Chapter 6
451
do not receive physical or mental training” (
Selected Messages 2:420,
421
).
Then there is another area where counsel was given. This is in
bringing together in marriage men and women of different ethnic
and cultural backgrounds. Four such presentations are a matter of
manuscript and published record. Two of the four statements on this
point appear in this volume, on pages 343 and 344. These were penned
in 1896 and 1912, respectively, and were selected for publication in this
volume because they presented the basic principles involved and thus
reveal why such marriages should not be encouraged. Such unions, it
is declared, could easily create “controversy and confusion.” Another
reason she set forth for discouraging such marriages seems to be the
“disadvantages” which they impose upon the offspring, and this could
lead to “a feeling of bitterness toward the parents who have given them
this lifelong inheritance.” [Note: of the other two statements, the first
presentation of counsel on this point appears in the heart of a basic
appeal made by Ellen White on March 21, 1891, to the leaders of the
church to enter upon a work for the colored people in the United States.
See the full statement in
The Southern Work, 1966 edition, 9-18
. In
this she drew in bold, unmistakable lines, the brotherhood of mankind
and made clear that in worship all stood in equality before God. At
the same time she gave voice to words of caution. In this statement,
read by her to church leaders, we find these lines:
“Sin rests upon us as a church because we have not made greater
effort for the salvation of souls among the colored people.... You have
no license from God to exclude the colored people from your places of
worship. Treat them as Christ’s property, which they are, just as much
as yourselves. They should hold membership in the church with the
white brethren. Every effort should be made to wipe out the terrible
wrong which has been done them. At the same time we must not carry
things to extremes and run into fanaticism on this question. Some
would think it right to throw down every partition wall and intermarry
with the colored people, but this is not the right thing to teach or to
practice.”—
The Southern Work, 15
.
The other presentation on this point is a letter of counsel, written
January 8, 1901, to a young man who entertained plans that would have
resulted in marriage of one of the caucasian race with one of the negro
race. Its counsels are those embodied in the similar communication of