Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Assistants Did Not Change Thought

Someone may interject here: “But the translators changed only errors of grammar and construction. They did not add new thoughts or make sweeping changes.” That is correct. Neither did Mrs. White’s literary assistants. What evidence is presented to support the charge that “the manager of one of their largest publishing houses ... did not suppose that Mrs. White ever prepared a whole chapter for one of her popular subscription books. They were all the work of others”? The answer is, No evidence at all. Obviously there were changes of words in revising grammar and of phrases in smoothing literary construction. But that was true of the translators’ work on the Revelation. EGWC 472.1

We have found repeatedly that the critic’s charges have been proved groundless. The same is true here. Note that he identifies neither “the manager” nor the publishing house, nor does he say to whom this unidentified manager said what he is supposed to have said. Yet because the critic declares that an unnamed manager said to another unnamed individual that he “did not suppose that Mrs. White ever prepared a whole chapter for one of her popular subscription books,” therefore the reader is supposed to conclude that she did not. In fact, the reader is supposed to conclude that Mrs. White was such an ignorant woman, so unversed in grammar and all literary matters, that nothing she wrote was halfway presentable until much work had been done upon it. EGWC 472.2

We freely admit that her grammar and literary constructions, at times, were not perfect, and that literary assistants did, by making certain grammatical corrections, improve the clarity and give a certain polish to the writing. But that is something fundamentally different from what is being charged. And what proof can we present that the charge is false? Strictly speaking, we ought not to be required to defend Mrs. White against a charge which is based on hearsay and gossip and supposition, and the indirect testimony of an unnamed manager speaking to an unnamed individual. EGWC 472.3

But so great is the power of hearsay, so fatal a fascination has gossip and supposition for many minds, that a critic always has a heavy advantage. He needs only to start a rumor in circulation, to tell a plausible story with a certain intonation of the voice, in order to play havoc with a reputation. Against the unsupported charge that Mrs. White was so hopelessly unlettered and ignorant that any quality or worth in her writings was edited in by assistants, some very specific evidence may be presented. EGWC 472.4