March 11, [1849],1 The only source for this manuscript is a typewritten copy with the words “March 11” written on it. No year is indicated. There are good reasons, however, for assigning this document to 1849. According to a letter from Leonard Hastings, “Bro. and sister White made us their first visit in March, 1849.” That it was during the March 1849 visit and not the June 1850 or any subsequent visit that Ellen White had the vision recorded here, is apparent from the information about “the afflictions of Sister Hastings.” Elvira Hastings died in February 1850. See: Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts [vol. 2], pp. 110-112; W. [James White], “Our Tour East,” Advent Review, August 1850, p. 14.
Affliction of Mrs. Hastings [Elvira Hastings].2 Identity: The address on the letter reads “Elvira Hastings, New Ipswich, N.H.”
Previously unpublished. 1EGWLM 156.3
Vision of the struggle between good and evil forces over the life of Elvira Hastings. 1EGWLM 156.4
While engaged in prayer at the house of Brother Leonard Hastings [Leonard Hastings] of New Ipswich,3 According to Leonard Hastings, this was Ellen and James White's first visit to the Hastings home in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. They stayed about one week before returning to Dorchester, Massachusetts, and back to Maine. See: Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts [vol. 2], pp. 112, 113. Ellen White described Elvira Hastings as in a “wretched state of health” on this occasion. According to Leonard Hastings, “my wife had been afflicted with a severe illness for two succeeding winters.” About one year later, in February 1850, Mrs. Hastings died at age 42 of “cramp colic.” See: Ibid., pp. 110, 112; W. [James White], “Our Tour East,” Advent Review, August 1850, p. 14.
Then the angel pointed to the earth and shewed me a person who was short and thick. I saw Satan pouring upon this person a stream of darkness, as a sunbeam is poured forth from the sun, and as it came upon him he bloated. His head seemed larger than usual, and his face was red and much bloated. While in this state, Satan used this person as an agent to affect and afflict Sister Hastings. I saw that this was the cause of Sister Hastings’ sickness, and that the object of this person was to afflict unto death, so that his iniquity might be covered which might otherwise be exposed.5 In a letter to the Hastingses some weeks later on April 21, Ellen White used similar language in a more specific way. She wrote there of some “ministers who had rejected God's truth,” “professed Adventists who had rejected present truth,” as “agents” through whom “Satan was working.” “I saw that some of the agents of the devil were affecting the bodies of those they could not deceive. … Some … were even trying to afflict some of the saints unto death.” There is a possibility that the particular “agent” referred to here is Jacob Weston, an itinerant Adventist minister living in the same town as Mrs. Hastings (New Ipswich). According to Joseph Bates it was Weston who, under the pseudonym “Barnabas,” had written a series of letters against the Sabbath in the Adventist periodical The Bible Advocate. Jacob Weston subsequently became hostile to Bates over the latter's allegations that he had attempted to defraud C. Stowe of Washington, New Hampshire. In some way, the details of which are not clear, Elvira Hastings was also involved in the Weston-Bates imbroglio and became a target of Weston's ire. See: Ellen G. White, Lt 5, 1849 (Apr. 21); Joseph Bates to Leonard and Elvira Hastings, Apr. 7, 1848, Merlin D. Burt, “Sabbatarian Adventism From 1844 to 1849,” pp. 335, 336, 350, 351.
I saw that Satan had the full control of this person, and that others beside Sister Hastings were affected by him. I saw his garments all covered over with the blood of souls. I saw that this person was a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction, reserved for the seven last plagues, if God can bear with him until that time. 1EGWLM 157.1
I saw that the angels from God had hovered about Sister Hastings, and comforted and strengthened her, or life would have departed from her. I saw that it was time for God to work and deliver her. I also saw that if God's servants had united in prayer with strong and living faith with Sister Hastings in her dwelling, the power of the enemy would have been broken before this, and that now his power is completely broken. 1EGWLM 157.2