I have been wanting to write you for some time but a multitude of cares has hindered me. I have not forgotten your kindness to us, No, no. But we have passed through trials and suffering.1EGWLM 443.1

Dear Anna [Anna White]²

Identity: Anna White, James White's sister, who had lived with the Whites in Rochester, New York, for the previous two years. Already in poor health on arrival, she had died of tuberculosis two weeks earlier on November 30, 1854, age 25.

See: Obituary: “Anna White,” Review, Dec. 12, 1854, p. 135. Ellen White gives further detail on the last days of Anna White in Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts [vol. 2], pp. 193, 194.

sleeps in Jesus. For weeks before she died she was entirely helpless and had to be lifted from six to nine times a day, and for months she could not walk without help. Oh, it has been a fearful scene of suffering we have passed through. Anna died a hard death. Oh, how my mind has suffered. My feelings have been intense. Nathaniel [Nathaniel White]^{3
Identity: Nathaniel White, brother of Anna White and James White, had died the previous year, on May 6, 1853, also in the Whites’ home in Rochester.
See: [James White], A Brief Account of the Last Sickness and Death of Nathaniel White.} lies low in the grave. Anna sleeps in Jesus.1EGWLM 443.2

I have been very fearful, yes greatly alarmed, that the disease that has preyed upon Nathaniel and Anna is preying upon James [James Springer White].⁴

“After Anna's death, my husband's health became very poor. He was troubled with cough and soreness of lungs. … He seemed to be fast following Nathaniel and Anna to a consumptive's grave.”

See: Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts [vol. 2], pp. 194, 195.

He has been afflicted in the same way and unless he is speedily relieved he will go in the same way. We have prayed and wrestled with God, and are still holding on to His promises. We have set apart noon in this family for a season of prayer especially for James. We believe God will work for him. Pray for him especially.1EGWLM 443.3

Henry's [Henry Nichols White, aged 7] health is good. Edson [James Edson White, aged 5] is not very well. Baby [William Clarence White, born August 29, 1854] seems to be in perfect health. He is a great fat boy. Is three months and a half old and he weighs 17 pounds [7.7 kilograms]. He is good natured, seldom cries, is very playful and active. He has but one fault; that is, he is afraid of singing.⁵

Ellen White's relationship with her sons and their early training is discussed in Jerry Moon, W. C. White and Ellen G. White, pp. 34-54; George R. Knight, Walking With Ellen White, pp. 79-90.

My health is quite good for me. But James, poor James, I think he must leave the work sometimes and have quiet rest. I fear at times his life will fall a sacrifice to his incessant labors.^{6
Some weeks later, seemingly at the end of his tether, James White expressed some of the pressures he and Ellen were under: “The care of a large family, and of the Review, Instructor, and Tracts, has fallen principally on us. In this time we have traveled and labored in the churches about one third of the time. This amount of care and labor, together with protracted sickness and deaths in our family, has brought us very near the grave. In this prostrated condition we have been saddened with pecuniary embarrassment, and the unreasonableness of “false brethren.” Our usual hours of confinement to our business in past time have been from 14 to 18 out of the 24. This has well nigh ruined our health.”
See: “The Office,” Review, Feb. 20, 1855, p. 182. For a survey of the problems facing James White at this time, see Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Early Years, pp. 301, 302, 304-310, 316-318.} I ask again your prayers. I do want to see you very much. I have about as much as I can do to take care of my three children. You have seen Henry, well Edson has more life and roughery than Henry, so you must know my hands are full.1EGWLM 443.4

January 9, 1855. You see the above has been written for some time before I finished it. I made a visit to Mill Grove [New York], and have but just returned. We are as well as usual. Baby weighs 19 pounds [8.6 kilograms], is a fat, healthy boy, perfectly good-natured, seldom cries. My health is quite good except a trouble of bloating which makes me feel unpleasant. I weigh 150 pounds [68 kilograms]. I am very grateful to the friends for their donations to me. I will try to use it just right, knowing it is the Lord's money. You thought of sending a box of dried fruit; it would come very acceptably. Can you get some spikenard? [You] need not preserve it in sugar; send it dry. James ate a part of that you sent to poor Anna and thought it did him good. Many of our friends recommend a constant use of it to James as very healing and useful for the lungs.⁷

American spikenard was a traditional frontier remedy in the old Northwest. According to John Caruso, “The prescription for pneumonia was the same as that of any cough: large quantities of a syrup consisting principally of spikenard and elecampane.”

That Ellen White is seeking for an herbal remedy for James's sickness (in addition to the daily prayer sessions mentioned earlier in the letter) may seem anomalous given the many accounts of faith healings among Sabbatarian Adventists from the earliest days of the movement. Clearly, however, the Whites were not averse to the use of natural remedies, as the following extracts illustrate. “We gave remedies with no success” (Life Sketches, p. 243). “My child grew feeble. We had used simple herbs, but they had no effect” (Life Sketches, p. 253). “I suffered for about one week, nothing seemed to give me relief” (Lt 9, 1853 [Dec. 5]).

There are indications that the use of natural remedies was a contentious issue among some Adventists in the 1850s. Speaking of “roots and herbs,” L. V. Masten exclaimed in the Review, “Let such as have no faith use them! I am fully persuaded that God is well pleased to hear prayer for the sick.” On the other hand, D. Hewitt approved of the use of “harmless roots and vegetables” as remedies while warning against the “many kinds of medicine now in use, [which are] deleterious and poison.”

A vision received by Ellen White in 1853 sanctioned the use of “beneficial” herbs: “I did see that Brother Hart had pressed the abstinence of herbs in case of sickness too far. I saw that it was right to use herbs that are beneficial for the use of men, but the poisonous herbs—tobacco, etc.—it was not right to use, because it was injuring and breaking down the constitution” (Lt 11, 1853 [Dec. 3]).

See: John Anthony Caruso, The Great Lakes Frontier, p. 331; James White and Ellen G. White, Life Sketches (1880), pp. 243, 253; L. V. Masten, “Faith,” Review, Oct. 4, 1853, p. 101; D. Hewitt, “Faith and Medicine,” Review, Oct. 9, 1856, p. 182.

John Thomas^{8
This person has not been identified.} and James need to use it freely.1EGWLM 444.1

I want to see you very much. Oh, shall I have the privilege?1EGWLM 444.2

James says ask them if they can get some spikenard and send me. Much love to all the dear children of God.1EGWLM 445.1

From your unworthy sister.1EGWLM 445.2

Picture: John Loughborough and his wife, Mary. Courtesy of the Center for Adventist Research.1EGWLM 445

Published in RH

Lt 6, 1854