The Great Controversy Over Deletions in the Vision of 1844

By Dennis Hokama, Adventist Currents, July 1984, 26-30

The battles that have been fought over the deletions in Ellen White's vision of December 1844 have not been mere exercises in academic hair-splitting. And the battles have been bloody — because to a large extent the credibility and integrity of the Advent movement, its publishing work, and Ellen White herself, appear to hang upon the history of this vision. In a sense, the battle waged over this first postdisappointment vision is a microcosm of the history of the Adventist church.

The history of this vision includes the most serious charges the church has had to combat since its founding: the shut door heresy; mistaken visions; coverup and suppression of mistaken visions; dishonesty and lies by church leaders, scholars, and Ellen White herself; manipulation of the White writings by the church's publishing arm against the will of (or unbeknown to) the prophetess.

A Brief Background

Ellen White's first written account of her December 1844 vision appeared in the Day Star of January 24, 1846 (pp. 31-32), under the title of "Letter from Sister Harmon, Portland, Me., December 20, 1845." It appeared for the second time in print on April 6, 1846, as a broadside (one sheet with printing on only one side). Its third printing was in James White's tract A Word to the Little Flock May 30, 1847 (pp. 14-18), under the title "To the Remnant Scattered Abroad." In these first three printings, Ellen White's vision was reproduced without significant alteration. However, with the fourth printing, critical deletions were made. Approximately 19 percent of the vision's original text was missing when it appeared in the July 21, 1851, Review and Herald Extra. A few months later the vision appeared for the fifth time in a booklet published by the Whites, entitled A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Mrs. E. G. White. The same passages were missing from this printing. When the booklet was republished some thirty-one years later within the larger volume of Early Writings, it was this same reduced version of the vision which appeared; and so it has remained with subsequent editions of Early Writings.

Excluded with the 19 percent chaff discarded from the original text was a sentence that clearly appeared to support the "shut-door" theory of early Adventism. Speaking of these Adventists who later denied that the "midnight cry" (predicted October 22, 1844, return of Christ) movement was of God, she said in her first vision (December 1844):

The light behind them went out leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and they stumbled and got their eyes off the mark and lost sight of Jesus, and fell off the path down in the dark and wicked world below. It was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected. They fell along the path one after another . . .¹

The highlighted portion was among the deletions from the 1851 printings and thereafter. The discarding of this sentence apparently coincided with the early church's retreat from the "Sabbath and Shut-Door" banner, which they had carried proudly between 1846 and 1851.² But the deleted sentence in the 1844 vision was scarcely noticed amid the confusion caused by the publication of the booklet Experience and Views in 1851. Members were aghast over the exclusion of whole visions which they believed were central to the Sabbath and shut-door message. In 1906 Ellen White describes how her husband defused the crisis.

At one time in the early days of the message, Father Butler and Elder Hart became confused in regard to the testimonies. In great distress they groaned and wept but for some time they would not give a reason for their faithless speech and manner. Elder Hart referred to a small pamphlet that had been published as the visions of Sister White, and said that to his certain knowledge, some visions were not included. Before a large audience these brethren both talked strongly about their losing confidence in the work.

My husband handed the little pamphlet to Elder Hart and requested him to read what was printed on the title page. "A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Mrs. E. G. White," he read.

For a moment there was silence, and then my husband explained that we had been very short of means, and were able to print at first only a small pamphlet, and he promised the brethren that when sufficient means were raised, the visions should be published more fully in book form.

Elder Butler was deeply moved, and after the explanations had been made, he said, "Let us bow before God." Prayers, weeping and confessions followed, such as we have seldom heard.

Father Butler said, "Brother White, forgive me; I was afraid you were concealing from us some of the light we ought to have. Forgive me, Sister White." . . .³

Despite James White's improved financial situation during the remaining thirty years of his life, he never did keep his reassuring promise to Elders Butler and Hart. As the years passed and the church moved further away from its earlier shut-door stance, its leaders began to deny that such a view was ever held; and it became evident that the omissions and deletions in the 1851 printings were not coincidental. Despite the deletions from some visions (other visions were also tampered with), and the wholesale omission of entire visions which taught extreme shut-door positions, Experience and Views lapsed into obscurity. Church critics contended from time to time during the booklet's years of exile that it was because of its shut-door content, as well as other embarrassing teachings, that Experience and Views was allowed to go out of print. With respect to the publication itself, they charged that it attempted to save the credibility of the visions by deleting or editing away offending passages.

By the 1880s few members or leaders of the church had any knowledge of the circumstances which had confronted the fledgling church upon the publication of Experience and Views, and supposed that critics were getting away with blatantly false accusations when they charged the church with suppression. G. I. Butler, who was then president of the General Conference, decided that the critics could be silenced once and for all by republishing Experience and Views. D. M. Canright was in those days closely associated with Uriah Smith, editor of the Review and Herald. He describes the circumstances leading up to the decision to republish Experience and Views within the covers of Early Writings:

At that time Butler was president of the General Conference, president of the Publishing Association, etc. One day in 1880 he came into the office where Elder Smith and myself were. In high glee he said, "Those Western rebels say we have suppressed some of Sister White's earliest visions. I will stop their mouths, for I am going to republish all she ever wrote in those early visions." Elder White leaned forward, dropped his voice low, and said, "Butler, you better go a little slow." That was all. I did not understand what his warning meant, nor did Butler.

Soon Elder White died — in August 1881. Butler then went ahead, and in 1882 issued the present edition of "Early Writings."⁴

In the December 1882 Review and Herald, Butler proudly announced the publication of Early Writings:

Before me lies a neat volume of 270 pages, entitled, "Early Writings of Mrs. White." . . . These were the very first of the published writings of Sister White. Since they went out of print, many thousands have become interested in her writings. Many of these have greatly desired to have in their possession all she has written for publication. Efforts in all directions have been made to hunt up the little volume in question, and worn copies here and there have been obtained and held with great care. So strong was the interest to have these early writings reproduced that several years ago the General Conference recommended by a vote that they be republished . . . . It meets a want long felt.

There is another interesting feature connected with this matter. The enemies of this cause, who have spared no pains to break down the faith of our people in the testimonies of God's Spirit, and the interest felt in the writings of Sister White, have made all the capital possible from the fact that these early writings were not obtainable. They have said many things about our "suppressing" these writings as if we were ashamed of them. They have tried to make it appear that there was something objectionable about them that we feared would come to the light of day, and that we carefully kept them in the background. These lying insinuations have answered their purpose in deceiving some unwary souls. They now appear in their real character, by the publication of several thousand copies of this "suppressed" book, which our enemies pretended we were very anxious to conceal. They have claimed to be very anxious to obtain these writings to show up their supposed errors. They now have the opportunity . . .

A. C. Long of Marion, Iowa, immediately took the opportunity and published a sixteen-page pamphlet entitled "Comparison of the Early Writings of Mrs. White with Later Publications." From the contents of Butler's article, and the preface of Early Writings in which it was claimed that "no shadow of change has been made in any idea or sentiment of the original work, and verbal changes have been made under the author's own eye, and with her full approval," Long inferred the following claims:

1. That these "Early Writings" of Mrs. White were published under her eye and with her full approval.
2. That they contain all of her early visions.
3. That those who have claimed that certain portions of her early visions were "suppressed" are liars, since they are now all republished.

Long then proceeded to turn the tables on Butler as well as Mrs. White, accusing them both of mendacity by demonstrating that Early Writings did not contain all her visions; nor were those included the same as "the first of the published writings of Mrs. White." Long was essentially correct in his accusations, but his wording was a little careless. Butler had claimed that the book contained "the very first of the published writings," not all her early visions. Secondly, Butler did not directly say that Early Writing contained all she had written for publication. He said many "greatly desired to have . . . all she has written for publication," and that Early Writings "meets a want long felt."

The fact remained that Early Writings was not a reprint of her very first published writings. Neither did Early Writings "meet the want" of many who "greatly desired to have in their possession all she had written for publication." Those who wished to have undeleted visions would still have had to find — if they could — rare copies of A Word to the Little Flock and Present Truth, the precursor to the Review and Herald. Butler had evidently written the article in good faith and was shocked when it backfired. Canright noticed Long's devastating counterattack from his farm and wrote Butler a letter of inquiry regarding the alleged omissions in Early Writings. Uriah Smith, meanwhile, was under severe pressure from Ellen White to respond to Long's latest attack:

I have been waiting to see what you would do in putting something in the paper to vindicate the right. You have had ample time . . . . Why do you . . . keep entirely silent and let the dragon roar? . . . We are nearing the end . . . . What right have they to suppose, to conjecture, to misinterpret my words? To . . . make a false prophet . . .⁵

Under the circumstances, Smith read Canright's letter to Butler with some apparent amusement and wrote to Canright on 22 March 1883:

Dear Brother Canright: I was interested in your queries to Uncle George on the omissions in Early Writings. We have the Marion paper in exchange, and I think it must come down on him something like an avalanche; and I have a curiosity to know how he has answered it, I have no doubt the quotations are correct. I remember coming across the tome "A Word to the Little Flock" when we were in Rochester, but I have not seen a copy since, and did not know but "Experience and Views" contained the full text of the early visions. It seems to me that the Testimonies, practically, have come into such shape, that it is not of any use to try to defend the enormous claims that are now put forth for them. At least, after the unjust treatment I have received the past year, I feel no burden in that direction . . .⁶

Although embarrassed by Long's revealing response to the publication of Early Writings, Butler was in no mood to apologize. In a special Review and Herald Supplement issued on August 14, 1883, he and Elder J. H. Waggoner attacked Long for gross misrepresentation. Their articles are preceded by a quotation from Job 21:3: "Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on."

Referring to Long's three previously quoted conclusions, Waggoner wrote:

Except the first statement that the book, Experience and Views, was published with the approval of Sister White, the paragraph above quoted is an entire deception.

After exploiting Long's inaccurate wording, Waggoner attempted to defuse the impact of the deletions by flatly denying that there had been any change in church doctrine since the early visions were first published undeleted:

His (Long's) statement of the belief of the early Seventh-day Adventists is not truthful. It was made to show that they had an object in not republishing certain things, and that object was to hide from the public the fact that the visions at first taught certain doctrines (shut door) which are not now held by those who believe the visions. Now if we shall prove that that is not so, and that their statements to that effect are absolutely false, then there will remain no ground whatever for their accusations.

Butler at least conceded that he had been inaccurate in stating that Early Writings "were the very first of the published writings of Sister White." He stated that it was an honest mistake in that he had never before seen or known about the existence of A Word to the Little Flock. As for the deletions in the visions, he wrote:

But in those visions which had been published, it was thought some passages were personal, or related to matters which at the time of their publication were important, but had now become unimportant because of an entire change of circumstances, or for some other reason.

He denied, however, that there was anything shameful or heretical in the passages that were omitted. Furthermore, since A Word to the Little Flock was now going to be available for sale by the Review and Herald, he felt that the charge of suppression should be forever silenced, even though the deletions remained.

Ellen White's Explanation(s) of the Deletions

In the preface to her December 1844 vision as published in the Review and Herald of July 21, 1851 (the first time it appeared in deleted form), Ellen White had already made some reference to the deletions that were made:

Here I will give the view that was first published in 1846. In this view I saw only a very few events of the future. More recent views have been more full. I shall therefore leave out a portion and prevent repetition.

When Experience and Views was published only a few months after this in 1851, her footnote in the December 1844 vision was a little misleading:

This view was given soon after the great Advent disappointment in 1844, and was first published in 1846. Only a few of the events of the future were seen at that time. Later views have been more full (bottom of p. 13).

One might easily form the impression here that with each publication, material would be added to the visions rather than removed. Her only admitted motive for deletions was to "prevent repetition." Meanwhile, back in Healdsburg, California, Ellen White had also read A. C. Long's charges and decided to respond. In what eventually came to be known as Manuscript 4 - 1883, Ellen White made her most detailed and direct response to the deletions in the December 1844 vision. Since it is her most complete statement, and since it is by the author herself, it seems reasonable that this document should be the centerpiece of any discussion of the deletions:

My attention has recently (1883) been called to a sixteen-page pamphlet published by [A.] C. [Long] of Marion, Iowa entitled, "Comparison of the Early Writings of Mrs. White With Later Publications." The writer states that portions of my earlier visions, as first printed, have been suppressed in the work recently published under the title Early Writings of Mrs. E. G. White, and he conjectures as a reason for such suppression that these passages teach doctrines now repudiated by us as a people.

. . . Before I notice separately the passages which are said to have been omitted, it is proper that several facts be stated . . .

In our frequent change of location in the earlier history of the publishing work, and then in almost incessant travel . . . I lost all trace of the first published works. When it was decided to publish Early Writings at Oakland last fall, we were obliged to send to Michigan to borrow a copy of Experience and Views. And in doing this we supposed that we had obtained an exact copy of the earliest visions as first published. This we reprinted, as stated in the preface to Early Writings, with only verbal changes from the original work.

And here I will pause to state that any of our people having in their possession a copy of any or all of my first views, as published prior to 1851, will do me a great favor if they will send them to me without delay. I promise to return the same as soon as a copy can be produced.

So far from desiring to withhold anything that I have ever published, I would feel great satisfaction in giving to the public every line of my writings that has ever been printed.

. . . The articles given in Early Writings did pass under my eye; and as the edition of Experience and Views published in 1851 was the earliest which we possessed, and as we had no knowledge of anything additional in papers or pamphlets of earlier date, I am not responsible for the omissions which are said to exist.⁷

Ellen White makes the following claims in the preceding document:

1. By 1882 Ellen White and the Oakland members had lost every copy of her writings containing the December 1844 vision, including the 1851 booklet. (She makes specific mention of the deletions in her 1844 vision later on in the MS): "I lost all trace of the first published works. When it was decided to publish Early Writings at Oakland last fall, we were obliged to send to Michigan to borrow a copy of Experience and Views."
2. Ellen White personally reviewed the 1882 edition of Early Writings before it went to press: "The articles given in Early Writings did pass under my eye . . ."
3. Ellen White assumed that the 1851 version was unchanged from the earlier accounts: "And in doing this [obtaining a copy of Experience and Views] we supposed that we had obtained an exact copy of the earliest visions as first published."
4. Ellen White assumed no responsibility for her memory's failure to recall any deletions in Early Writings, since it was her assumption that the 1851 edition reproduced in 1882 contained a faithful and original account of her December vision: ". . . as we had no knowledge of anything additional in papers or pamphlets of earlier date, I am not responsible for the omissions which are said to exist."
5. Ellen White desired to give the public every line that she had ever printed: "So far from desiring to withhold anything that I have ever published, I would feel great satisfaction in giving to the public every line of my writing that has ever been printed."

We have now seen Ellen White take three different stances in regard to deletions that were made in her early visions:

1. In 1851 she wrote that she was leaving out a portion to prevent repetition (Review and Herald Extra, July 21, 1851).
2. In 1883 she denied all responsibility for those same omissions and wanted them restored (Manuscript 4, 1883).
3. In 1906 she remembered telling critical members in 1851 that the omissions were unavoidable due to lack of funds (Letter 225, 1906).

Before analyzing these statements, let us first survey the reasons that apologists have given for these same deletions over the years. While it will not be comprehensive, it is believed to be representative.

Explanations Given by Church Apologists

1. Uriah Smith, 1866:

On June 12, 1866, Uriah Smith began a six-part series entitled "The Visions — Objections Answered," in which he answered thirty-nine objections that had recently been raised by Snook and Brinkerhoff, ex-Seventh-day Adventists from Marion, Iowa. In the July 31 issue he discussed objection 39, which dealt with suppression. He specifically acknowledged the deletions in the December 1844 vision and even gave the page number in A Word to the Little Flock. Under point number three of his recapitulation, he provided his explanation for the deletion:

Portions which are claimed to have been suppressed from evil design are simply some things which related to particular and local circumstances, and having accomplished their object, have not been inserted when that which is of general interest has been republished.

What is of particular interest here is the fact that Smith seems to have forgotten in his 1883 letter to Canright the very deletions he had explained away in 1866. It may also be worth noting that his explanation does not agree with either of Ellen White's.

2. G. I. Butler, 1883:

At the time of the publication, he apparently did not know that there were any deletions, as noted earlier. In the August 14 "Supplement" in which he attempted to refute Long's accusations, he gives the following explanation for the deletions:

But in those visions which had been published it was thought some passages were personal, or related to matters which at the time of their publication were important, but had now become unimportant because of an entire change of circumstances, or for some similar reason. Hence it was not thought these were of sufficient importance to demand their republication, and some omissions were made.

Note again, as with Uriah Smith, Butler's explanation conflicts with the one given by Ellen White, and in the same year (1883). Thus it would appear that he did not consult Ellen White before printing his defense — a curiosity in itself.

3. A. G. Daniells, circa 1905:

Daniells wrote an undated pamphlet entitled The Shut Door and the Close of Probation.⁸ On pages 15-17 he specifically addresses the deletions in the December 1844 vision:

The writer [Daniells] sincerely believes that the statement as it reads, "It was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected," does not, taken apart from the context, express the view of the author as clearly as was intended. This opinion is strengthened by the action of Mrs. White when, in revising the printed message, she eliminated this sentence. . . . Thus it will be seen that the sentence which seems to be so perplexing to some was eliminated by the author herself. She evidently [why didn't he ask her?] saw that it could be misinterpreted to conflict with the rest of the message and eliminated it.

Daniells departs from the traditional line of defense completely by acknowledging that there was something less than satisfactory in the actual wording of the deleted sentence. Up until now, the fault had always been in the eye of the critic. He probably had not seen Mrs. White's Manuscript 4 (1883), and therefore contradicts Ellen White's statements completely. On page 9 of the same pamphlet, referring to the same deletion, Daniells inadvertently refutes her claim of making the deletions to avoid repetition:

This statement is all there is in the entire message that can be interpreted to mean that there was no longer salvation for sinners; and this is used by some as evidence that Mrs. White claimed to have been shown in vision that the whole world of sinners had at that time been rejected by the Lord, and that there was no salvation for anyone who was not already within the fold. . . . The truth is that such interpretation is not in harmony with the general tenor of the message, as we shall see by a careful examination of all it contains.

If the deleted sentence is "all there is" in the entire message related to the shut-door doctrine, then how could Ellen White have justified its elimination to "prevent repetition?"

4. F. D. Nichol, 1951:

Nichol edited the Defense Literature Committee-sponsored Ellen White and Her Critics, the church's foremost defense against detractors. On pages 281-283, Nichol discusses motives for the deletions:

1. Deletions may be made to save expense. (He then goes on to quote from EW letter 225, 1906.)
2. The longer an author writes on related themes, the more likely he is to repeat certain ideas. This is inevitable. That Mrs. White did so is no strange thing. And how would a prophet or anyone else remove repetitions? By deletions! (Then he goes on to quote from her preface to her vision as printed in the July 21, 1851, Review and Herald Extra.)

Nichol reasons that since there were many other visions which dealt with the same theme (the shut door?), this passage could justifiably be considered repetitious. He denies, however, that any of the visions actually teach or confirm shut-door theology.

5. Arthur White, 1971:

In 1971 Arthur White prepared an appendix to his upcoming six-volume biography of his grandmother, entitled Ellen White and the Shut Door Question. In that document White provides his attempt to explain the deletions:

Then, it may be asked, why were the three lines omitted from the printing of the vision in Mrs. White's first book? In introducing it she gives a very general reason for all omissions in the account as published in 1851, but beyond this, the author herself had the right, yea more, the responsibility, to choose that which she would present in her book in order to correctly convey what was revealed to her. If there were phrases which were capable of distortion or interpretation to mean that which she did not intend to teach, she had the privilege and even the duty of handling the matter in such a way that what was printed should correctly reflect her intentions.⁹

Arthur White essentially agrees with Daniells but contradicts Nichol by asserting that the deletions were made, not to prevent repetition, but to avoid misunderstandings. He also appears to contradict all his grandmother's explanations.

6. Robert Olson, 1981:

When his One Hundred and One Questions on the Sanctuary and on Ellen White was published in 1981, he became the church's first spokesman to admit that Ellen White's early visions were, after all, interpreted by the pioneers (including Ellen White herself) as teaching the shut-door doctrine. He matter-of-factly explains the deletions by saying:

In order to avoid further misunderstanding when she published her 1846 broadside in her first book in 1851, she dropped out the 'wicked world' phrase.¹⁰

Olson insists, however, that it was not the visions themselves which taught the shut door, but faulty interpretations of them by Ellen White.

An Analysis of the Evidence

1. One striking observation is that none of these apologists ever took Ellen White's explanations for the deletions seriously while she was living, or after she died. It is remarkable that neither Smith, Butler, nor Daniells evidently felt it was necessary or relevant to ask the author about the deletions in her own published works. Nichol, White, and Olson all wrote after her death; but all were undoubtedly familiar with Manuscript 4 (1883) in which she denied responsibility for the deletions and claimed that she wished to give the public every line she had ever printed.¹¹ Yet they authoritatively assert that she made the deletions, and did so because she did not wish for the public to have certain lines she had printed because they were causing embarrassment.

2. It appears almost incomprehensible that by 1882 there was not one leader in the church who was familiar with the events and literature of the movement's early history. This is a church that glories in the recounting, however glossed, of its history; and yet the united testimony of Smith, Butler, and Ellen White is that they had a hard time finding Experience and Views published in 1851 — let alone any documents that preceded it. Ellen White was not even able to procure a copy of A Word to the Little Flock by the time she was writing her 1883 response. Uriah Smith confirmed in his 1866 series (July 31) that the Review and Herald office did not have copies of Present Truth, which was the forerunner of the Review and Herald (1849-1850). Yet the word "review" in the title Review and Herald, referred to the fact that its function was to constantly review how God had led in the movement's past.

3. There can be little doubt that this dearth of early documents made it easier for church leaders to promote a revised mystical history more befitting God's remnant church. By the time the old documents were unwillingly rediscovered thirty years later, the mythical history of the church was so entrenched in the minds of the believers that their misunderstanding was superimposed on the early documents.

4. It is one thing for Smith and Butler to forget that there had been deletions made in Experience and Views (1851); it is quite another for Ellen White, the author, to forget. This was not just another vision; it was her very first vision. It established her as a prophet. Was she unable to detect that 19 percent of her vision was missing as it "passed under her eye?" Since no one bothered to consult her afterward in regard to the deletions, is it likely that those same men would solicit her review before publishing Early Writings?

5. It is an interesting coincidence that all of this came to a head the year after James White died (1881). Or is it? If Canright's account is accurate, James White seemed uneasy about Butler's 1880 desire to publish the earliest writings of his wife as originally printed. Early Writings was the first crisis Ellen White had to face after her husband died. Was it James who had quietly kept the early documents from surfacing all those years? Did James have a major role in making the deletions, perhaps almost without his wife's active participation? If so, then her bewilderment in 1883 over the deletions is more readily understandable.

6. What control did Ellen White exercise over the publication of her own writings? Assuming that Manuscript 4 (1883) expressed her true feelings about the deletions in Early Writings, then the answer appears to be "very little." For the editions that have come forth since 1882 have all ignored her wish to give the public every line she wrote in her first published visions. Considering that apparently no one even consulted her in the crisis over her visions in 1883, and that if they had, they would have found her just as much in the dark as the rest of the leaders, it is not likely that she was in a position to control her writings.

7. Why was Manuscript 4 (1883) not made public until 1934? It may not be known for sure, of course, but a few things seem evident. It would have been embarrassing for the members to discover that Early Writings, published to refute the charge of suppression, was itself full of deletions that were unauthorized by their prophet. It would have also been embarrassing to let the critics discover that Ellen White herself was claiming surprise at the deletions that had been found. Perhaps her manuscript was unsolicited and therefore rejected by the Review and Herald. Finally, it is possible that they didn't believe her.