The Ellen G. White Letters and Manuscripts: Volume 1

DAY, John C. (c. 1811-after 1880) and Phebe (c. 1821-after 1880)

John C. Day, a carpenter from Massachusetts, participated in the Millerite movement and became a Sabbathkeeping Adventist in 1851. He wrote several theological articles for the Review in 1853-1854 and traveled, at least locally, as a preacher. His ambitions as a preacher collided with Ellen White's vision of September 1852, according to which Day “has been mistaken and thought that God had a greater work for him to do than He had ever laid upon him.” John Day subsequently defected to the oppositional (though also Sabbatarian) Messenger Party in 1854 or 1855 and wrote against the Whites in the Messenger of Truth. By October 1856, however, Day reversed his position, writing a confessional letter to the Review asking for forgiveness “of the entire church.” 1EGWLM 820.4

Ellen White's vision two years later, in December 1858, in which J. C. Day and certain others were described as “changeable” and “wavering,” met its fulfillment when, in the early 1860s, Day again left the Seventh-day Adventists and joined the early stages of the offshoot Marion Party, which became the Church of God (Seventh Day). In a letter to the Hope of Israel, in 1864 he vented his bitterness at being “cast off” because he and others “have dared to express their doubts as to the inspiration of E. G. White's visions.” 1EGWLM 821.1

See: 1880 U.S. Federal Census, “John C. Day,” Massachusetts, Worcester County, Ashburnham, p. 24; Thomas W. Baldwin, Vital Records of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (Boston: Wright & Potter Print Co., 1914), vol. 2, p. 112; John C. Day, “Letter From Bro. Day,” The Jubilee Standard, July 10, 1845, p. 144; J. C. Day, Hope of Israel, Apr. 23, 1864, as in Richard C. Nickels, A History of the Seventh Day Church of God (Portland, Oreg.: the author, 1977), p. 44; John C. Day, “Letter From Bro. Day,” Review, Oct. 9, 1856, p. 184; Ellen G. White, Lt 4, 1852 (Oct. 25); Ms 2, 1858 (Dec. 27). 1EGWLM 821.2