“In This I Did Wrong”

Now let us go back to September, 1867, and Testimony No. 12, with its twelve-page article titled “The Health Institute.” In this testimony Ellen White explained how, under pressure from the leaders in Battle Creek, she had prematurely released for publication Testimony No. 11, which called for a medical institution as an enterprise of the church, without the balancing counsels she should have put with it. Here is her statement, in later years sometimes misapplied:2BIO 204.1

I yielded my judgment to that of others and wrote what appeared in No. 11 in regard to the Health Institute, being unable then to give all I had seen. In this I did wrong. I must be allowed to know my own duty better than others can know it for me, especially concerning matters which God has revealed to me.2BIO 204.2

I shall be blamed by some for speaking as I now speak. Others will blame me for not speaking before. The disposition manifested to crowd the matter of the institute so fast has been one of the heaviest trials I have ever borne. If all who have used my testimony to move the brethren had been equally moved by it themselves, I should be better satisfied.... For the good of those at the head of the work, for the good of the cause and the brethren, and to save myself great trials, I have freely spoken.—Testimonies for the Church, 1:563, 564.2BIO 204.3

Earlier in this statement she declared that “the relation which I sustain to this work demands of me an unfettered expression of my views. I speak freely and choose this medium [Testimony No. 12] to speak to all interested.”—Ibid., 1:562, 563.2BIO 204.4