White Mrs E
Full Name: Ellen Gould Harmon White
Achievements: Started Seventh Day Adventists
Born: 26 November 1827, at Gorham, ME
Died: 16 July 1915, near Santa Helena, CA. Aged 87
Field & Discipline: Religion; Reformer
Education: Primary school, Portland
Major Work: “Steps to Christ” (1892)
Life & Times:
In 1840 and again in 1842 William Miller, the farmer-preacher and founder of the Adventists (Adventism included the ideas on free will of the German theologian [work related to] Arminius*), visited Portland to warn of the impending end of the world.Greatly impressed by the Adventist message, in 1842 Ellen left the Methodists and joined the Millerites, who eventually decided on the date for Christ's return as 22 October 1844. The Great Disappointment which followed led many of the Adventists to pray for help and enlightenment, and on one such occasion, in December 1844, the 17-year-old Ellen received the first of her many "visions."White declared that the Holy Spirit had told her that 22 October 1844 in fact marked not the end of the world but the beginning of the heavenly judgement, an event which would soon be followed by the second coming of Christ. Ellen began travelling across the country, hoping to reinspire faith.
In 1845, on a trip to Orrington, Maine, Ellen met a 23-year-old Adventist preacher named James White, who began accompanying her on her preaching tours. In August 1846 they married, and during the following weeks they began observing the seventh-day Sabbath - i.e. keeping Saturday rather than Sunday as the Sabbath -- a practice which in April 1847 was confirmed as divine in origin by one of Ellen's visions.In 1849 the Whites began to publish a bi-monthly paper, entitled 'The Present Truth.' In 1851 she published her first book, the 64-page “A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White,” and the following year the Whites settled in Rochester, New York, where they set up a printing press, the Review and Herald Publishing Association, and published pamphlets and another book, entitled 'The Youth's Instructor'.
In 1855 Adventists in Michigan invited them to participate in the creation of a settlement in newly-erected buildings at Battle Creek, Michigan, and here in November 1855 the Whites, now with three sons, moved their printing presses and established an Adventist colony.The late 1850s and early 1860s were spent writing, publishing, preaching and organizing conferences, work which culminated in May 1863 in the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which effectively marked the beginning of the new movement. Two weeks later, on 6 June 1863 at Otsego, Michigan, White experienced another vision, this time of the relation of physical health to spirituality, and of the importance of following right principles in diet and in the care of the body.In particular, she became convinced (as had many health reformers before her) that illness resulted from eating meat and other stimulating foods, consuming alcohol and tobacco, and taking drugs (whether prescribed by doctors or not), and that health could only be restored by relying on natural remedies, in particular clean air, sunshine, exercise, and pure water.
Furthermore, White especially became an advocate of the water treatments associated with hydropathy (originating in Silesia in the work of [follower of] Priessnitz*). As a result, in 1866 White opened her own water-cure establishment in Battle Creek, the Western Health Reform Institute, which -- with the help of [hired] Kellogg* -- during the 1870s became the centre of an international network of Adventist sanitariums.
During the early 1870s White spent increasing amounts of time strengthening Adventism in California and extending her message overseas, in 1874 beginning the international the magazine: 'Signs of the Times'.In January 1875 the Whites opened the Battle Creek College, and during the same year a new printing press and health institution were set up near St. Helena in California.
During the late 1870s White's dramatic daytime visions ceased, but she continued to preach - sometimes to crowds as large as 20,000. In 1884, she published one of her most substantial works, “The Great Controversy Between Christ and His Angels and Satan and His Angels,” which over the next three years sold over 50,000 copies.Now accompanied on her speaking tours by her son, William (himself an Adventist minister), in 1885 White set off for Europe to spread the Adventist message. During this two-year trip, she visited Basel, Switzerland, then the headquarters of the European Adventists, and from there went to England (where she met the theosophist [met] Annie Besant*), Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
They returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1888, where she remained until the General Conference of 1891, when she was presented with an urgent call to visit Australia, which she did in December 1891, again accompanied by her son William. In 1892 she opened an Adventist Bible School in Melbourne, Australia, and in the late 1890s established an Adventist mission in New Zealand.In 1892 she publishing her most popular work: “Steps to Christ,” which has sold more than 20 million copies. In 1900 White returned permanently to the United States, and settled on a small farm at Elmshaven, near St. Helena in California, where she died.
Assessment: Ellen White was a highly prolific and inspiring 19th-century Christian preacher.
Oneliner: Ellen White, co-founder of Seventh-day Adventist movement.
Bibliography:
- Encyclopedia Britannica.
- Numbers, Ronald L. Prophetess of Health: Ellen G. White and the Origins of Seventh-day Adventist Health Reform, revised edition, 1992.
Language: English
Father: Robert Harmon
Mother: Eunice Gould
Siblings: Seven siblings, including Elizabeth (her twin sister)
Spouse: James White (married 1846)
Children: Henry Nichols (1847-1863); James Edson (1849-1928, Seventh-day
Adventist minister); William Clarence (1854-1937, Seventh-day Adventist
minister); John Herbert (1860, died aged three months)