Emotional Experiences

Ellen White was an exceptionally sensitive woman, open to all the human emotions. Her ability to verbalize her various experiences indicates an uncommon capacity for empathy, whether the experience was sad or elevating.MOL 73.9

Always a lover of the beautiful, her emotional response to the spectacular Alps, Colorado Rockies, a Norway sunset, or the Milan Cathedral reveals a depth of appreciation for beauty that pervades her writings.MOL 73.10

For example, in the summer of 1873, the Whites were seeking much overdue relaxation in Colorado. She reflected: “I love the hills and mountains and forests of flourishing evergreens. I love the brooks, the swift-running streams of softest water which come bubbling over the rocks, through ravines, by the side of the mountains, as if singing the joyful praise of God....MOL 73.11

“We have here in the mountains a view of the most rich and glorious sunset it was ever our privilege to look upon. The beautiful picture of the sunset, painted upon the shifting, changing canvas of the heavens by the great Master Artist, awakens in our hearts love and deepest reverence for God.” ^{38The Health Reformer, August, 1873.}MOL 73.12

After an early winter sunset in Norway, she wrote: “We were favored with a sight of the most glorious sunset it was ever my privilege to behold. Language is inadequate to picture its beauty. The last beams of the setting sun, silver and gold, purple, amber, and crimson, shed their glories athwart the sky, growing brighter and brighter, rising higher and higher in the heavens, until it seemed that the gates of the city of God had been left ajar, and gleams of the inner glory were flashing through.” This glorious experience required two pages to record. ^{39Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 220. For Ellen White’s description of her visit to the Milan Cathedral and of her trip through the magnificent Alps in 1886, see Arthur Delafield, Ellen G. White in Europe, pp. 175, 176 and 181-183.}MOL 73.13