Spirit of Profits:
Ellen White's Shocking Shakedown of the Burwells

By Dirk Anderson, 2026

In January 1857, Anthony and Achsah Burwell were grief-stricken. The previous year, they had buried two of their three children — Charles, age 18, and Francis, age 20 — within months of each other. Into that open wound, Ellen White inserted a letter. It was not a letter of comfort. It was a financial demand dressed in prophetic robes, telling the grieving couple that God had killed their children to loosen their grip on their farm — and warning them that if they didn't hand over their property, the Almighty would finish the job.

Who Were the Burwells?

Anthony Lee Burwell (1806–1873) and his wife Achsah (Hinsdale) Burwell (1810–1886) were early Adventist converts — faithful, earnest participants in the Millerite movement who embraced the Sabbath sometime between 1850 and 1852. In 1856, they relocated from their previous home to Parma, Michigan, in Jackson County, near Battle Creek. It was a sound move. Their property doubled in value around the time of that relocation. According to the 1860 Federal Census, Anthony Burwell was listed as a farmer with real estate valued at $6,000 and a personal estate of $1,500.¹

In 2025 dollars, that real estate is worth roughly $218,000, and his personal estate approximately $55,000.² He was not a tycoon. He was a hardworking Adventist farmer who had built himself a comfortable life. That is precisely what made him a target.

The Burwells had three children. In 1856 — the same year they made their move to Michigan and presumably their fresh start — their oldest son Charles (18) and oldest daughter Francis (20) both died.³ That left one surviving child: Anna. The family had just absorbed the kind of loss that breaks people, the kind that leaves parents lying awake wondering what they did wrong, wondering what God meant by it. This is the moment Ellen White chose to pounce on them.

The Letter: God Killed Your Children to Free Up Your Wallet

In January 1857, just weeks after the deaths of Charles and Francis, White penned Letter 1, 1857 to the Burwells. It is one of the most disturbing documents in the White Estate's files because of the sheer audacity of its manipulation. Every sentence is intent on financial extraction—dressed up as spiritual counsel.

White begins her fundraising pitch by deriding the family for not fully believing the Advent "message." This message is no longer just about the Sabbath and the imminent return of Christ. The message is now about sacrificing your property and giving it to the Whites:

When you really [believe] this message the effect upon you will be to separate from the world, live out your faith, sell that you have, give alms, and lay up for yourselves a treasure in the heavens.⁴

Standard fare. Give me your money. But then comes the passage that should make every reader stop and read it twice:

God has come very near unto you when you were at a great distance from Him. He took two idols from you that you might draw near unto Him and that God alone might be exalted and reign supreme in your heart, and that your eye might be single to His glory. These children were snatched away to save you and her [Achsah].⁵

Read that again. Slowly. Charles, age 18. Francis, age 20. Gone within months of each other. And Ellen White — armed with what she claimed was divine revelation — told their parents that God had deliberately killed their children because their parents loved their farm too much to fork it over to the Whites. The children were "idols." They had to be removed so the Burwells would stop clinging to their property and hand it over to the cause.

Here is a claim of direct prophetic knowledge about the eternal purposes behind a family tragedy — deployed at maximum psychological vulnerability for maximum financial effect. In a letter virtually devoid of any comfort for the grieving parents, she suggests the deaths were somehow the fault of the parents who "idolized" them. She weaponized their deaths as leverage in her ploy to acquire their wealth.

She was not done:

From what God has shown me, I fear your property will shut you out of heaven, because you love it, whether you realize it or not, better than anything else. A terrible calamity came upon you, yet it has not had the effect that God designed it should, to wean you from the world. Your possessions are still dear to you... Every idol, brother and sister, is not yet sacrificed with you, and if there is one idol left, whatever that idol be, it will shut you out of heaven.⁶

What a masterpiece of coercion! White may not have been competent at theology or prophetic predictions, but she had one thing going for her: she was a master manipulator! God killed your children to get your attention. And your money. You still haven't taken the hint. Therefore your remaining attachment to your property — your farm, your livelihood, the product of your labor — will now send you to hell. Grief was the setup. The farm was the target. Heaven and hell were the closing argument.

Let us be precise about what is happening here. Ellen White is telling two bereaved parents, weeks after burying their second child: God murdered your children as a financial object lesson for you, the lesson is not yet working, and if you don't divest your property, you will join your children in death — but not in the resurrection.

She attempted to reprogram the Burwells to believe that their possessions were a danger to them:

Your possessions are a snare to you and I fear you will be taken in the snare and it will be impossible to escape. Make haste to get ready, for the days of preparation are few.⁷

As any good con artist would do, she attempted to create a sense of urgency by warning them that time was short.

A Cold, Heartless Letter

Shockingly, there's not single expression of sympathy in the entire heartless letter for the terrible grief they were going through after the loss of two children.

Paul states that "one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort" (1 Cor. 14:3 NIV). That is the job description of a real prophet. Ellen had not a single word of comfort. What Ellen did was the precise opposite of every word in that verse. She did not strengthen the Burwells — she told them their farm would crush them. She did not encourage them — she told them she greatly feared they would never develop the spirit of sacrifice. She did not comfort them — she told them God had deliberately killed their children as a financial object lesson. If 1 Corinthians 14:3 is the standard by which a prophet is measured, Ellen White's letter to the Burwells was not merely a prophetic failure. It was the antithesis of the biblical commission, deployed with precision against two of the most vulnerable people in her congregation.

The Vision at Monterey: A Public Amplification

The private letter alone would be damning enough. But White was not finished with the Burwells — or with wealthy SDA farmers in general. Nine months later, at a conference in Monterey, Michigan, on October 8, 1857, she delivered a vision that amplified the same message publicly, with rhetorical embellishments that make the private letter look restrained by comparison.⁸

The Monterey vision, later published in Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, pages 169–176, is worth examining in detail because it shows how White transformed a private shakedown into a systematic financial doctrine applicable to all wealthy Adventists.

First, the threat for those who hold back from God's cause:

But if opportunities are presented to the brethren to use their property to the glory of God and the advancement of His cause, and they withhold it, it will be a cause of stumbling to them. In the day of trouble that which was their hoarded treasure will be an offense unto them. Then all opportunities will be past for using their substance to the glory of God, and in anguish of spirit they will cast it from them to the moles and to the bats. Their gold and their silver cannot save them in that day. It falls upon them with crushing weight, that an account must be given of their stewardship, what use they have made of their Lord's money.⁹

By "His cause," Ellen did not mean for a penny to go to any non-SDA Christian, gospel effort, or general assistance for the poor. That would be giving money to Babylon, which would be worse than wasted. What she was talking specifically about was supporting her and James in their mission to convert other Christians to SDA doctrines.

Next, she places a guilt-trip on wealthy Adventists:

I saw that if God had given you wealth above the plainest and poorest, it should humble you, for it lays you under greater obligations.¹⁰

As if her visions alone were insufficient to make her point, Ellen White then invokes her spirit guides, who always seem to come to her rescue and take her point of view:

Said the angel: "Will God permit the rich men to keep their riches, and yet enter into the kingdom of God?" Another angel answered: "No, never." I saw that it is God's plan that these riches should be used properly, distributed to bless the needy, and to advance the work of God.¹¹

"No, never." Absolute. Final. A wealthy Adventist who does not give his money to advance the work of God (i.e. Seventh-day Adventism) cannot enter the kingdom. This is not a gentle nudge. This is a divine ultimatum delivered by a woman who had recently told grieving parents that God killed their children to shake their financial resolve.

White then directly targets those who reason like, well, like a rational adult who has worked hard for their savings:

I was shown those who receive the truth, but do not live it. They cling to their possessions, and are not willing to distribute of their substance to advance the cause of God. They have not faith to venture and trust God. Their love of this world swallows up their faith. God calls for a portion of their substance, but they heed it not. They reason that they have labored hard to obtain what they have, and they cannot lend it to the Lord, for they may come to want. "O ye of little faith."¹²

Notice the target of derision: the person who says "I worked hard for this money, and I might want to be a good financial steward and save some for difficult times." In Ellen White's theological framework, that ordinary, responsible, human thought is evidence of faithlessness. The person who saves for rainy days is spiritually deficient. Her message crosses from faith to presumption—that God will somehow make up for their impulsive giving if they have "faith." In effect, she was saying, forget about your future and your children's future—give now!

And in the final, most dramatic passage of the Monterey vision, White pulls out her standard apocalyptic fundraising pitch that she deployed across countless other testimonies:

The work is closing; and soon the means of those who have kept their riches, their large farms, their cattle, etc., will not be wanted. I saw the Lord turn to such in anger, in wrath, and repeat these words: "Go to now, ye rich men." He has called, but you would not hear. Love of this world has drowned His voice. Now He has no use for you, and lets you go, bidding you: "Go to now, ye rich men."¹³

"Large farms" and "cattle." This is not accidental language. Anthony Burwell was a farmer in Parma with real estate valued at $6,000. He had land. He had livestock. He was, in the context of a small Adventist congregation, exactly the kind of man this vision was describing. Whether he was present at Monterey or not, the description fit him precisely — and he would have heard about it from fellow members.

Round Two: The Follow-Up Letter

Apparently, the Burwells had not given what the Whites had expected. So, White wrote again. Letter 2, 1857, dated October 21 — just two weeks after the Monterey fundraising vision — went directly to Anthony Burwell. While the first letter was a sickening grief-leveraging coercion, this one was open contempt:

You do not yet possess the spirit of sacrifice and I greatly fear you never will. God, I saw, had tried to save you. Fearfully, terribly has He approached you, taken the fruit of your own body from you without hope. All this was to cut you loose from the world, save you, your wife, and Anna.¹⁴

Ellen White rips open Burwell's wounds by dredging up the horrible death of his children. Nine months after the first letter, White is still wielding Charles and Francis as theological weapons. God had tried — "fearfully, terribly" — to shake this man loose from his money by taking his children from him. And he still hadn't learned his lesson. One can only imagine how Anthony Burwell read these slashing words.

Here Ellen White goes beyond mere manipulation and resorts to animalistic cruelty. When White wrote that God had "taken the fruit of your own body from you without hope," she was making a theological pronouncement in language she used consistently throughout her ministry. In 1893, she described a mother mourning a son who had "died without hope" — a mother so "disconsolate" she could do nothing but grieve, not with ordinary bereavement but with the specific anguish of believing her child was eternally lost.¹⁵ In 1907, writing about the San Francisco earthquake dead, White made her meaning explicit beyond any possible dispute: "The souls that were lost, eternally lost! They died without hope in the world. ...every soul that was not ready."¹⁶ "Without hope" meant one thing in Ellen White's vocabulary: eternally lost. Damned.

So when she wrote to the Burwells and told them their children had been "taken without hope," she was telling them their children were damned to hell. And in the very same breath, she told them why: their covetousness, their love of their farm, their failure to sacrifice for the cause, had made it "impossible to save your children." She killed their children's eternal souls with her pen — and then presented them with a bill.

White continued her tirade:

You love this world, love your earthly treasure, better than the truth....
You have no idea of sacrificing for the cause of God....
I saw that God was testing those that have possessions here to see how much they love this truth. He will soon pass them by if they heed not His voice. He will call those that are willing. The day laborer will bear the burden cheerfully. I saw they were the richest men. They can hand out ten dollars to the cause of God easier than the wealthy one dollar.¹⁷

The final twist of the knife: poor day laborers are more generous than you are. A man who earns nothing gives more freely than a farmer who owns land. You, Anthony Burwell, are worse than the lowly day laborer. You are the worst kind of Adventist. She closed the letter by once again pressing the urgency button, warning him — falsely — that his own end was rapidly approaching: "Your time to do will soon be past."¹⁸

The Payoff: John Byington's Collections Trip

Three years of pressure — private letters invoking dead children, public visions targeting wealthy farmers, divine ultimatums delivered from the Monterey platform — and it appears to have finally paid off for the Whites. The evidence of the payoff arrives in a single brief letter from Ellen White to her husband James, dated November 19, 1860:

George [Amadon] and Martha marry this week. Friday I think. Brother Byington went to Parma, to Burwell, and by being very decided and urgent got his money and had John Loughborough put it in the bank in Battle Creek in your name, for Martha; so I suppose there is a market for your house.¹⁹

Let us unpack every clause of this disturbing passage.

"Brother Byington went to Parma, to Burwell." John Byington — not just any sect member, but the man who would later become the first General Conference president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a man of considerable authority and social standing — made a personal trip to the Burwell farm in Parma, Michigan. This was a collections call, not a pastoral visit.

"By being very decided and urgent got his money." The phrasing here is damning. "Very decided and urgent" is 19th-century English for aggressive. Byington did not merely ask. He pressed. He was insistent. The word "urgent" suggests the Burwells were not eager participants in this transaction. Byington had to push hard to get the money out of them. Three years of prophetic pressure culminating in a face-to-face confrontation with Byington — and to Ellen's delight, it "worked."

"Had John Loughborough put it in the bank in Battle Creek in your name, for Martha." John Loughborough — another prominent SDA leader — was involved in handling the money. It went into James White's personal bank account. The stated purpose was to help fund housing for the newlyweds George Amadon and Martha Byington — Martha being the daughter of the very man who had just extracted the money from Burwell. Now, a father helping to finance his daughter's first home was quite common in that era. However, rather than pay for his own daughter's home, Byington collected from Burwell and then used that money to help set up his own daughter in a house.

"So I suppose there is a market for your house." Ellen White is telling James that the Burwell money now sitting in his account is effectively payment for a house James owns. The Whites had real estate to sell. The Burwells' extracted savings purchased it. The chain is: prophetic pressure → grief-leveraging letters → Byington's collection trip → money deposited in James White's bank account → purchase of the Whites' house. The Whites won, the Byingtons won, and the Burwells lost. The "cause," of course, benefited because the Whites benefited.

The entire operation — from Letter 1 in January 1857 to Byington's collections trip in late 1860 — took three years. The money ended up in James White's personal bank account. Ellen White reported it to her husband as good news about a real estate transaction.

Answering the Objections

Fans of Ellen White are predictable in their responses to evidence like this, and their objections deserve direct answers.

Objection 1: "The money went to charity — to set up a young couple in a home. That's not personal enrichment."

The money went into James White's personal bank account. It purchased the Whites' house. The Whites were selling their property. The Burwells' extracted savings are what made that sale possible. Ellen White reported this to her husband as a real estate matter that directly benefited the White household. The intermediary purpose — housing the newlyweds — does not change the direct financial benefit to the Whites. This is not complicated accounting.

Objection 2: "We can't know the Burwells were reluctant. Maybe they gave willingly."

Ellen White's own letter tells us otherwise. Letter 2, 1857, calls Burwell out directly: "You do not yet possess the spirit of sacrifice." "You have no idea of sacrificing for the cause of God." "You love this world, love your earthly treasure, better than the truth." If the Burwells had been cheerful, willing givers, these letters would not have been written. And the phrase "by being very decided and urgent" in the November 1860 letter does not describe a voluntary transaction. It describes a debt collection.

Objection 3: "Prophets sometimes deliver hard messages. This is just how prophetic ministry works."

Biblical prophets confronted the powerful on behalf of the powerless. They did not tell grieving parents that God killed their children in order to motivate donations that would end up in the prophet's husband's bank account. Elijah confronted Ahab over injustice. Nathan confronted David over sin. John the Baptist confronted Herod over adultery. Find a single biblical prophet whose "hard message" conveniently resulted in money flowing into the prophet's own household. Ellen White is not following a prophetic pattern. She is following a grift pattern.

The Deeper Pattern

The Burwell case is not an anomaly. It is a well-documented example of the tactics Ellen White deployed throughout her ministry. The elements are consistent:

First, identify a target with significant assets. Second, establish prophetic authority over their spiritual condition. Third, link their financial behavior directly to their eternal destiny. Fourth, when abstract arguments do not move them, deploy whatever personal tragedy is available as leverage — grief, illness, family trouble. Fifth, apply institutional pressure when private pressure fails.

In the Burwells' case, every element is present and documented. Two dead children became "idols" God removed to loosen the parents' attachment to their farm. Three years of escalating pressure — private letters, public visions, follow-up correspondence, and a personal visit. The money was then routed into James White's bank account to purchase the Whites' property.

Did Ellen White ever stop this pattern? No. After she drained one person dry, she simply cut off communication and moved on to the next target. In the White Estate records, there is no record of any further correspondence or personal contact with the Burwells after Byington "got" their money. It seems Ellen White's interest in this family waned after she separated them from their money.

Ellen White told the Iowa Conference in 1901:

It is now too late to cling to worldly treasures. Soon houses and lands will be of no benefit to anyone... This message should be faithfully borne—urged home to the hearts of the people, that God's own property may be passed on in offerings to advance His work in the world.²⁰

The Burwell affair shows exactly what "urged home to the hearts of the people" looked like in practice: badgering wealthy targets with urgent prophetic warnings, threats, and angelic messages until they caved in and released their money to the White Empire.

Conclusion

Anthony and Achsah Burwell deserved better. They were faithful Adventists who had endured the Millerite disappointment, embraced the Sabbath, relocated to Michigan, worked hard, built a farm, and buried two of their three children in a single year. They came to the Adventist community looking for the hope of resurrection, the fellowship of believers, and the comfort of God's promises.

What they received instead was the Spirit of Profits: prophetic leverage applied to maximum vulnerability, the deaths of their children reframed as a divine collections notice, and three years of escalating pressure culminating in Byington standing on their doorstep demanding to be paid.

Fans of Ellen White will say she genuinely loved the Burwells and feared for their souls. Perhaps. But genuine love does not tell grieving parents that God killed their children to teach them a financial lesson. Genuine love does not consign children to hell before their judgment. Genuine love does not respond to months of resistance with the words "you have no idea of sacrificing for the cause of God." And genuine love does not report the eventual extraction of a grieving family's savings to one's husband as good news about hitting a real estate home run.

Jesus reserved His most devastating language for religious leaders who "devour widows' houses" (Matt. 23:14). Jesus opposed using spiritual authority as a tool to extract the assets of vulnerable people. The Burwells were not widows. But consider what they were: a grieving couple who had buried two children, financially comfortable enough to be a target, and deluded into thinking Ellen White was a real prophet with messages from God and the angels. They were, in every meaningful sense, exactly the kind of vulnerable believers Jesus was describing.

That is not the ministry of a prophet of God.

That is a shakedown.