Shouting, Prostration, Swooning, Creeping

From time to time the charge is made that Ellen White in her early years participated in the common excesses of certain Protestant groups in the 1840s. Methodist camp meetings and church services, especially, were known for their enthusiasm expressed in “shoutings,” “swoonings,” “prostrations,” and “creepings.” ^{16Everett Dick, “The Millerite Movement 1830-1845; Land ed., Adventism in America, pp. 22, 32. See Appendix A.}MOL 471.1

As a young Methodist, Ellen Harmon probably shared some of this enthusiasm. But after her divine calling, she soon was shown that some of these practices could tend toward fanaticism.MOL 471.2

Soon after October 22, 1844, fanaticism increased among certain former Millerites, especially in the group that believed that Christ had indeed come to them spiritually on October 22, 1844. Ellen White recalled that some “thought it wrong to work.... Still others believed that the righteous dead had been raised to eternal life.... A few sought to cultivate a spirit of humility by creeping on the floor, like little children. Some would dance, and sing, ‘Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory,’ over and over again. Sometimes a person would jump up and down on the floor, with hands uplifted, praising God; and this would be kept up for as long as half an hour at a time.” ^{17Selected Messages 3:370, 371.}MOL 471.3

In the first few months of her early ministry, Ellen Harmon, the timid teenager, had to contend with grown men who refused to work and crept like children: “I told them plainly that this was not required; that the humility which God looked for ... was ... a Christlike life, not ... creeping on the floor.... God ordained that the beings He created should work. Upon this their happiness depends.” ^{18Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 86.}MOL 471.4

All Ellen White knew about her new duties as God’s messenger was to visit former Millerites who still believed in the significance (though misguided) of October 22, 1844, and share her message of hope. In her divine assignment, where else would she go to find people who would even listen to her? ^{19See Appendix K.}MOL 471.5

Directed by God, she continued to attend such meetings during 1845, but no records portray her as a participant in these fanaticisms or excessive enthusiasms. However, in response to later charges against her, she wrote that she “never crept as a religious duty, and never sanctioned or gave the slightest encouragement to this voluntary humility.” Further, she described those “very many instances where I was pressed and urged, wept over and prayed for by zealots to come to these manufactured tests and crosses. I utterly refused to submit my judgment, my sense of Christian duties, and the dignity we should ever maintain as followers of Jesus Christ, who were expecting to be translated to heaven by receiving the finishing touch of immortality.” ^{20Letter 2, 1874, cited in Manuscript Releases 8:229, 230.}MOL 471.6

Gradually Mrs. White saw the danger of excessive enthusiasm in worshiping God. At Paris, Maine, in 1850, she saw in vision that spiritual “exercises were in great danger of being adulterated.” How? By being orchestrated. “Therefore implicit confidence could not be placed in these exercises.”MOL 471.7

Her counsel continued: “I saw that we should strive at all times to be free from unhealthy and unnecessary excitement. I saw that there was great danger of leaving the Word of God and resting down and trusting in exercises.... I saw danger ahead.” ^{21Ms 11, 1850, cited in Manuscript Releases 13:299, 300.}MOL 471.8