8 A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White
operations, and then gave it up. By faith in God I was able to resist his
influence, so that it did not affect me in the least.
If I had a vision in meeting many would say that it was excitement,
and that some one mesmerized me. Then I would go away alone in the
woods, where no eye could see, or ear hear but God’s, and pray to him,
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and he would sometimes give me a vision there. I then rejoiced, and
told them what God had revealed to me alone, where no mortal could
influence me. But I was told by some that I mesmerized myself. O,
thought I, has it come to this that those who honestly go to God alone
to plead his promises, and to claim his salvation, are to be charged
with being under the foul and soul-damning influence of mesmerism?
Do we ask our kind Father in Heaven for “bread,” only to receive a
“stone,” or a “scorpion?” These things wounded my spirit, and wrung
my soul in keen anguish, well nigh to despair, while many would have
me believe that there was no Holy Ghost, and that all the exercises
that holy men of God have experienced were only mesmerism, or the
deceptions of Satan.
At this time there was fanaticism in Maine. Some refrained wholly
from labor, and disfellowshipped all those who would not receive
their views on this point, and some other things which they held to
be religious duties. God revealed these errors to me in vision, and
sent me to his erring children to declare them; but many of them
wholly rejected the message, and charged me with conforming to the
world. On the other hand, the Nominal Adventists charged me with
fanaticism, and I was falsely, and by some wickedly represented as
being the leader of the fanaticism that I was actually laboring to do
away. Different times were repeatedly set for the Lord to come, and
were urged upon the brethren.—But the Lord shewed me that they
would all pass by, for the time of trouble must come before the coming
of Christ, and that every time that was set, and passed by, would only
weaken the faith of God’s people. For this I was charged with being
with the evil servant, that said in his heart, “My Lord delayeth his
coming.”
All these things weighed heavily upon my spirits, and in the confu-
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sion I was sometimes tempted to doubt my own experience. And while
at family prayers one morning, the power of God began to rest upon
me, and the thought rushed into my mind that it was mesmerism, and
I resisted it. Immediately I was struck dumb, and for a few moments