Foreword
Foreword
An Explanation the Author Would Like to Have You Read
The development of this biography of Ellen G. White, parts of which are still in preparation, has been to the author a confidence-confirming experience. It is a large task but a pleasurable one. At or near the outset a number of decisions were called for:
What kind of biography would it be?
For whom were we writing?
How many pages would be devoted to treating the more than 25,000 days of Ellen White’s active ministry in the united states, europe, and australia?
Where would we begin the account?
Aside from articles in encyclopedias and works presenting the lives of notable women, the only available published accounts presenting Ellen White’s life are Spiritual Gifts, volume II, published in 1860 and titled “My Christian Experience, Views and Labors in Connection with the Rise and Progress of the Third Angel’s Message”; an introductory “Biographical Sketch of Ellen G. White,” filling the first 112 pages of Testimonies for the Church, volume 1, published in 1885; and Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, issued just after her death in 1915. The first two, of course, could carry her life only up to publication dates, 1860 and 1885, respectively. The latter treats her early life quite fully, but leaves us with years hardly mentioned in her mid-life and relatively little about her later years.
In planning this biography I saw Ellen White’s life divided rather naturally into six eras:
The Early Years—1827-1862 [10]
The Progressive Years—1863-1875
The Lonely Years—1876-1891
The Australian Years—1891-1900
The Early Elmshaven Years—1900-1905
The Later Elmshaven Years—1905-1915
I chose to begin my work with “The Elmshaven Years,” for they are closer in time to us, and there are some persons living who knew Ellen White and who could be interviewed. Further, it seemed that the issues that followed quickly on the turn of the century have a particular relevance to the church at present.
The sources for this period are very full, almost overwhelming. In accordance with the procedures elected for the purpose of this writing “The Elmshaven Years” yields two volumes, of which this is the first. The White estate staff and the board of trustees of the Ellen G. White Estate, in concurrence with the Review and Herald publishing association, have decided that it will be well to release this part of the biography now and not keep the public waiting until the task is completed. Experiences and sources for the preceding years, 1827 to 1900, while profuse, are more limited, and it is the aim of the author to contain that part of the account in four volumes.
The Author’s Aims and Objectives
I have had before me as aims and objectives:
1. To write for the average reader, but in such detail and with such documentation as will meet the expectations of the scholar.
2. To leave the reader with the feeling that he or she is acquainted with Ellen White as a very human person.
3. To portray accurately the life and work of Ellen White as the Lord’s messenger in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, not by a slavish chronicle of each day of her active ministry, but by a selection, from her experience, of events and happenings that illustrate her lifework and make a contribution to the cause.
4. As far as possible, to keep these events in a year-by-year development, picturing her home life, her travels, her weaknesses and strengths, her burden of heart, and her very earnest devotional life.
5. To select and present, in detail, significant events, two or [11]
three in a given year, that best illustrate her prophetic mission, depicting the interplay between the prophet and church leaders, institutions, and individuals, recounting the sending of testimonies and the response to these messages.
6. As a secondary objective, to provide a knowledge of the principal points of the history of the church in a unique way as it is seen especially through the eyes of, or in relation to, the messenger of the Lord.
7. To make the work not only an interesting narrative but a selection of illustrative experiences with which the reader may at times vicariously associate himself.
8. To keep constantly before the reader the major role the visions played in almost every phase of the experiences comprising the narrative.
9. Where convenient to the purposes of the manuscript, to let Ellen White speak in her own words, rather than to call upon the author to provide a paraphrase. This ensures an accurate conveyance of the unique and fine points of the messages in the very expressions of the prophetic messenger herself. Thus, many important statements are provided in a form that will be of value to all readers.
10. To provide a documented running account of the literary work done both by Ellen White and her literary assistants in the production of her articles and books.
11. And in all of this, to present in the narrative, in a natural way, confidence-confirming features.
In dealing with any given era, the pattern of travels and labors is established early by going into detail in narrating certain experiences, but as the account continues, much less such detail is called for. For instance, in describing Ellen White’s early trips to Southern California after taking up residence at Elmshaven, circumstances of the trip by train are elaborated on, but such elaboration is not called for with each of the many later trips. The pattern has been set in the mind of the reader.
The author has encountered some differences of opinion in the minds of different readers as to the value of some of the details presented. It is his opinion that they make a major contribution to reading interest and rather intimate acquaintance with Ellen White, [12] so they have been retained for the sake of the record.
Also, the author, although he takes pride in his relationship to the subject of the biography, in the interests of objectivity has, as in his public ministry, largely disassociated himself from family ties. He has endeavored to relate himself to Ellen White as would any earnest Seventh-day Adventist in possession of a good knowledge of her work. He refers to her, not as grandmother, but as Ellen White, Sister White, the Lord’s messenger, et cetera.
The manuscript for this biography has been prepared in response to the earnest request of the Trustees of the Ellen G. White Estate, the work being done in the offices of the Estate at the headquarters of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, in Washington, D.C. it has been a project of the Ellen G. White Estate, to which I at first gave part time while serving as secretary, and then was released at my request to devote as nearly full time as possible to the work.
A task of such proportion as this could not have been accomplished singlehandedly within a decade. Even before the responsibility of writing fell on my shoulders, there was the painstaking work of Miss Bessie Mount, who, in anticipation on the part of the White Estate of preparing such a work on the life of Ellen White, was assigned the task of assembling biographical materials and preparing a card index to biographical data. This initial contribution to the biography has been most useful. I am deeply grateful for the sincere and tireless labors of Ron Graybill, who was called to the White Estate to serve as my research assistant in this task; to dedicated and efficient secretaries who have faithfully copied and recopied chapters in preparation; and to other members of the White Estate staff, all of whom have from time to time been pressed into service to assist in the preparation of the manuscript.
If Ellen White becomes better known as an individual—a wife and mother, a neighbor and a friend—as well as the messenger of the Lord, laboring tirelessly in the pulpit and on the public platform in declaring God’s messages and in counseling often and writing incessantly, with influence felt the world around, the objectives of the author will have been largely met.
Arthur L. White [13]