Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Earliest Activities of Sabbathkeeping Group

Now what were this group of Adventists doing in the first few years after 1844? Were they smugly and self-righteously sitting at home waiting for the early destruction of all but themselves? No! Though engaged in vigorous and sometimes unhappy theological controversy with other Adventists, they nevertheless sought to labor for them spiritually. They viewed them as the lost sheep of the house of Israel—lost in certain mistaken ideas of prophecy, but still members of the household of God. EGWC 191.6

They wished to bring comfort and a further message to these fellow Adventists, whose state of mind ran all the way from simple bewilderment to disillusionment, disaffection, and departure from the faith. They wished to assure them that they could still believe that the Advent movement was of God, that the prophetic interpretation of the seventy weeks and 2300 days was sure, that there was no mistake in the reckoning, and that the whole disappointment could be explained by a corrected interpretation of the meaning and nature of the cleansing of the sanctuary and the coming of the bridegroom. They wished, also, to bring to them light on the message of a third angel that follows the first and the second. EGWC 192.1

From the very sketchy record we have of those earliest post-1844 years we see Joseph Bates, James White, and his wife, Ellen White, and a few others moving about from one Adventist company to another seeking to bring comfort and renewed confidence. EGWC 192.2

The record is clear that their labors were unflagging. There were not enough of them to make contact with all the Adventists everywhere. EGWC 192.3

And to whom else could they have hoped to bring, at the outset, the kind of message that they had. Secular publications of the time, as well as the different Adventist publications, reveal that the non-Adventist public were hardly in a mood to listen to further Adventist preaching. Laughter was about the only response to any kind of Adventist statement. That fact is clear beyond question. More than one Adventist was saluted, after October 22, 1844, with the inquiry, “Why haven’t you gone up yet?” To which some Adventists replied with a vigor that closed the discussion: “If I had gone up where would you have gone?” Himes and Miller might speak of preaching to the world and of the possibility of gaining converts almost immediately after the great disappointment, but their own journals bear eloquent testimony to the bitter opposition that confronted them on every side, and of the fact that they spent most of their efforts and energies going about among Adventist groups to cheer and comfort and hold them firmly together. EGWC 192.4