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Daughters of God
Unfortunately, James never completely recovered from his illness.
He had some good days, but these were intermixed with periods of
depression. A comment made by the president of the General Con-
ference two years after James White’s death indicates the charitable
interpretation that his close associates placed on his illness-induced
actions:
“Our dear Brother White thought we were his enemies because we
did not see things as he did. I have never laid up anything against that
man of God, that noble pioneer who labored so hard for this cause.
I attributed it all to disease and infirmity.”—G. I. Butler to J. N.
Andrews, May 25, 1883
.
This overview of the circumstances under which Ellen White wrote
the four letters to Lucinda Hall (May 10-17, 1876) is brief, but we
believe it provides a needed perspective for readers who examine the
only letters that Ellen White requested to be burned
.
Ellen G. White Estate, August 6, 1987
.
Dear Sister Lucinda,
We received your letter last evening. We also received one from
James. Lucinda, I have no idea now of exchanging a certainty for an
uncertainty. I can write more, and am free. Should I come east, James’
happiness might suddenly change to complaining and fretting
.
I am
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thoroughly disgusted with this state of things, and do not mean to place
myself where there is the least liability of its occurring. The more I
think of the matter the more settled and determined I am, unless God
gives me light, to remain where I am. I can never have an opportunity
such as God has favored me with at the present. I must work as God
should direct. I plead and entreat for light. If it is my duty to attend
the camp meetings, I shall know it
.
Mary is now secured. I may lose her if I should go east. Satan has
hindered me for long years from doing my writing, and now I must
not be drawn off. I can but dread the liability of James’ changeable
moods, his strong feelings, his censures, his viewing me in the light he
does, and has felt free to tell me his ideas of my being led by a wrong
spirit, my restricting his liberty, et cetera. All this is not easy to jump
over and place myself voluntarily in a position where he will stand in
my way and I in his
.