Ellen G. White and Her Critics

A Strange Oversight

The calling in of books that have been scattered over the country in thousands of homes would have been no small undertaking. It would have required notices to be run in the church paper, or a flood of letters to be written, which in turn would precipitate no small number of letters in return, and then some kind of settlement, financial or otherwise. Many clerks would be conversant with the facts. We search in vain for any trace of such “suppression” in the records of the 1880’s, for the book was allegedly “soon suppressed.” EGWC 436.6

Note that the writers of this scurrilous article are not even sure why it was “suppressed.” They venture a “probably.” Here was the place for at least a sly insinuation of a threatened lawsuit. What a chance they missed! EGWC 437.1

Probably most of our readers will be ready to dismiss the whole matter at this point. But so widely has the lawsuit story traveled, so plausibly has it been constructed out of bits of fact and fiction, that we believe it should be completely exposed once and for all to remove whatever questions might still remain in the mind of any reasonable person. Fortunately, there is sufficient documentary evidence and other factual data available to make possible a full refutation of this fantastic story. EGWC 437.2