Ellen Gould White (née Harmon; November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915) was an American author, and was both the prophet and a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders, such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she was influential within a small group of early Adventists who formed what became known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church. White is considered a leading figure in American vegetarian history. Smithsonian named her among the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time".
White's biographer and grandson, Arthur L. White, estimated that she reported receiving over 2,000 visions and dreams from God. She verbally described and published for public consumption her accounts of many of these experiences. The Adventist pioneers believed them to be examples of the Biblical gift of prophecy. Her Conflict of the Ages series of writings describes her understanding of the role of God in Biblical history and in church history. This narrative of cosmic conflict, referred to by Seventh-day Adventist theologians as the "Great Controversy theme", became foundational to the development of Seventh-day Adventist theology. Her book on Christian living, Steps to Christ, has been published in more than 140 languages. The book Child Guidance—a compilation of her writings about child care and education—has been used as the foundation for the Seventh-day Adventist school system.
White was a controversial figure, and much of the controversy centered on her reports of visionary experiences and on the use of other sources in her writings. Historian Randall Balmer has described White as "one of the more important and colorful figures in the history of American religion". Walter Martin described her as "one of the most fascinating and controversial personages ever to appear upon the horizon of religious history". Arthur L. White, her grandson and biographer, wrote that Ellen G. White is the most translated female non-fiction author in the history of literature, as well as the most translated American non-fiction author overall. Her writings covered a broad range of subjects, including religion, social relationships, prophecy, publishing, nutrition, creationism, agriculture, theology, evangelism, Christian lifestyle, education, and health. During her lifetime she wrote more than 5,000 periodical articles and 40 books. more than 200 White titles are available in English, including compilations from her 100,000 pages of manuscript maintained by the Ellen G. White Estate. Her most notable books are Steps to Christ, The Desire of Ages, and The Great Controversy.
Personal life
Early life
Ellen and her twin sister Elizabeth were born November 26, 1827, to Robert and Eunice Harmon at a home at State Route 114 in Gorham, Maine. She was the seventh of eight children. Robert was a farmer who also made hats using mercuric nitrate.
In March 2000, the Ellen G. White Estate commissioned Roger D. Joslyn, a professional genealogist, to research Ellen G. White's ancestry. Joslyn concluded that she was of Anglo-Saxon origin.
At the age of nine, White was hit in the face with a stone. This occurred while she was living in Portland, Maine, and attending the Brackett Street School. This, she said, started her conversion: "This misfortune, which for a time seemed so bitter and was so hard to bear, has proved to be a blessing in disguise. The cruel blow which blighted the joys of earth, was the means of turning my eyes to heaven. I might never have known Jesus, had not the sorrow that clouded my early years led me to seek comfort in him". A few years after her injury, Ellen, with her parents, attended a Methodist camp meeting at Buxton, Maine; and there, at the age of 12, a breakthrough occurred in which she had a conversion experience and felt at peace.
Millerite movement
In 1840, at age 12, her family became involved with the Millerite movement. As she attended William Miller's lectures, she felt guilty for her sins and was filled with terror about being eternally lost. She describes herself as spending nights in tears and prayer and being in this condition for several months. On June 26, 1842, she was baptized by John Hobart in Casco Bay in Portland, Maine, and eagerly awaited Jesus to come again. In her later years, she referred to this as the happiest time of her life. Her family's involvement with Millerism caused them to be disfellowshipped by the local Methodist church.
Marriage and family
In February 1845, Ellen Harmon came in contact with her future husband James Springer White, a Millerite who became convinced that her visions were genuine. During the winter of 1845, the two, accompanied by a female chaperone, visited Millerite believers in Maine, including an eventful stop in Atkinson for a farmhouse meeting led by Israel Dammon. A year later James proposed and they were married by a justice of the peace in Portland, Maine, on August 30, 1846. James later wrote:
We were married August 30, 1846, and from that hour to the present she has been my crown of rejoicing ... It has been in the good providence of God that both of us had enjoyed a deep experience in the Advent movement ... This experience was now needed as we should join our forces and, united, labor extensively from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific ...Life Sketches, 1880 edition, pp. 126, 127.
The Whites had four sons: Henry Nichols, James Edson (known as Edson), William Clarence (known as Willie or W. C.), and John Herbert. Only Edson and William lived to adulthood. John Herbert died of erysipelas at the age of two months, and Henry died of pneumonia at the age of 16 [White Estate Biography] in 1863.
Final years and death
White spent the final years of her life in Elmshaven, her home in Saint Helena, California after the death of her husband James White in 1881. During her final years she traveled less frequently as she concentrated upon writing her last works for the church. She died on July 16, 1915, at her home in Elmshaven, which is now an Adventist Historical Site. After three funerals, she was buried alongside her husband James White in Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek, Michigan.
Ministry
Visions From 1844 to 1863 White allegedly experienced between 100 and 200 visions, typically in public places and meeting halls. She experienced her first vision soon after the Millerite Great Disappointment of 1844.Adventist History Library's Ellen White's First Vision includes the various printed editions of her first vision. She said she had one that led to the writing of The Great Controversy at an Ohio funeral service held on a Sunday afternoon in March 1858, in the Lovett's Grove (now Bowling Green, Ohio) public school. This was an alleged vision of the ages-long conflict between Christ and his angels and Satan and his angels.
In December 1844,James White, A Word to the Little Flock, 1847, p. 22. White experienced her first vision during a prayer meeting at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Haines in Portland, Maine, on the end of Danforth Street just before Vaughan's bridge, which crossed the Fore River. The site became an industrial area by the end of the 1800s. Ellen White described the occasion:
At this time I visited one of our Advent sisters, and in the morning we bowed around the family altar. It was not an exciting occasion, and there were but five of us present, all females. While praying, the power of God came upon me as I never had felt it before, and I was wrapt up in a vision of God's glory, and seemed to be rising higher and higher from the earth and was shown something of the travels of the Advent people to the Holy City ...White, Ellen G. (1851), A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White, p. 5.
In this vision the "Advent people" were traveling a high and dangerous path towards the city of New Jerusalem [heaven]. Their path was lit from the path's beginning by a bright light "which an angel told me was the midnight cry." Some of the travelers grew weary and were encouraged by Jesus; others denied the light, the light behind them went out, and they fell "off the path into the dark and wicked world below."White, Arthur L. 1985, "Chapter 7 – (1846–1847) Entering Marriage Life", Ellen G. White: The Early Years, Vol. 1, 1827–1862, p. 57. The vision continued with a portrayal of Christ's second coming, following which the Advent people entered the New Jerusalem. As Godfrey T. Anderson said, "In effect, the vision assured the Advent believers of eventual triumph despite the immediate despair into which they had plunged."Godfrey T. Anderson, "Sectarianism and Organisation, 1846–1864," in Adventism in America: a History, ed. Gary Land (Berrien Springs, Michigan: Andrews University Press, 1998), p. 31.
In February 1845, White allegedly experienced her fifth vision in Exeter, Maine. It was known as the "Bridegroom" vision. Together with the sixteenth vision, the "New Earth" vision, the visions "gave continued meaning to the October 1844 experience and supported the developing sanctuary rationale. Additionally they played an important role in countering the spiritualizing views of many fanatical Adventists by portraying the Father and Jesus as literal beings and heaven as a physical place."Merlin D. Burt, "The Historical Background, Interconnected Development, and Integration of the Doctrines of the Heavenly Sanctuary, the Sabbath, and Ellen G. White's Role in Sabbatarian Adventism from 1844–1849", Ph.D., Andrews University, 2002, p. 170.
On June 6, 1863, in Otsego, Michigan she experienced a vision regarding vegetarianism as beneficial to health. The message, however, because of her extensive travels during the 19th century and the lack of vegetarian food, in her view was not absolute. She committed herself to vegetarianism in January 1894 when she was at the Brighton camp meeting near Melbourne, Australia.
Public testimony Fearing people would not accept her testimony, White did not initially share her visions with the wider Millerite community. In a meeting at her parents' home she received in her third vision what she regarded as confirmation of her ministry:
While praying, the thick darkness that had enveloped me was scattered, a bright light, like a ball of fire, came towards me, and as it fell upon me, my strength was taken away. I seemed to be in the presence of Jesus and the angels. Again it was repeated, 'Make known to others what I have revealed to you.'White, Arthur L. 1985, "Chapter 7 – (1846–1847) Entering Marriage Life", Ellen G. White: The Early Years, Vol. 1, 1827–1862, p. 63.
Before the Disappointment and before her first vision, White had given her testimony in public meetings and in her regular Methodist class meetings in private homes.
I arranged meetings with my young friends, some of whom were considerably older than myself, and a few were married persons. A number of them were vain and thoughtless; my experience sounded to them like an idle tale, and they did not heed my entreaties. But I determined that my efforts should never cease till these dear souls, for whom I had so great an interest, yielded to God. Several entire nights were spent by me in earnest prayer for those whom I had sought out and brought together for the purpose of laboring and praying with them.Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 1, (1855–1868)