Experience in Europe Benefited the Book

Some years later as W. C. White answered questions concerning his mother's literary work, he recounted the experience in Basel and introduced a point of unique interest.3BIO 438.2

When we reached those chapters relating to the Reformation in Germany and France, the translators would comment on the appropriateness of the selection of historical events which Sister White had chosen, and in two instances which I remember, they suggested that there were other events of corresponding importance which she had not mentioned.3BIO 438.3

When this was brought to her attention, she requested that the histories be brought to her that she might consider the importance of the events which had been mentioned. The reading of the history refreshed to her mind that which she had seen, after which she wrote a description of the event.—WCW to L. E. Froom, December 13, 1934 (see also Selected Messages 3:465).3BIO 438.4

He wrote also of Ellen White's special interest in Zurich during the last week or two they were in Switzerland:3BIO 438.5

I was with Mother when we visited Zurich and I well remember how thoroughly her mind was aroused by seeing the old cathedral and the marketplace, and she spoke of them as they were in the days of Zwingli.3BIO 438.6

During her two years’ residence in Basel, she visited many places where events of special importance occurred in the Reformation days. This refreshed her memory as to what she had been shown and this led to important enlargement in those portions of the book dealing with Reformation days.— Ibid. (see also Ibid., 3:465).3BIO 439.1

In 1905, speaking to believers in Takoma Park, Maryland, W. C. White recalled one experience in Europe that indicated Ellen White's insight into Reformation history.3BIO 439.2

One Sabbath, at Basel, I was reading Wylie's History of Protestantism, telling about the experience of the Roman armies coming against the Bohemians, and how a large body of persecutors would see a little body of Protestants, and become frightened and beat a hasty retreat. As I read it to Mother, she interrupted me and told me a lot of things in the pages ahead, and told me many things not in the book at all. She said, “I never read about it, but the scene has been presented to me over and over again. I have seen the papal armies, and sometimes before they had come in sight of the Protestants, the angels of God would give them a representation of large armies, that would make them flee.”3BIO 439.3

I said, “Why did you not put that into your book?” She said, “I did not know where to put it.”—DF 105b, “W. C. White Statements Regarding Mrs. White and Her Work,” December 17, 1905.3BIO 439.4

In this connection, her account in The Great Controversy, 116, 117, will be read with interest.3BIO 439.5