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Messenger of the Lord

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    Not a Scrapbook

    But The Desire of Ages is not a “scrapbook” of choice devotional thoughts; Mrs. White remained in control of the final product. Not only did she approve all editorial adjustments, she provided the general scheme and the specific topics that unfolded that scheme. She maintained her independence and thus the “sources were her slaves, never her master.” 59Fred Veltman, “The Desire of Ages Project: the Conclusions,” Ministry, Dec. 1990, p. 13.MOL 451.3

    As one in control, Ellen White cast the mark of originality over The Desire of Ages.60“Ellen White could write. She obviously had the ability to express her thoughts clearly. She was not slavishly dependent upon her sources, and the way she incorporated their content clearly shows that she recognized the better literary constructions. She knew how to separate the wheat from the chaff.” Ibid., p. 12. One of her main skills, one of her literary “fingerprints,” was her remarkable ability to be selective. 61See p. 112 for a discussion of a prophet’s gift of selectivity in using source materials. For example, whenever her sources used hyperboles and literary extravagances, whenever they strayed into curiosities or sideline thoughts, she avoided being diverted, but stayed with her own purpose for using that source. 62In concluding his research on The Great Controversy, Donald R. McAdams wrote: “One point remains. Does the acknowledgment of such borrowing deny the originality of Ellen White? Not at all.... Any honest critic must come away from a reading of Great Controversy impressed with the power of its message. I have not attempted to show the creative originality of Great Controversy in this study because it is a point that does not need to be proven, and because my purposes were necessarily quite different. But as one who has studied Great Controversy carefully I can testify to the originality of the book.... Ellen White, guided by the Holy Spirit, has created a book, which in its entirety cannot be missed [sic] for anything else but a work of unique power.... All that Great Controversy did for the early Advent believers it can still do for us. We must read it according to the purpose for which it was written and not damage its effectiveness by making claims for it that can only result in destroying the faith of many who might otherwise respond to its message.” McAdams, “E. G. White and the Protestant Historians,” pp. 231-234.MOL 451.4

    Further, using someone else’s words does not imply that that person’s thought is also adopted. Perhaps more biographies have been written about Jesus than any other person. Such authors generally use the same Biblical language. But a comparative study of these biographies quickly reveals that vastly different meanings are expressed with essentially the same words. The reverse is also true—the same meanings can be conveyed through different verbal expressions. 63Veltman, “Project,” p. 907.MOL 451.5

    Even more important than stylistic selectivity was Ellen White’s ability to avoid the doctrinal errors that she perceived in her sources. It did not matter: regardless of her needs at the moment, (whether theological, devotional, narrative, etc.) she used her materials to enhance her theological thought, not to gather material to formulate her theological thought. 64“The sections of the narrative where the work of God, of the angels, or of Satan and his angels, are described; where the great controversy motif is discussed; and passages of moralizing or devotional appeals occur; are more likely to contain Ellen White’s independent comment than the narrative, historical, or Biblical portions of the text.” Veltman, “Project,” p. 931. “Sources seem to be employed more often to provide background and descriptive comment than for devotional and evangelical content .... One is more apt to find Ellen White’s independent comment in the moralizing or-theologizing commentary.” Ibid., p. 900. Dr. J. H. Kellogg, in his preface to Mrs. White’s Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene (1890), noted: “The guidance of infinite wisdom is as much needed in the discerning between truth and error as in the evolution of new truths.” p. iv.MOL 451.6

    Another “fingerprint” identifying the Ellen White style is “found in the proportion of commentary given to devotional, moral, or Christian appeals or lessons that usually appear at the end of a chapter. 65Veltman, The Desire of Ages, 13. “It is among her devotional commentary and throughout her presentation of what I have called ‘spiritual realities’ that we are more likely to find her independent hand at work.” Veltman did caution that his “research did not survey” all the possible sources in the nineteenth century and thus he could not “establish whether her apparent independence is owing to her originality or to the limits of our investigation.”—Ibid. Mrs. White’s primary reason for writing was to lead her readers to Jesus, especially through making clearer what God is like. While working on The Desire of Ages, she wrote to her son, W. C. White, about the topics that “burden my mind, ... the subjects of the life of Christ, His character representing the Father, the parables essential for us all to understand and practice the lessons contained in them.” 66Selected Messages 3:116.MOL 451.7

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