do all these facts add up to? One obvious conclusion: Mrs. White must have known that her readers, preachers and laity alike, in the denomination, would see immediately that certain passages in The Great Controversy were not original with her, in other words, that she could not have thought that she was going to deceive them into thinking that the writing was wholly hers. And that leads on to another equally obvious conclusion: Mrs. White must have felt that she had nothing dishonorable to hide in the matter of this literary borrowing, and that her borrowings could be harmonized with her claims to inspiration. To draw any other conclusions than these would be equivalent to saying that in publishing The Great Controversy Mrs. White deliberately set out to expose herself as a literary thief and a prophetic fraud. EGWC 414.5