Now all was staked on this amended prophecy, so soon to be proved false.
And, mark you, Elder White and his wife were both involved in this time-setting. She again calmly writes: " Again they were doomed to disappointment. The time of expectation passed, and their Savior did not appear." Why they? Why not we? Is this candid?
Miller-all honor to him for his honesty-wrote: " On the passing of my published time, I frankly acknowledged my disappointment... We expected the personal coming of Christ at that time; and now to contend that we were not mistaken is dishonest ... I have no confidence in any of the new theories that grew out of that [Seventh-Day Adventist] movement, namely, that Christ then came as the Bridegroom, that the door of mercy was closed, that there is no salvation for sinners, that the seventh trumpet then sounded, or that it was a fulfillment of prophecy in any sense."
Very few of the original Adventists accepted the new theories of the Seventh-Day Adventists. Miller never became a Seventh-Day Adventist. His honesty at the last fills one with hope that he was not a mere charlatan, but a self-deceived Christian. Here we must part company with him.
Mrs. White writes: " I saw leading men watching William Miller, fearing lest he should embrace the third angel's message and the commandments of God... I saw a human influence exerted to keep his mind in darkness.... At length William Miller raised his voice against the light from heaven." (' Spiritual Gifts,' Vol. I, p. 167).
We shall see what this "light from heaven" was. She stated that "To deny that the days ended at that time (1844) was to involve the whole question in confusion, and to renounce positions which had been established by unmistakable fulfillment of prophecy."