Untitled article by John Nevins Andrews

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 8, 1867

A MISSTATEMENT CORRECTED.

By John Nevins Andrews

I HAVE learned from Bro. T. M. Steward, that certain Advent ministers in Wisconsin are making the statement that in sister White's earlier visions she saw that the dead are in a conscious state; and that she even brought back messages from the departed to their friends still living. I have had a personal acquaintance with sister White for more than twenty-two years, and have had an accurate knowledge of nearly every vision. This is especially true of her earlier visions. I am therefore prepared to bear testimony in this case, and I do hereby state most explicitly and unqualifiedly that the above assertion put forth against sister White, is without the slightest foundation in truth. Some of the earliest visions did, on the contrary expressly assert the fact that the saints who have fallen in death, are now asleep.

I would also add that to the best of my knowledge and belief, sister White was a believer in the doctrine of the sleep of the dead for a considerable period of time before her first vision was given. This doctrine was generally believed by the Adventists of Portland in 1844, of which city she was then a resident.

J. N. ANDREWS.

Berkshire, Vt., Sept. 19, 1867.