Ellen G. White: The Progressive Years: 1862-1876 (vol. 2)

What Happened to the Men and the Movement?

J. N. Loughborough, who was well acquainted with the men and the circumstances, told of the outcome: 2BIO 150.5

The career of these two men among Sabbathkeeping opponents was quite limited. Their new departure in the “independence of the churches” did not “pan out” as they expected.... Before many months elapsed, both S. and B. dropped their interest in the Advocate [their paper], and gave up the keeping of the Sabbath. Brinkerhoff engaged in school-teaching, and the study of law. Snook engaged in preaching universalism, at a salary of $1,000 a year.—Pacific Union Recorder, January 9, 1913. 2BIO 150.6

They left little groups of disaffected Sabbathkeepers who in time were joined by others of like mind. Among such were two brothers, Abe and William Long, from Missouri. They moved the press to Stanberry, Missouri, and continued to publish the Advocate, with warnings against Ellen White's testimonies their principal stock-in-trade. A third brother, Levi, remained loyal to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Abe and William operated under the name Church of God (Adventist), with headquarters in Missouri. In 1933, there was a division; the new group took on the name Church of God (Seventh Day), with headquarters in Salem, West Virginia. The census reports of religious bodies in the United States in 1936 gave a combined membership of the two groups as 2,400. 2BIO 150.7

W. H. Brinkerhoff and William Long had second thoughts. When G. B. Starr was baptized as a young man into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Iowa, Brinkerhoff was present. As Starr came out of the water Brinkerhoff shook his hand and stated: 2BIO 151.1

“I am glad to see you take your stand to go with this people. They have the truth, and I am sorry I ever left them. It is too late for me now to join them. I have opposed them, and have trained my family in that opposition.” ... And then in sadness he said, “I am a lost man.”—Ibid. 2BIO 151.2

J. S. Rouse, one-time president of the Missouri Conference, reported that in 1915 he was acquainted with William Long. When Life Sketches was published shortly after Ellen White's death, he took a copy to Long. The latter promptly read it and, when finished, declared to Rouse, “We have been fighting a good woman and a good work.” Mrs. Long overheard the remark; she came into the room with tears in her eyes and said, 2BIO 151.3

“Oh, the thousands of dollars we have put into this movement and it is lost. We have made a mistake. If we had only done as Brother and Sister White wanted us to. They were here and pleaded with us, but we would not listen to them. We were stubborn. Oh, the money we have wasted!” 2BIO 151.4

He said, “Mother, don't talk about the thousands of dollars. That is nothing. I care not for that. But when a man comes to my position, and my age, and realizes that he has wasted his life, thrown it away, that is what worries me.”—DF 503a, “Some History and Some Information Regarding the Church of God,” pp. 23, 24. 2BIO 151.5