Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Charge Number 3

“When Mrs. White died she was $90,000 in debt; and practically all of this was in the form of notes given for borrowed money.” “Aside from the valuation of the copyrights, plates, etc., her assets fell short of her debts to the amount of more than $64,000.” “Let the reader harmonize Mrs. White’s indebtedness with some of her utterances. She says: ‘But, from the light He [God] has given me, every effort should be made to stand free from debt.’ T7 206.” EGWC 523.1

It is a fact that when Mrs. White died she owed a substantial sum of money. It is also a fact that in her writings are found warnings against debt. Therefore, we are presumably to conclude that she violated her own teachings and thus exposed herself as a false prophet. No believer in the Bible would concede for a moment that a prophet is proved false because at some time or other he failed to live up to his own inspired teachings—the teachings are divine; the prophets are human, of “like passions as we are.” But what are the facts in the case before us? EGWC 523.2

We believe that the evidence will show that Mrs. White did not violate the spirit and intent of the counsel she gave concerning freedom from debt. In earlier chapters we discovered that even for inspired writings, the adage applies that circumstances alter cases. We have provided illustrations of this from Holy Writ. EGWC 523.3

There are different kinds of debts. There is a kind that can be made by prudent businessmen, whose actions are entirely free from criticism. A debt may be incurred, at times, to enlarge a business, because all the experience of the concern up to that time warrants the confident belief that if the business is expanded so that more can be produced by the plant, the sales will be larger, and the debt will be met safely and surely. There come such times of expansion in the history of almost all the great business concerns of the country. They float loans, sell bonds, and against those bonds or other obligations they set up a certain per cent of anticipated earnings over a period of years. EGWC 523.4

In the light of these facts let us look at Mrs. White’s debt. As already stated, her publishing relationships to the denomination were unique in this respect, that through the long years she assumed certain costs in connection with the production of her books that were not assumed by other authors. She had to make a large investment before any returns could come in. In a letter she wrote in 1904 this point is brought out: EGWC 523.5

“When I receive what I have invested in my books, I hope to have money sufficient to repay what I have borrowed, and to have more of my own money to use.”—Letter 103, 1904. EGWC 524.1