Ellen G. White and Her Critics

18. “The Gathering Time”

FIRST PRINTING

In Present Truth, November, 1850, pages 86, 87. (This is the third and concluding section of Mrs. White’s contribution to this number of Present Truth, and begins thus: “September 23d, the Lord showed me ...”) EGWC 640.3

SECOND PRINTING

In Experience and Views, pages 61, 62 (Early Writings, 74-76), with the following deletions: EGWC 640.4

Deletions

(1) “It is as necessary that the truth should be published in a paper, as preached.” EGWC 640.5

(2) “I saw that the reason why they [“some who are in the great error, that the saints are yet to go to Old Jerusalem, &c., before the Lord comes”] were left to go into this great error, is because they have not confessed and forsaken their errors, that they have been in for a number of years past.” EGWC 640.6

Comments on Deletions

(1) There is nothing in this that we have not believed increasingly through the years. Nothing is more clearly stated in Mrs. White’s various works. EGWC 640.7

(2) This deleted passage is the closing sentence of the vision. It teaches no strange doctrine, later abandoned. It merely expresses the thought that those who walk in darkness will stumble into greater darkness and into worse pitfalls of error. EGWC 640.8

For those who wish to make further comparison of the texts of the first and later printings, we would say that there have been two important additions to this brief vision. The first full paragraph on page 75 of Early Writings, beginning, “The Lord has shown me,” is an addition to the text; it is a part of the Camden Vision of June 21, 1851. (Not to be confused with the pseudo-Camden vision dated June 29, 1851.) See number 19 following. Beginning twelve lines from the bottom of page 75, with the words, “I saw that such a mission,” and on to the end of the paragraph, had already been added in Experience and Views. The history of those early days of Adventism reveals that there were those who had lately been with the Advent movement, who sought to stir up interest in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to convert the Jews. The interest, however, was limited, and apparently soon died out. EGWC 641.1