Ellen G. White and Her Critics

An Impressive Similarity

The thoughts he here expresses are so similar to those set forth in certain sentences in the publishers’ preface in The Great Controversy as it appeared in 1885, that it might easily have been written by him. Listen to these words from it: “We believe that the writer has received the illumination of the Holy Spirit in preparing these pages.... No one who knows what it is to hold communion with our heavenly Father, will fail to realize that the writer of these pages has drawn from the heavenly fountain, and received help from the sanctuary.” ^* But it is these very words that have been held up to ridicule through the years by all critics as they have echoed the charge, initially framed by Canright, that Mrs. White’s borrowing from other writers proved that she did not receive “the illumination of the Holy Spirit,” and was really a false prophet. The critics declare that as soon as The Great Controversy came from the press “leading brethren” “discovered” that Mrs. White had borrowed from other writers. Canright was one of the “leading brethren.” But instead of raising a “protest,” he wrote a eulogy. EGWC 465.2

Amadon wrote in his newspaper article of 1907 of the Englishwoman in South Africa who saw a copy of Sketches From the Life of Paul, and sought to buy one, but could not because the book was out of print. Then she finally copied out the book by hand. The critics do not question this story; instead they cite it as a choice proof of the wide demand. Then, as we have noted, they draw unwarranted deductions from that “proof.” But we think there is a deduction that can rightly be drawn, that proves something quite contrary to what the critics desire. Why would this woman be so thrilled with this book that she would go to such labor to copy it if it were “largely” copied from Conybeare and Howson’s work? And we know that such borrowing as Mrs. White actually did, consisted almost wholly of historical background material that could probably have been drawn from any one of several current works on Paul’s life. Here is a strange situation indeed! That is, strange to those who have not read her book, or who have read it in the hostile way in which unbelievers often read the Bible. To those who have read it with unprejudiced hearts, the matter is easily understandable. Mrs. White’s work contained certain revelations of spiritual truth from Paul’s life and epistles that no other current writer on the apostle was able to present. EGWC 465.3