The Millerites and the Great Disappointment

William Miller tells his own story in the Apology and Defence he published in 1845. For about twelve years he had defended the opinions of the Deists (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 3). After serving as a captain in the United States army from 1813 until the peace, he settled at Low Hampton in the state of New York (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 4). In 1816 he came to hold the Bible to be a revelation from God (Miller, Apology and Defence, pp. 4–5), and he gave about two years to reading it through with a concordance (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 6). He concluded that the 2300 days of Daniel’s vision (Daniel 8:13–14) stood for years and began in 457 BC, so that they would end “about A. D. 1843” (Miller, Apology and Defence, pp. 10–11), and that in about twenty-five years the affairs of the present world would be wound up (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 12).

By his recollection he gave his first public lecture in August 1833, at Dresden, about sixteen miles from his home (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 18); his biographer says 1831 (see the dating note). In 1836 he wrote out sixteen lectures, which were printed at Troy (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 20) under the title Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1843 (Miller, Evidence from Scripture and History (1836), title page); its third lecture does the sum: “take 457 from 2300 and it will leave A. D. 1843” (Miller, Evidence from Scripture and History (1836), Lecture III, p. 49). Miller estimated in 1845 that about two hundred ministers had embraced his views and that nearly a thousand Advent congregations had been raised up, with some fifty thousand believers (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 22). He had never wished, he wrote, to set up an interest separate from the existing denominations (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 23).

He says that he was never positive about a day. In December 1842 he published his belief that the Lord would come between 21 March 1843 and 21 March 1844; that time passed, and “Our disappointment was great” (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 24). In 1844 came “the seventh month movement”, as he says it was called, which looked to 22 October. Miller held back until two or three weeks before the day and then accepted it. “But that time passed; and I was again disappointed” (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 25). The following year he wrote that “we were certainly disappointed”, that to contend otherwise was dishonest, and that he had no confidence in the new theories that had grown out of the movement, among them that Christ had then come as the Bridegroom or that the door of mercy was closed (Miller, Apology and Defence, p. 28).

Some who had shared the expectation kept the date and gave it another meaning. Ellen White, who had heard Miller lecture at Portland, Maine, when she was thirteen (Ellen G. White, Early Writings, p. 7), relates that in December 1844, while she prayed with four other women, she was shown in a vision the Advent people travelling a narrow path to the holy city, lit from behind by a light that an angel told her was “the midnight cry” (Ellen G. White, Early Writings, pp. 9–10). In a vision she dates to 24 March 1849 she saw, she says, that in 1844 Jesus had passed into the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, where the ark holds the ten commandments, and that God’s people were now being tested on the Sabbath (Ellen G. White, Early Writings, pp. 34–35).

In May 1863 delegates from six states met at Battle Creek, Michigan, and organized the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (Report of General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Review and Herald, 26 May 1863, pp. 204–205). That church teaches today that in 1844, at the end of the prophetic period of 2300 days, Christ entered the second and last phase of his atoning ministry, a work of investigative judgment (Seventh-day Adventist Church, Fundamental Beliefs 24), and that the gift of prophecy was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White (Seventh-day Adventist Church, Fundamental Beliefs 18). For earlier revivals see the Second Great Awakening.