Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Charge Number 6

Mrs. White wrote: “This nation will vet be humbled into the dust.”—Testimonies for the Church 1:259. EGWC 119.5

“Here, again, her prophecy was a complete failure. Our nation was not humbled into the dust.” EGWC 119.6

Now, what did Mrs. White mean when she wrote “humbled into the dust”? The critic presumably takes for granted that this means that she forecast that the United States Government in Washington would be hopelessly defeated. But that interpretation of her words is not required. EGWC 120.1

In her opening paragraphs in discussion of the whole subject of the Civil War, she wrote: EGWC 120.2

“The North had boasted of their strength, and ridiculed the idea of the South leaving the Union. They considered it like the threats of a willful, stubborn child, and thought that the South would soon come to their senses, and, becoming sick of leaving the Union, would with humble apologies return to their allegiance.”—Testimonies for the Church 1:253, 254. EGWC 120.3

How great was the humiliation of the North when the South, with a relatively small population and relatively small manufacturing possibilities, administered appalling defeats upon the North for at least two years. EGWC 120.4

Of the attitude of our Government in relation to other countries Mrs. White wrote: EGWC 120.5

“Our government has been very proud and independent. The people of this nation have exalted themselves to heaven, and have looked down upon monarchical governments, and triumphed in their boasted liberty, while the institution of slavery, that was a thousand times worse than the tyranny exercised by monarchical governments, was suffered to exist and was cherished.”—Testimonies for the Church 1:258, 259. EGWC 120.6

It is in the very next paragraph after this statement that we find the words: “This nation will yet be humbled into the dust.” Was this country of America humbled in the eyes of countries overseas? Listen to the London Times correspondent quoting for the satisfaction of his English readers the words of the American divine, Reverend Doctor Cheever, who in prayer “blessed the name of God for having so humbled the nation that it was compelled as a military necessity to ask the aid of the negro.”—January 20, 1863. EGWC 120.7

On July 4, 1863, the London Times referred to the date of the American Independence Day, describing it as “this day of festivity, now converted into a day of humiliation.” EGWC 120.8

Thus spoke the London Times in the darkest days of the Civil War. The fact that this leading English paper was most evidently writing in vengeful glee, does not therefore make unwarranted the use of its words as testimony. Something very humiliating must have been happening to the United States to make England’s most conservative, most representative paper speak as it did. That the United States was greatly humbled, so far as England was concerned, is not open to question. We think historians would agree that the London Times was not inventing a story, but was presenting a substantially true picture. It is an interesting fact that Mrs. White’s statement that “this nation will yet be humbled into the dust” is made right in the midst of a discussion of what England is thinking of doing in a military way in the light of America’s weakness. Undoubtedly if England had waged war against the Washington Government while it was in its weakened condition, it would have been humbled in a military way. But no one can read these quotations from the London Times in the setting of Mrs. White’s statement about the pride of America, without concluding that her prediction that this country would be humbled in the dust, found more than ample fulfillment in the conditions that actually did develop. EGWC 121.1

For further light on the meaning that Mrs. White herself attached to the phrase, “humbled into the dust,” we need only to read elsewhere in volume 1 of the Testimonies for the Church. She is discussing an unhappy experience of earlier days in which her husband, poverty stricken and sick, was made the object of cruel insinuations and charges by some who should have dealt kindly with him. His sense of self-respect and dignity were out-raged, and he and Mrs. White were deeply humiliated. Writing of the experience she declares, “We were humbled into the very dust, and distressed beyond expression.”—Page 583. EGWC 121.2

This parallel passage should be sufficient, we believe, to prove the reasonableness of our position that the phrase “humbled into the dust,” as applied to the United States, met an adequate fulfillment in the deep humiliation that confronted this country during the darkest days of the Civil War. EGWC 121.3