The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

I. Characteristics of General and Local Conferences

The leading facts and deductions, based upon full worksheet data, ¹ covering both the General and local conferences, are as follows: PFF4 555.2

1. As to time spread, these sixteen General Conferences cover four calendar years-one in the autumn of 1840, six in 1841, five in 1842, and four in the spring of 1843. PFF4 555.3

2. As to location, they were scattered over six States-five in Massachusetts (four being at the headquarters in Boston), one in Maine, five in New York State, one in New Hampshire, two in Vermont, and two in Pennsylvania. PFF4 555.4

3. As to meeting places, twelve out of the sixteen were held in churches. But in four instances-numbers 6, 11, 12, and 15—halls and auditoriums were necessary, because of heavy attendance and growing hostility among the established churches. The Broadway Tabernacle in New York City, seating 3,500, was filled; and the Chinese Museum, or Auditorium, in Philadelphia, seating 5,000, was “packed to suffocation.” The last General Conference was convened in the Boston Millerite Tabernacle, seating 4,000, for structures of their own for worship had begun to be imperative. PFF4 555.5

Picture 1: MILLERITE GENERAL CONFERENCES FILL LARGE AUDITORIUMS
(Left) large broadway tabernacle built for charles G. Finney and seating 3,500, scene of fourth general conference; (right) philadelphia museum auditorium, seating 5,000. Both resounded to expositions of prophecy and exhortations concerning the imminent advent
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4. As to leadership, eleven different men served as chairmen, Miller presiding in only four out of the sixteen. Nine different men served as secretaries of the various General Conferences. PFF4 556.1

5. These General Conferences were the unifying, directing, driving force of the expanding Advent Movement, the crystallizing and authorizing bodies, and the source of the for mal published “Addresses to the Public,” presenting the united Millerite case before the world. Because of their group, or representative, character, they therefore constitute the most authoritative declarations of the movement. PFF4 556.2

6. The twelfth General Conference at Boston, with Joseph Bates as chairman, proved to be perhaps the most important in the list, for it authorized the great camp meeting project, which, beginning in June, 1842, developed into an amazing series of some 130 camp meetings in two years’ time, thus opening a new epoch. It also endorsed and authorized the lithographing of three hundred of the Charles Fitch “1843 Chart,” for standardized use by the leading Millerite lecturers. PFF4 556.3

7. The General Conferences lapsed just after the “Jewish year 1843” phase of the movement was entered—in the spring of 1843. They were not continued during that year and had no place in the “1844” phase. Local conferences, however, increased in number and effectiveness from 1842 up until October, 1844. And these latter were spread all the way from Eastern Canada and Next England on throughout the Eastern and Middle States, and out to Ohio in the Midwest. PFF4 557.1