Ellen White Appeared at the Time of Greatest Distress

Ellen White had to contend with the prevailing sentiment among Millerite leaders that all charismatic phenomena, such as visions and trances, were to be rejected. ^{30Knight, Millennial Fever, p. 273.}MOL 39.8

Equally troubling were the widening divisions and fearsome fanaticisms within the Millerites after October 22, 1844. ^{31Everett N. Dick, “The Millerite Movement, 1830-1845,” in Adventism in America, ed. Gary Land (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986), pp. 31-35; Knight, Millennial Fever, pp. 245-293; R. W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant (Boise, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1979), pp. 56-58.}MOL 39.9

Perhaps even more oppressive was the ridicule of those who had rejected the Millerites before the Disappointment as they observed the humiliation of the disappointed. ^{32Land, Adventism in America, pp. 29-30; Schwarz, Light Bearers, p. 53; Bio., vol. 1, p. 54.}MOL 39.10

In addition, young Ellen was only a teenager, a very sick girl who could barely speak above a whisper. But in December 1844, God gave her a vision. Who would listen to her, the “weakest of the weak”?MOL 40.1

As time went by, the reluctant, self-effacing, unswerving fidelity of Ellen Harmon to be God’s messenger in most forbidding times became the rallying center for earnest Bible students who wanted to know what was right and wrong about October 22, 1844. Even as on the road to Emmaus, Jesus came very close to earnest but puzzled believers in the months following the “magnificent disappointment.” ^{33See C. Mervyn Maxwell, Magnificent Disappointment (Boise, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1994).}MOL 40.2