By the early summer of 1844 it had become evident to all concerned that the preaching of Miller and his associates had been rejected by the great majority of their fellow Christians, and their followers could not remain in fellowship with the churches as then constituted. There could be no unity of spirit, with some members rejoicing in the hope of Christ's coming and others feeling a spirit of irritation, if not of downright animosity, when the matter was mentioned. The Adventists were by this time practically a church by themselves, only they were not so organized.

It was not wholly the setting of a definite time for the coming of Christ that separated between the followers of Miller and the popular churches. There were those within the Adventist ranks, some of them prominent in the movement, who did not subscribe to the definite time idea, but simply believed the great event to be near at hand. The real cause of separation seems to have been the fact that the Adventists loved the doctrine of the second coming, and longed for the return of their absent Lord. Many of their fellow members in the churches did not love the doctrine, and did not long for their Lord's return.

As this fact gradually dawned upon the Adventists, and they saw clearly the gulf that lay between them and their former associates in the various churches, they recognized it in many cases by voluntarily withdrawing from the associations that they felt were not a help but a hindrance to their spiritual upbuilding and growth. They believed, moreover, that the unwillingness of their fellow members in these churches to study the Scripture evidence concerning the imminent second advent, and their feelings of irritation when the subject was mentioned, gave evidence of a falling away from the first love, a spiritual deadness, a preoccupation with the things of this world, entirely out of keeping with the essential genius of New Testament Christianity. In short, they believed that the Protestant churches were following the example of papal Rome, and that the prophetic message of Revelation 14: 8 and 18: 4: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen;" "Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues," applied to their own time, and made their duty of complete separation from such churches very clear. It is only fair to say that they proclaimed this message in no spirit of self-righteousness, nor of harsh condemnation of their fellow Christians.

In this movement the rank and file of the members were in advance of their leaders, Mr. Miller and Mr. Himes, who were very slow to separate from the churches. Like Wesley in Eng

land, a century earlier, they hated separation, and they worked for union as long as there was any possible hope of achieving it. But when the fact was brought irresistibly home to them that the Adventists were already in spirit widely separated from the churches, they had to acknowledge it and act accordingly.

Mr. Himes expressed his own and doubtless Mr. Miller's feelings in a letter published in the Midnight Cry of Sept. 2, 1844. After pointing out that Mr. Miller and his associates had from the beginning sought most earnestly to avoid separatism of every kind, and had labored faithfully to build up the churches, the letter went on to show that further co-operation was impossible because of the attitude taken by the churches toward the movement and its representatives. It closed with a ringing appeal to all believers to cut loose from a connection which had become impossible:

"It is death to remain connected with those bodies that speak lightly of, or oppose, the coming of the Lord. It is life to come out from all human tradition, and stand upon the word of God, and look daily for the appearing of the Lord."

Meanwhile the Adventists had been going through an experience on their own account, first of disappointment and then of renewed hope, which had its influence in separating them from their fellow members in the churches. This experience grew out of their having set a definite time within which, as they believed, the advent must occur. The second coming of Christ, according to Mr. Miller's teaching, was to take place some time during the Jewish year running from March 21, 1843, to March 21, 1844. In all his public utterances he held to this general statement, though to an intimate friend he expressed his belief that the event would not take place early in 1843, but that the believers' faith would be tested.

When, however, the Jewish year had fully passed, Mr. Miller was in every sense of the word a disappointed man. Nevertheless he was not dismayed. His feelings at this trying time may be judged from these paragraphs taken from a letter he wrote to Mr. Himes, under date of March 25, 1844:

"The time, as I have calculated it, is now filled up; and I expect every moment to see the Saviour descend from heaven. I have now nothing to look for but this glorious hope. I am full in the faith that all prophetic chronology except the 1000 years in the 20th of Revelation is now about full. Whether God designs for me to warn the people of this earth any more, or not, I am at a loss to know; yet I mean to be governed, if time should continue any longer than I have expected, by the word and providence of Him who will never err, and in whom I think I have trusted, and been supported during my twelve years' arduous labors, in trying to awaken the

churches of God, and the Christian community, and to warn my fellow men of the necessity of an immediate preparation to meet our Judge in the day of His appearing. .

"I feel almost confident that my labors are about done, and I am, with a deep interest of soul, looking for my blessed and glorious Redeemer, who will then be King over all the earth, and God with us forevermore.""Sketches of the Christian Life and Public Labors of William Miller," by James White, pp. 279-281.

Some weeks later he addressed a brief message "to second advent believers," in which he said among other things:

"Were I to live my life over again, with the same evidence that I then had, to be honest with God and man I should have to do as I have done. Although opposers said it would not come, they produced no weighty arguments. It was evidently guesswork with them; and I then thought, and do now, that their denial was based more on an unwillingness for the Lord to come than on any arguments leading to such a conclusion.

"I confess my error and acknowledge my disappointment; yet I still believe that the day of the Lord is near, even at the door; and I exhort you, my brethren, to be watchful, and not let that day come upon you unawares. The wicked, the proud, and the bigot will exult over us. I will try to be patient. God will deliver the godly out of temptation, and will reserve the unjust to be punished at Christ's appearing.

"I want you, my brethren, not to be drawn away from the truth. Do not, I pray you, neglect the Scriptures. They are able to make you wise unto eternal life. Let us be careful not to be drawn away from the manner and object of Christ's coming; for the next attack of the adversary will be to induce unbelief respecting these. The manner of Christ's coming has been well discussed."- Id., pp. 282, 283.

The Adventists held their annual conference in the Tabernacle at Boston in the last week of May. Mr. Miller attended, and made a statement at the close of one of the meetings, confessing his mistake as to the coming of the Saviour within the appointed time, yet humbly affirming his belief in the general correctness of the position taken and his firm confidence in the truth of the divine promises. A writer in the Boston Post expressed himself as feeling " well paid " for his time and trouble in attending. He continued:

"I should judge also by the appearance of the audience, and the remarks I heard from one or two gentlemen not of Mr. Miller's faith, that a general satisfaction was felt. I never heard him when he was more eloquent or animated, or more happy in communicating his feelings and sentiments to others." Id., p. 284.

The summer of 1844 was a trying one for the Adventists. They had staked their all on the issue, and were sorely disappointed when the time passed without any outward sign or manifestation. That which sustained them in this hour of deep sorrow, was a sense, in the first place, of the reality of the experience they had been passing through, combined with a

humble trust in God. They knew what the advent hope had done for them in purifying their lives. They felt that they could not be wrong in the belief that the signs of Christ's second coming had been fulfilled, and that they were living in the last days of this world's history. For the rest, they trusted in God, and continued in the attitude of waiting, meanwhile earnestly studying the Bible, in the hope that it might shed some fresh light upon the situation. The reproaches and ridicule of their unbelieving neighbors they suffered in silence and as a matter of course.

Meanwhile the advent movement did not suffer the collapse its enemies had confidently predicted. It could not, for it was built on the Word of God. Adventism had never been for Mr. Miller and his associates a mere matter of dates. It was rather the concrete expression of a great Christian doctrine. The Saviour had bidden His church to await His return. He had said, "Be ye also ready," adding the warning word, "for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." This was the burden of Mr. Miller's preaching. He placed the doctrine of Christ's second advent where it belonged in the galaxy of the great and important truths of the Bible. He taught men, as did Paul in the apostolic days, to turn from their idols to serve the living God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.

That the general public chose to regard Mr. Miller chiefly in the light of one who had figured out the time when the earth would come to an end, is a common illustration of the popular tendency to seize on certain striking features of any message that may be given, and from them to construct a message which is a caricature of the original.

But if Mr. Miller threw chief emphasis upon the broad facts concerning a coming Saviour, and the need of a preparation of mind and heart to receive Him, he was not negligent in respect of the minute facts in prophetic study. He took his hearers back over the whole ground involved, rehearsing to them the historical facts concerning the fulfilment of those promises, and leading them step by step to the conclusions to which his investigations had brought him. Thus the faith of those who joined the Adventists rested not merely upon the statements of William Miller, but upon the reasons which had led him in the beginning to embrace the advent views; and the fact that confirmed infidels by scores were influenced by these reasons to embrace similar views and to give up at one and the same time their objections to the Bible as faulty, and to Christianity as a mere man-made religion, speaks eloquently for the strong

intellectual appeal made by Mr. Miller's presentation of the advent doctrine.

To the strength and security which came from the general teaching of the Word concerning the second advent, and from the good results attendant upon the preaching, might be added a conviction on the part of many intelligent men that some great change was imminent. Said George Bush, professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature in the University of the City of New York:

"If we take the ground of right reason, we must believe that the present age is one expressly foretold in prophecy, and that it is just opening upon the crowning consummation of all prophetic declarations."

Continuing in a letter to Mr. Miller, Professor Bush said:

'Neither is it to be objected, as I conceive, to yourself or your friends. that you have devoted much time and attention to the study of the chronology of prophecy, and have labored much to determine the commencing and closing dates of its great periods. If these periods are actually given by the Holy Ghost in the prophetic books, it was doubtless with the design that they should be studied, and probably, in the end, fully understood; and no man is to be charged with presumptuous folly who reverently makes the attempt to do this. On this point, I have myself no charges to bring against you. Nay, I am even ready to go so far as to say that I do not conceive your errors on the subject of chronology to be at all of a serious nature, or in fact to be very wide of the truth. In taking a day as the prophetical term for a year, I believe you are sustained by the soundest exegesis, as well as fortified by the high names of Mede, Sir I. Newton, Bishop Newton, Kirby, Scott, Keith, and a host of others who have long since come to substantially your conclusions on this head. They all agree that the leading periods mentioned by Daniel and John, do actually expire about this age of the world, and it would be a strange logic that would convict you of heresy for holding in effect the same views which stand forth so prominent in the notices of these eminent divines. Your error, as I apprehend, lies in another direction than your chronology: not, however, that I am prepared to admit all the details of your calculations, but, in general, your results in this field of inquiry do not strike me so far out of the way as to affect any of the great interests of truth or duty."- Advent Herald and Signs of the Times, March 6, 1844.

Professor Bush went on to give philosophic reasons why the close of the 2300 days would usher in, not the end of the world, but the beginning of a new order of things which would result in the conversion of the world. He did not attempt to prove this statement from the Bible. Nor indeed was his letter on the whole based on the teaching of the Bible, and while he was able to point out some weaknesses in the argument of Mr. Miller, his own position was from the standpoint of Scripture untenable.

Other men, especially those whose minds had been drawn to the study of the situation in the light of prophecy, gave expres