New View for Millerites ^{23See Appendix H: “Ellen White Enriched the Term, ‘Shut Door.’”}

When Ellen Harmon ^{24On August 30, 1846, Ellen Harmon married James White.} described her Midnight Cry vision of December 1844, Millerites heard a distinctly new explanation for what happened on October 22, 1844 ^{25An Advent Christian historian, Clyde E. Hewitt, wrote: “Not all of that minority of Adventists who believed in the October 22 date became fanatics. Nor did they spiritualize Christ’s return. Some found instead an understanding of their great disappointment in a quite novel explanation. Miller, they argued, had been right in the date, but wrong in the event .... Out in western New York State on the morning of October 23 the local Adventist leader, Hiram Edson, after a lengthy prayer session with a few of those who had waited through the previous night with him, became convinced that the ‘sanctuary’ of Daniel 8:14 was in heaven. The prophecy did not refer to the earth but to the Holy of Holies in heaven itself.... To a small group of former Millerites this view of what had happened on October 22 seemed logical and, as buttressed with other arguments, often by scriptural analogy, convincing.” Midnight and Morning (Charlotte, N.C.: Venture Books, 1983), pp. 182, 183.}—Jesus was yet to come and probation had not yet closed for everyone. When little groups in Maine and Massachusetts heard this vision-story confirming their 1844 experience to be “the work of God,” they also listened to Ellen Harmon’s rejection of their prevailing fanaticisms and theological errors. ^{26Early Writings, 14-17; Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 64-68, 85-94; Damsteegt, Foundations, pp. 112, 120, 133; Schwarz, Light Bearers, pp. 63-65.}MOL 503.2

Prior to this December Midnight Cry vision (only a few weeks after their great disappointment), Ellen Harmon, along with many other dismayed Millerites, had concluded that they had been in error—that is, the fulfillment of the 2300-year prophecy, the shut door of the Bridegroom parable, etc., were yet future. ^{27Letter to Bates, July 13, 1847; Manuscript 4, 1883, James White, A Word to the Little Flock, 22. (Cited in Nichol, Critics, p. 582 and George R. Knight, 1844 and the Rise of Sabbatarian Adventism (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1994), p. 176.} This first vision convinced Ellen Harmon (with no hint of a general shut door for all the living on October 22, 1844) that God’s people were at the beginning of new responsibilities, not at the end of all things. ^{28Critics have charged that a one-sentence deletion in later publications of this vision belies the assertion that Ellen White did not believe in the extreme shut-door position after “viewing” her first vision. See Appendix J: “Response to Deletion of ‘Wicked World.’”}MOL 503.3

A few weeks later, Ellen Harmon had her second public vision, the Sanctuary-Bridegroom vision, at Exeter, Maine, February, 1845. At Exeter she, no doubt, had been relating her first vision to a group of Shut-door Adventists, along with reproof of their fanatical leaders and their incorrect teachings regarding their extreme shut-door positions. ^{29Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 73. Some have contended that this meeting and others with extreme Shut-door Adventists proves that Ellen White was also “one of them.” For a discussion of why she attended these meetings with Shut-door Adventists, see Appendix K: “Why Ellen White Seemed to Reach Out Only to Shut-Door Adventists.”}MOL 503.4