There Shines A Light

Chapter 3—His Hand upon Her

From the age of twelve to the age of sixteen, 1840 to 1844, Ellen Harmon, with her parents’ family and a great company of devoted believers, passed through that remarkable religious experience, the proclamation of the second advent of Christ, commonly known as the Millerite Movement. William Miller, a Baptist layman, a farmer and local civic leader in his home community of Low Hampton, in eastern New York, but also a deep student of history and Bible prophecy, began in 1831 to preach the imminent second advent. His study of the time prophecies of Daniel led him to the conclusion that the final event of earth’s history, the coming of Christ and the great judgment day, was to take place in 1844. His computations were incontrovertible; but he erred as to the nature of the event, which, as later study was to reveal, was the entry of Christ, our High Priest, upon His final work in the sanctuary in heaven, preliminary to His coming as King in glory. TSAL 23.1

This second advent interest, called in America the Millerite Movement, was not a solitary or sudden uprising of adventual anticipation. It was the culmination of centuries of exposition by learned and devoted students of prophecy, including some of the most famous of Christian theologians, as well as men who became noted solely for their advocacy of the doctrine of the second advent. In the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries this interest in prophecy and its fulfillment swelled into a great spiritual crusade which, in the time of William Miller, had become worldwide, with leaders in various countries. ²⁸ TSAL 23.2

The American movement, however, proved the most dynamic, gathering in thousands of devoted Christians and reaching out, chiefly through the medium of its literature, to distant parts of the world. It was to prove the most lasting in its effects, eventuating, through an ecclesiastical evolution, in a people and a church, the Seventh-day Adventist, which today embraces the world with its message of a soon-coming Saviour and King, Jesus Christ. William Miller was not the founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, their sole distinctive connection being the doctrine of the imminent advent of Christ; but out from the ranks of his followers came its pioneers and founders, who by further study and by correction of untenable beliefs, led a return to the primitive faith of the Christian church. Of this select circle Ellen Harmon was to become a unique member. TSAL 24.1

Her religious experience for the four years beginning in 1840, though initially within the Methodist Church, was inspired and motivated by this Advent hope. In March, 1840, William Miller first visited and preached in Portland, Maine; and the Harmon family, with many others from various churches, became his followers. Ellen was greatly attracted, not alone by the logic but particularly by the Christian spirit and benevolence of “Father Miller.” The uplift and force of his message was at first welcomed by most of the churches, but particularly by the Baptist, Methodist, and Christian bodies, large numbers of their clergy becoming proclaimers of the advent. The churches profited greatly by the message, in the conversion of sinners and the harvest of souls. These second advent lectures just preceded and greatly influenced Ellen’s conversion at the Buxton camp meeting. TSAL 24.2

In 1842 Miller again visited Portland and gave a second series of lectures. In the interim, the interest had continued and grown, until a large company professed faith in the message. These believers were contained within the various churches of their choice, and in Maine were led by such pastors as Stockman and Cox of the Methodist, Fleming and Brown of the Christian, and Rollins and Spaulding of the Baptist churches. There was growing up, however, intense opposition to Miller’s preaching, and on this second visit to Portland he found the doors of many churches closed against him. Pressure was being brought upon the ministers to abandon the cause, and under the threat of loss of credentials and of support, some deserted; but others held firm. TSAL 25.1

The lay members who rejoiced in the Advent hope came under increasing pressure. Father Harmon was a main pillar in the local Methodist church, being an exhorter and class leader; but because of their ardent hope and expression of faith in the soon-coming Saviour, he and his family were disfellowshiped, along with many others. Thus the Adventist believers, cast out of the various churches, were thrown together in fellowship, meeting in Beethoven Hall. All through the land this process was going on, resulting in the forced segregation of the Advent believers, who, though differing among themselves on minor points of doctrine, were united in the Christian faith of the early return of their Lord. TSAL 25.2

But dreadful disappointment was to be their lot. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come in glory at the expected time, October 22, 1844. In this crushing disappointment they entered into fellowship with the believers in the first advent of Christ. In common with all the Jews, the apostles and disciples of Jesus expected the Messiah to take the throne of His father David, and rule over the world. When instead He was put to death on Calvary, it seemed that their whole cause had collapsed. In utter dejection, in bitter disappointment, they mourned, “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” ²⁹ TSAL 26.1

As in that first advent the disciples had been mistaken, not as to the time or the person, but as to the office and the event; so now in this time of the second advent they were mistaken, not as to the time or the person, but as to the work He was to do, and consequently as to the event they anticipated. Overwhelmed by their disappointment, dismayed by the failure of their prediction, ridiculed and taunted by their enemies of church and world, the Christians alike of the first century and of the nineteenth endured a trial of their faith unexampled in the history of the church. Martyrs had died for the faith they held; reformers had stood like rock upon the foundation of their faith; apostles had penetrated to the far bounds of earth to carry their faith; but the supreme trial of the disciples of the first advent and of the second advent was as to whether there was any faith to herald, to defend, to die for. They faced this challenge: Are the prophecies false? Have we believed fables? Is there no divine King? Is there no Saviour, no God? Confusion and dismay covered them. TSAL 26.2

But they were not long left to suffer disappointment. On the morning of the third day after the crucifixion, Mary Magdalene and other women, visiting the tomb of the Crucified One to anoint His body, found the sepulcher open and the Lord risen. And Mary herself saw the Lord Jesus, who said to her, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God.” ³⁰ TSAL 27.1

The great popular following of Jesus had, upon their disappointment, fallen away, some entirely abjuring their faith, others feebly hoping but despairing. The apostles themselves at first could not credit the news of their Lord’s resurrection. Only the women—four are named ³¹—gave unquestioning credence to the evidence of His resurrection. But the circle grew as the evidence increased, until they numbered 120, and on the fiftieth day, the day of Pentecost, three thousand converts were added to their number. So, in a faith piercing the veil of the incredible, began the great crusade of Christianity. TSAL 27.2

Similar was the resurrection of hope and understanding of the disciples of the second advent. In a little more than a month after their disappointment the Lord Jesus made Himself known to a little circle of women, and to one of them He revealed the mystery of the disappointment and the glory of the truth. There was need of a seer, a prophet; and God moved in accordance with His declaration to Aaron and Miriam in the wilderness: “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream.” ³² On a day in December, 1844, Ellen Harmon, just turned seventeen, was visiting a dear friend, Elizabeth Haines, in South Portland. There were three other young women there also, making a group of five. Visiting, to those serious and sorely tried Adventist girls, did not mean gossip, idle chatter. Like the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus, “they talked together of all these things which had happened,” and they prayed together, earnestly, pleadingly, seeking for light. TSAL 27.3

As they were praying, the power of God came upon Ellen in greater measure than she had ever felt before. She seemed to herself to be surrounded with light, and to be rising higher and higher above the earth. As in the experience of the prophet Ezekiel, the Spirit lifted her up between the earth and the heaven, ³³ and brought her in the visions of God to the laboring columns of pilgrims heavenward bound. She saw a straight and narrow path, lifted up above the world, on which the Advent people were traveling to the New Jerusalem. Behind them, at the start of the way, there shone a bright light which illumined their path. What did that light signify? An angel spoke to her, saying, “That light is the midnight cry”—the message of Christ’s coming, which in the imagery of Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins and its midnight alarm, went forth with greatest power in the summer of 1844. ³⁴ In Ellen’s vision some of the pilgrims, weary and discouraged, shut their eyes against the light, and they stumbled and fell off the path into the dark world below. But the tried and faithful ones, welcoming the light, kept their eyes ahead on Jesus, who was walking just before them. When they grew faint with the toilsome journey and, like the children of Israel in the wilderness, moaned: TSAL 28.1

“We are weary, oh, so weary,
We are weary, sad, and worn.
Is it far? Is it far
To Canaan’s land?” TSAL 29.1

then Jesus would raise His right arm, and from that arm beamed a light that like an electric current re-invigorated them, and they shouted, “Alleluia!” TSAL 29.2

Ellen now felt herself identified with this Jerusalem-bound company. In relating the vision she said: “Soon we heard the voice of God like many waters, which gave us the day and hour of Jesus’ coming.” On flowed her narrative, telling of the coming of Jesus in glory in the clouds of heaven, of the journey of the saints with Him to heaven and the entry into the New Jerusalem, of the open gates of pearl and the pavements of gold, of the river of life and the tree of life bearing a different fruit every month. TSAL 29.3

And—naïve note of comfort to young hearts sorrowing for the loss of loved and honored leaders who had died before the disappointment—she related to the company of believers in Portland: “We ... sat down to look at the glory of the place, when Brethren Fitch and Stockman [leading ministers], who had preached the gospel of the kingdom, and whom God had laid in the grave to save them, came up to us and asked us what we had passed through while they were sleeping. We tried to call up our greatest trials, but they looked so small compared with the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory that surrounded us that we could not speak them out, and we all cried out, ‘Alleluia, heaven is cheap enough!’ and we touched our glorious harps and made heaven’s arches ring.” ³⁵ Thus in words as simple and artless as those of the child prophet Samuel was told the message of the first vision of Ellen Harmon. TSAL 29.4

About a week after receiving this first vision, Ellen was given a second, very different in nature; for, instead of scenes of glory, it was the call of God for her to go and speak to the Adventist people what God had revealed and would reveal to her—messages of rebuke, of encouragement, of correction, of guidance. She was shown the trials through which she must pass, that her labors would meet with great opposition, and her heart would be rent with anguish; but she was assured that the grace of God would sustain her through it all. TSAL 30.1

How heavy a burden! How impossible it seemed for her to obey! The Adventist body, smitten with disappointment, was breaking up into many factions; and, despite the efforts of its foremost leaders, was rent and plagued with extremists and fanatics, while the bewildered flock knew not which way to turn. How could she, a seventeen-year-old girl, timid, frail, ill, go down and do battle in that arena of wild spirits? TSAL 30.2

One deterrent was her fear that if she should go out proclaiming herself a messenger of God, she would become self-exalted, as she had seen in the cases of others. The Lord answered this by telling her that if she should come into such danger, He would correct her by laying the hand of affliction upon her. There is no evidence that she was ever in such danger, for she was and ever remained most humble in her ministry; but she started out in ragged health, and it is no surprise that through her life seasons of illness brief or more protracted overcame her. Now for days she struggled, through whole nights she prayed that this burden might be removed from her and be put upon someone more capable of bearing it. Therein lay the proof of her fitness. Like Moses, she felt incapable. Like Jeremiah, young as she, she cried: “Ah, Lord God! ... I cannot speak; for I am a child.” ³⁶ TSAL 30.3

But as God had called Moses and Samuel and Isaiah and Jeremiah and all His spokesmen of old, so now He called the child Ellen Harmon. And as to Ezekiel, so to her He said: “I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead. Fear them not.” ³⁷ TSAL 31.1

The hand of the Lord was upon His young and humble servant, and in obedience she went upon His mission. TSAL 31.2