Shortly after this meeting, the result of the new understanding of the time, Joseph Bates said: “When that meeting closed, the granite hills of New Hampshire rang with the mighty cry, Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him! As the stages and railroad cars rolled away through the different States, cities, and villages of New England, the rumbling of the cry was still distinctly heard, Behold the Bridegroom cometh! Christ is coming on the tenth day of the seventh month! Time is short, get ready! get ready!—General excitement and looking with awful and unparalleled interest to a definite point. What a striking and perfect fulfillment. Who does not still remember how this message flew as it were upon the wings of the wind—men and women moving on all the cardinal points of the compass, going with all the speed of locomotives, in steamboats, and rail cars, freighted with bundles of books and papers, wherever they went distributing them almost as profusely as the flying leaves of autumn.” Joseph Bates, Second Advent Way Marks and High Heaps, page 31. This, they felt, was the “midnight cry” referred to in the parable of the ten virgins: “While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” Matthew 25:5, 6.APAY 195.2

Property was sold and the money poured into the advent cause. Bills were paid, wrongs were made right, crops were neglected as unneeded, good-bys were said. Then the presses stopped rolling, and the advent company, and the world, waited in expectation for the dawn of October 22. The long hours of the day passed, and each hour increased the expectancy of the waiting thousands. But the day ended with darkness; then midnight came. There came also the moment of which the angel had spoken: “Take it and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth. ‘And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it,’” the prophet tells; “it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.” Revelation 10:9, 10, R.S.V.APAY 196.1

Hiram Edson’s feelings, as set forth in a manuscript fragment of his life experience, seem to have been typical: “Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I had never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept till the day dawn. I mused in my own heart, saying, My advent experience has been the richest and brightest of all my Christian experience. If this had proved a failure, what was the rest of my Christian experience worth? Has the Bible proved a failure? Is there no God, no heaven, no golden home city, no paradise? Is all this but a cunningly devised fable? Is there no reality to our fondest hope and expectation of these things? And thus we had something to grieve and weep over, if all our fond hopes were lost. And as I said, we wept till the day dawn.”APAY 196.2

By far the majority of those who had espoused the advent cause turned from it almost immediately after the disappointment of October 22, 1844. Many persons felt that the whole movement had been based on faulty interpretation of the Scriptures, and that there was no point in continued allegiance to it. On the other hand, there were those who, after the disappointment, still believed that although some mistake had been made, the basic understanding of the prophecies was correct, and in due time Christ would return. From among the latter stemmed three groups: (1) those who became extremists and repeatedly set times for the return of the Saviour, and who, after a few years ceased to exist in any organized form; (2) those who continued in the advent hope, but differed little from other Protestants, and became First Day Adventists or Advent Christians; (3) those who ultimately became Seventh-day Adventists, whose membership today is approximately one million. What was it that made the difference between this latter group and the two others? It was the acceptance of additional light that the Lord sent soon after the disappointment of October 22.APAY 197.1

Three distinctive teachings, added to the message of the second advent, set the group apart from all others. God began leading them into an understanding of these truths soon after the disappointment. On October 23, Hiram Edson, a Millerite, gained a correct understanding of the work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. Edson describes the incident:APAY 197.2

“After breakfast I said to one of my brethren, ‘Let us go and see, and encourage some of our brethren.’ We started, and while passing through a large field I was stopped about midway of the field. Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw distinctly and clearly that instead of our High Priest coming out of the Most Holy of the heavenly sanctuary to come to this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days, He for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary; and that He had a work to perform in the most holy before coming to this earth.” Quoted by Francis D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry, page 458.APAY 197.3

The ultimate conclusion of the believers was that they had been correct in their calculations of the time of the end of the 2300 years, but mistaken as to the event to take place at the end of the period. With the correct view of the ministry of Christ, they could see the reason for their disappointment, and yet not abandon their former positions on other prophecies and doctrines. They realized that their difficulties had arisen not because of any failure on the part of God to keep His promise, but because of their incomplete understanding of the operation of the antitypical service in the heavenly sanctuary.APAY 198.1

Within a few weeks a second distinctive feature closely related to our major theme, was injected into the thinking of the advent believers. On a December day in 1844, a little group of five women were kneeling in prayer in the Haines home in South Portland, Maine, when one of the group, Ellen Gould Harmon, underwent an experience destined to have a profound effect upon the advent believers. Later she described what happened in these words:APAY 198.2

“While we were praying, the power of God came upon me as I had never felt it before.APAY 198.3

“I seemed to be surrounded with light, and to be rising higher and higher from the earth. I turned to look for the advent people in the world, but could not find them, when a voice said to me, ‘Look again, and look a little higher.’ At this I raised my eyes, and saw a straight and narrow path, cast up high above the world. On this path the advent people were traveling to the city which was at the farther end of the path. They had a bright light set up behind them at the beginning of the path, which an angel told me was the ‘midnight cry.’ This light shone all along the path, and gave light for their feet, so that they might not stumble.APAY 198.4

“If they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, who was just before them, leading them to the city, they were safe. But soon some grew weary, and said the city was a great way off, and they expected to have entered it before. Then Jesus would encourage them by raising His glorious right arm, and from His arm came a light which waved over the advent band, and they shouted ‘Alleluia!’ Others rashly denied the light behind them, and said that it was not God that had led them out so far. The light behind them went out, leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and they stumbled and lost sight of the mark and of Jesus, and fell off the path down into the dark and wicked world below.” Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 64, 65.APAY 199.1

The revelation continued with a description of the second advent of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the righteous dead, the translation of the righteous living, and some of the things to be seen by the redeemed when they will enter the New Jerusalem. Soon the revelation was told to the advent believers in Portland. Knowing the character of Ellen Harmon, and the circumstances under which the vision was given, as well as the nature of the communication itself, the believers were persuaded that the vision was a message from God to strengthen and encourage them. The revelation did not explain the reason for the disappointment—an understanding of that would be gained when the light that had come to Hiram Edson was published and circulated—but it did assure them that God had been with them in their disappointment. Their confidence was confirmed that if they continued to walk in the light as they had done during the past months, the Lord would open the way before them and they would be guided to the City of God.APAY 199.2

A second vision was given Ellen Harmon about a week after the first, in which she was given instruction relating to the delivery of the messages. Soon she began to travel as opportunity was afforded, to meet with believers, and to tell of her visions. Though there was opposition to her work, her influence began immediately to draw together, unify, and strengthen a number of the scattered elements. As time passed, more and more of the advent believers accepted Ellen Harmon’s revelations as from God, and accepted her as the Lord’s messenger.APAY 199.3

The third distinctive doctrine that bound this little body of adventists together, and which more than ever set them apart from those about them, was the seventh-day Sabbath. At about the time of the disappointment a few advent believers had accepted the Sabbath at Washington, New Hampshire. Early in 1845, Joseph Bates read an article by T. M. Preble, of Nashua, New Hampshire, published in The Hope of Israel, which led him to an acceptance of the claims of the fourth commandment. In turn, Bates taught the Sabbath truth to others, and wrote tracts explaining its significance and urging its observance. In August, 1846, Bates published a tract, “The Seventh-day Sabbath a Perpetual Sign,” a copy of which came into the hands of James White and Ellen Harmon White at about the time of their marriage that same month. They, too, began to observe and teach the fourth commandment. The Sabbath teaching spread quickly among the scattered adventists who had already accepted the sanctuary light given through Edson and the revelations to Ellen White.APAY 200.1

In ways unrecognized by themselves, the believers in the second advent who accepted these three doctrines were laying the foundation for the building of a solid structure of Bible teachings which would enable them to withstand the attacks of enemies who would attempt to destroy, by mocking or attack, the message they would ultimately carry to all the world. In our present study we shall turn our attention to only one of the three—that of the revelations given to Ellen White.APAY 200.2

A Question of Time

SUMMARY