- About the Author
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- Abbreviations
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- Here the Story Begins
- Harbingers of the Advent Awakening
- Carefree Childhood Days
- Early Experiences Recounted
- A “School Days” Experience
- The Family Moves to the City of Portland
- The Portland the Youthful Ellen Harmon Knew
- Hatmaking in the Harmon House
- Attending Brackett Street School
- The Textbooks She Read
- Robert Harmon's Trip to Georgia
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- The Question of the Immortality of the Soul
- The Time of Expectation Passes
- A Test of True Character
- The Second Angel's Message
- October 22, 1844, The Day of Expectation
- The Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844
- The Failing Health of Ellen Harmon
- Ellen Harmon Given a Vision—Her First
- The First Vision as Published in the Day-Star
- The Vision Answered Many Pressing Questions
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- The Otis Nichols Letter of April 20, 1846
- Ellen's Experience in Delivering the Message
- Early Arguments for the Spirit of Prophecy
- Some High Points of her Work in Eastern Maine
- Vision of Ministry in the Heavenly Sanctuary
- Some Fanatical Positions She Met
- Wrestling With the Views of the Spiritualizers
- Ellen Leaves Suddenly for Home
- The Healing of Frances Howland and William Hyde
- Preserved from Fanaticism
- Visit to New Hampshire
- Contending with Spiritual Magnetism
- Called Back to Portland
- Vision of the New Earth
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- Enabled to Write
- The Large Family Bible
- The Bible Held in Vision
- The Unenviable Position of the Prophet
- A Symbolic Warning
- “Another Angel, Father!”
- Who Could be Saved?
- The First Visit to Massachusetts
- The 1845 Expectancy of the Second Advent
- The Second Visit to Massachusetts
- Otis Nichols’ Eyewitness Account
- Meeting Joseph Bates at New Bedford
- The Publication of Her First Vision—January, 1846
- Publication of the Vision of the Heavenly Sanctuary
- The Place of the Vision in Confirming the Sanctuary Truth
- God's Leadings Clearly Manifest
- The Vision in a Sailboat
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- Writing for the Press
- Ellen White described its reception:
- The Proclamation of the Third Angel's Message
- The Content of the Paper
- Birth of a Second Son, James Edson White
- The Paris, Maine, Conference
- Among the Believers in Maine and New York State
- A Hymnbook for the Sabbathkeeping Adventists
- The Little Paper Almost Died
- Death Invades the Camp
- Fruitage of Public Ministry in Oswego
- Vision of Future Events
- The Visit to Vermont and Maine
- The Gift of a Horse and Carriage
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- Satan's Vicious Attacks
- Special Significance Disclosed by Vision
- The Third Angel's Message to be Made Plain by a Chart
- A Marked and Significant Change in the Tide
- Many Visions Giving Insights and Guidance
- A Summary of Other Important Visions
- A Time for Development of the Doctrinal Structure
- The Crucial Yet Productive Years of the “Scattering Time”
- Taking Up Residence in Maine
- Significant Conferences at Paris and Topsham
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- Concerted Plan to Publish the Visions
- Ellen White's First Book
- Settling in Saratoga Springs, New York
- Moves Toward Order and Organization
- The Conference at Washington, New Hampshire
- The Bethel, Vermont, Conference
- The Conference at Johnson, Vermont
- The Conference at Vergennes, Vermont
- Testimony Concerning Using Tobacco
- The Midwinter Tour in Western New York
- Back Home in Saratoga Springs
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- Ellen G. White Looks Back
- Positive Denial of the False Charge
- Explained Further as a Charge is Answered in 1883
- Developing Perception on Ellen White's Part
- A Term with a Changing Meaning
- Vision of the Open and Shut Door
- Labor for Sinners During the Shut-Door Period of 1845 to 1851
- Experience of Heman Churchill (July, 1850)
- J. H. Waggoner Recalls His Experience
- A Review of 1851 Developments
- Criticism of Deletions from the First Vision
- Why Were the Lines Omitted in 1851?
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- Strict Economy Maintained
- Working in the Opening West
- First Visit of James and Ellen White to Michigan
- With the Believers in Jackson, Michigan
- The Strange Case of a Self-Appointed Woman Evangelist
- Lost on the Way to Vergennes
- The Vergennes Meeting and Mrs. Alcott
- Back Home in Rochester
- The Review and Herald to be Published Weekly
- The 1853 Eastern Tour
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- The Vital Need for Church Organization
- James White Joins in Calling for Gospel Order
- The Tour of Northeastern New York State
- Sins Tolerated in the Camp
- Early Light on Basic Health Principles
- Ellen White's Battle With Disease
- Continuing the Evangelistic Thrust
- The Trip to Wisconsin
- Establishing the First “Adventist Book Center”
- Eyes on the Evangelistic Tent
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- The Vision at Hillsdale, Michigan
- Visiting the Churches in Eastern Michigan
- The Concept of the Investigative Judgment Dawns
- A Power Press for the Review Office
- Plans for a Trip East
- Vision at Buck's Bridge, New York
- The August Vision at Monterey, Michigan
- The October Visit to Monterey and Another Important Vision
- The Battle Creek Conference
- The Vision of the Shaking
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- Meetings in Ohio
- The Great Controversy Vision
- Counsels for New Believers
- A View of the Agelong Controversy in its Broad Sweep
- Ellen White Tells the Story at the General Conference in May
- The Choice of Title for the Forthcoming Book
- A Startling and Thought-Provoking Object Lesson
- M. B. Czechowski, the Converted Catholic Priest
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- The Conference Address on Organizing Churches
- The Eight-Week Eastern Tour
- Vision at Roosevelt, New York
- The Battle Creek Church Sets the Pace in Organizing
- A Creed and the Spirit of Prophecy
- The Formation of the Michigan Conference
- Other States Organize
- Cautions Sounded
- M. E. Cornell to Go to Ohio
- Confessions of Negative Attitudes
- James White Surveys the Battle and Victory
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- Vision at Parkville, Michigan
- Ellen White Examined While in Vision
- At Home and Writing Personal Testimonies
- The Inroads of Prevailing Fashion
- Letters to the Wife of a Minister
- Another Intimate Glimpse of the White Home Life
- A Second Vision of Civil War Involvement
- The New Publishing House
- The Five-Week Western Tour
- The War and the Threatening Draft of Recruits
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- First Annual Session of the Michigan State Conference
- The Business Sessions of the Conference
- Matters for Conference Consideration
- Organization of the General Conference
- The Last Few Weeks of 1862
- A Burden for the Youth of the Church
- Victories at Wright and Orleans
- Triumphant Year-End Meetings at Battle Creek
- The Church Prepared for Development and Expansion
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Criticism of Deletions from the First Vision
As already noted, the record of Ellen White's first vision appeared in several forms before taking its place in her first book in 1851. As first written out by her on December 20, 1845, in a personal letter to Enoch Jacobs, editor of the Day-Star, she stated that it was not written for publication in his journal but for his personal benefit. However, at the request of friends he published it in the issue of January 24, 1846. James White and H. S. Gurney took it from the Day-Star and had it printed in a broadside on April 6, 1846. On May 30, 1847, James White included it in his little pamphlet A Word to the “Little Flock,” adding Scripture references. From there it was drawn into the Review Extra of July 21, 1851, and then in her first book, Experience and Views, published in August, 1851. It was introduced in the two 1851 printings by her significant statement that “more recent views have been more full. I shall therefore leave out a portion and prevent repetition.—Page 9.1BIO 267.4
The major deletion is of materials descriptive of what she saw in heaven, especially the temple, a description similar to that of the vision of April 3, 1847, in which the Sabbath was confirmed. The other deletion, one that has attracted attention, relates to those who took their eyes off Jesus and fell from the path to “the wicked world below.” At this point in her letter to Jacobs, editor of the Day-Star, she wrote:1BIO 267.5
It was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected. They fell all the way along the path one after another.” (See also A Word to the “Little Flock,” p. 14.) [A facsimile copy of this little pamphlet is currently available at adventist book centers, and the text is reproduced in F. D. Nichol's Ellen G. White and Her Critics, pp. 561-584.]1BIO 268.1
It was not until some thirty years after the publication of Experience and Views in 1851 that question was raised concerning the deletion, in a pamphlet published by a group made up of those who had withdrawn from Seventh-day Adventists because of church organization and the Spirit of Prophecy. These formed the Church of God (Seventh Day), in Marion, Iowa. In this pamphlet Ellen White was accused of suppressing materials she did not wish to come before the public. Not often did she turn aside from her routine work to answer her critics, but on this occasion she did, in a statement on file as Manuscript 4, 1883, now found in Selected Messages 1:59-73. She introduced her explanation of the charges thus:1BIO 268.2
My attention has recently been called to a sixteen-page pamphlet published by C [A. C. Long], of Marion, Iowa, entitled Comparison of the Early Writings of Mrs. White With Later Publications. The writer states that portions of my earlier visions, as first printed, have been suppressed in the work recently published under the title Early Writings of Mrs. E. G. White, and he conjectures as a reason for such suppression that these passages teach doctrines now repudiated by us as a people....1BIO 268.3
The first quotation mentioned by C is from a pamphlet of twenty-four pages published in 1847, entitled A Word to the “Little Flock.” Here are the lines omitted in Experience and Views:1BIO 268.4
“It was just as impossible for them [those that gave up their faith in the ‘44 movement] to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected. They fell all the way along the path one after another.” ... It is claimed that these expressions prove the shut-door doctrine, and that this is the reason of their omission in later editions. But in fact they teach only that which has been and is still held by us as a people.1BIO 268.5
It is in this setting, as noted earlier in this chapter, that she explained that “all who saw the light of the first and second angels’ messages and rejected that light were left in darkness” and also those who later “renounced their faith and pronounced their experience a delusion, thereby rejecting the Spirit of God.” These she contrasted with “those who did not see the light” and “had not the guilt of its rejection.” Then she declared:1BIO 269.1
These two classes are brought to view in the vision—those who declared the light which they had followed a delusion, and the wicked of the world who, having rejected the light, had been rejected of God. No reference is made to those who had not seen the light, and therefore were not guilty of its rejection.—Manuscript 4, 1883 (see also Ibid., 1:59-64). (Italics supplied.)1BIO 269.2
As attention is focused on phrases in the first written account of the vision, it is proper to point out that in the letter that Jacobs published Ellen would naturally condense the presentation and confine the written statement to just the essential features. At the same time, she would write with much less painstaking than would ordinarily be required in preparing material for publication. This she soon discovered, as is evidenced by her explanations that she added to her first book in 1852. She had discovered that in writing for print great care must be taken to phrase the message in such a way that none might misunderstand the intent.1BIO 269.3
A point of considerable significance must not be overlooked, and that is, a few months before these words were penned, Ellen Harmon in Paris, Maine, had made it clear that from what God had shown her there was opportunity for the salvation of a person who had not heard and rejected the first angel's message. This, and the absence of statements declaring the extreme shut-door position, would guard against reading into the phrases in question the interpretation of probation's close for the world generally in 1844.1BIO 269.4