Ellen G. White and Her Critics

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Newspaper Comments on Her Speaking

At the time of her husband’s death, in 1881, some of the newspapers included in their sketch of his life a comment on Mrs. White and her public platform ability. We quote briefly from two: EGWC 475.1

“He has been admirably aided in his ministerial and educational labors by his wife, Ellen G. White, one of the ablest platform speakers and writers in the west.”—Lansing [Michigan] Republican, Aug. 9, 1881. EGWC 475.2

“In 1846 he married Ellen G. Harmon, a woman of extraordinary endowments, who has been a co-laborer in all his work and contributed largely to his success by her gifts as a writer and especially her power as a public speaker.”—The Echo [Detroit], Aug. 10, 1881. EGWC 475.3

Of a lecture delivered by Mrs. White on the subject of Christian temperance, in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1887, a newspaper of that city said: EGWC 475.4

“There was a good attendance including a large number of our most prominent people, at the lecture of Mrs. Ellen G. White, at the Tabernacle, last evening. EGWC 475.5

“This lady gave her audience a most eloquent discourse, which was listened to with marked interest and attention. Her talk was interspersed with instructive facts which she had gathered in her recent visit to foreign lands, and demonstrated that this gifted lady has, in addition to her many other rare qualifications, a great faculty for attentive careful observation and a remarkable memory of details, this together with her fine delivery and her faculty of clothing her ideas in choice, beautiful and appropriate language, made her lecture one of the best that has ever been delivered by any lady in our city. That she may soon favor our community with another address, is the earnest wish of all who attended last evening, and should she do so, there will be a large attendance.”—Battle Creek Daily Journal, Oct. 5, 1887. * EGWC 475.6

No one has ever suggested that she had literary assistants on the platform when she spoke, to polish her words as they poured forth extemporaneously! EGWC 475.7