Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Kolvoord Story Analyzed

Note these facts that bear on this Kolvoord statement: He does not date this incident except to say that it was “more than thirty years ago.” That would bring it earlier than 1896. The critic who cites Kolvoord declares that “it was about 1893-4 when the edition was exhausted.” A search of the records for several years each side of 1893-94 reveals that from 1888 onward to 1897, when Kolvoord left the publishing house, Kellogg was at no time manager. He was, for a part of this time, superintendent and also a director, a member of the board. Now, it would be the manager rather than the superintendent, even though a director, who would discuss with Mrs. White this very important matter of a threatened lawsuit. Accordingly, Kolvoord calls Kellogg the “manager.” The present-day critic likewise thus speaks of him. EGWC 440.3

If it is hard to believe that the “directors” of the publishing house commissioned the superintendent to negotiate so delicate a matter with Mrs. White, it is even harder to believe that these directors would consider it wise to share the knowledge of this matter with an employee, Kolvoord, who held only a minor editorial position. If the knowledge of this grave matter was shared with Kolvoord, what reason is there to believe that he was the only employee told? He does not even suggest that he was pledged to secrecy. Hence, human nature being what it is, we should soon expect the whole publishing house to be abuzz with the story, and almost as soon, the whole Adventist community in Battle Creek. Yet neither the writer of the anonymous Moon story in 1907 nor the anonymous pamphleteer of the same year were aware of all this, even though the pamphleteer had talked with a former director! ^* EGWC 440.4

Add to this incredible story one more fact and the alleged incident becomes wholly unbelievable, if, indeed, it is not already so. In 1907 Kolvoord was the joint author of a pamphlet that attacked one of the basic doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The preface reveals that his sympathies had departed from the movement some years before. Yet this man, hostile enough to the church in 1907 to join in writing a pamphlet against its beliefs, kept locked within himself the most sensational story of all, and allowed others who were attacking the church to content themselves with pitifully minor charges and incidents! In due time he whispers it in the ear of a present-day critic, and writes it out in 1926, about a third of a century after he had been informed of the allegedly threatening lawsuit! EGWC 441.1