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Pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
The great work of our pioneers can be contributed to their study of the Bible, their openness to the leading of the Holy Spirit and their commitment to Jesus have laid the strong foundations of today's Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Meet some of the pioneers of the Adventist movement -
To read about other Adventist pioneers visit www.aplib.org/Gallery.htm
J. N. Andrews was an intellectual who enjoyed study much more than physical activity. He was one of the best-known evangelists and leaders of the early Adventist Church.
A respected theologian, Andrews helped develop many church doctrines. He was influential in creating the church's bylaws and constitution. In 1855, after thorough investigation, Andrews adopted sunset Friday evening as the beginning of the Sabbath, our day of worship. This became a standard for Adventists. He also organised the church as a legal business association, allowing the church to obtain legal possessions and property. During the Civil War, Andrews lobbied Adventist draftees be allowed to take a non-combatant stand.
In 1860, he was involved in the organisation of the denominational publishing house. The following year he published his extensive research, History of the Sabbath & the First Day of the Week. The book reviewed the seventh-day Sabbath in history. He was the editor of the Review and Herald, one of the church's most successful publications, for a number of years.
In 1874, he became the first Seventh-day Adventist missionary in Switzerland. He organised the various companies of people who worshipped on Sabbath, or Saturday, into a unified community. While living in Basel, he contracted tuberculosis and died. He was 54. Top
Joseph Bates was a sailor and ship captain for many years. Having earned a small fortune, he returned to civilian life in 1828. As the Advent movement began, the retired sea captain became a respected evangelist and spiritual leader.
In early 1845, Bates, through the power of the Holy Spirit, understood the Biblical truth of the seventh-day Sabbath, and in 1846 he published a 48-page tract on the subject. Bates was the oldest of our church pioneers, and he became the first regional president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Michigan, 1861).
He lived to the age of 80 because he had a simple diet and lived a life of temperance. He organised one of the first temperance societies in the United States.
Bates was a spiritual and courageous man. Top
Stephen N. Haskell was an evangelist and administrator. He began preaching for the non-Sabbath keeping Adventists in New England in 1853. Later that year he began to worship on Saturday, or Sabbath. He worked without pay in New England until his ordination in 1870. He was president of Seventh-day Adventist churches in various parts of the United States.
In 1885 he led a group of missionaries who began to spread the Adventist mission in Australia and New Zealand. In 1887 he began to establish the Adventist church in London, England. He travelled the world as a missionary between 1889 and 1890, visiting Western Europe, Southern Africa, India, China, Japan, and Australia.
Haskell is also remembered as the person who organised the first Adventist Church of African Americans in New York City in 1902. He led in temperance work in Maine in 1911, began printing books for the blind in 1912, and assisted in the development of the White Memorial Hospital in 1916. He wrote: "The Story of Daniel the Prophet", "The Story of the Seer of Patmos", and "The Cross and Its Shadow". Top
William Miller had a strong religious background, but he became attached to the wrong "crowd". His friends set aside the Bible and had vague ideas about God and His personality. When Miller was thirty-four years of age he became dissatisfied with his views. The Holy Spirit impressed his heart, and he turned to the study of the Word of God. He found in Christ the answer to all his needs. His study led him to the great prophecies that pointed to the first and to the second advent of our Lord. The time prophecies interested him, particularly the prophecies of Daniel and The Revelation.
In the year 1818, as a result of his study of the prophecies of Daniel 8 and 9, he came to the conclusion that Christ would come some time in the year 1843 or 1844. He hesitated until 1831 before he began to announce his findings. From his first public service we may mark the beginnings of the Advent movement in North America. In the months and years that followed, roughly 100,000 persons came to believe in the imminence of Christ's second coming.
Following the great disappointment of 1844, Miller lived for several years. He fell asleep in Christ in 1849. A small chapel stands near his home in Low Hampton, New York, built by Miller before he died. In spite of his misunderstanding of the event that was to transpire in 1844, God used him to awaken the world to the nearness of the end and to prepare sinners for the time of judgment. Top
Uriah Smith accepted the message taught by the Sabbath-keeping Adventist and soon was associated with the publishing interests of the believers in Rochester, New York. For about a half century he was the editor or on the editorial staff of the church paper, the Review and Herald. Smith was the first Secretary of the General Conference starting in 1863.
He is best known for his book, The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation. He was the first Bible teacher at Battle Creek College.
Smith was often seen limping down the streets of Battle Creek with his cane and artificial limb, for he had suffered an amputation as a teenage boy.
Smith was a man who was on the march. Though he was busy with the Lord's business and he wanted others to be about theirs, he was a gracious and tender-hearted man. Top
Ellen G. White is the most translated woman in literature and the most translated American author of either gender. An uneducated and frail woman, she managed to write over 5,000 articles, 40 books and 50,000 pages of manuscripts. Her writings on health and temperance were ground-breaking. (Read her books online)
At the age of nine, Ellen had accident that would change the direction of her life. A classmate threw a rock that smashed into her face as she was walking home from school. She slowly recovered after weeks of being unconscious. But her education suffered. Many believed that she would not live for long. Her illness would plague her for years to come.
She attended some Methodist camp meetings in the 1840s where she joined the Methodist Church. A little later she heard William Miller speak about the Advent message at a camp-meeting in Portland, USA. Ellen embraced the message that predicted Jesus' return on October 14, 1844. Jesus did not return on that day. To those who had eagerly waited for Him, October 14, 1844 became known as the Great Disappointment.
Ellen did not give up her faith, but rather, she joined others in earnest study of the Bible. She wanted to understand where they had gone wrong in their previous studies. They continued to meet in each-other's homes and worship God.
Ellen received a vision from God at one of these meetings and hesitantly told others about it. They accepted her vision as being from God. Ellen received many more visions about different topics.
Ellen White was a widely respected public speaker. She addressed issues such as civil rights, the opposition of slavery during the Civil War in America and temperance and lifestyle practices.
Ellen G. White and her family
She married James White and together they had four sons, Henry, Edson, Willie and Herbert. Henry passed away at age 16, and Herbert died when he was only three months old.
Ellen White comes to the South Pacific
Stephen Haskell, a pioneer of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was sure a visit from Ellen White would encourage the growing membership in Australia and help develop a training school.
Church leaders in the United States agreed with Haskell. They asked whether Ellen would consider coming to Australia. She left for Sydney in November, 1891, on the steamer S.S. Alameda.
After visiting some friends in America, she took the train to Melbourne, the hub of the early church activities.
She visited the Echo Publishing Company, which had been established in 1885, and announced that the pressrooms were familiar to her. "I have seen this place before," she said referring to a vision that she had on January 3, 1875. "I have seen these persons, and I know the conditions existing among the workers in this department. There is a lack of unity here, a lack of harmony." She would speak later to the foreman about these and other issues. God had given her the correct insight.
Ellen oversaw the establishment of Avondale College, a training school, and helped further develop the church's publishing, health food and medical work while in Australia.
Ellen spent her last five years in Australia at "Sunnyside", a farm she built in Cooranbong, New South Wales. It was near to the Avondale College site enabling her to keep track on its development.
White's house in Coorangbong, New South Wales.
You can visit this historical site today.
Ellen returned to the United States in 1900, passing through New Zealand, Samoa and Hawaii. She had wanted to retire in New South Wales as she believed it to be the finest climate of any place she had lived, but her work would see her settle in northern California where she died in 1915.
Sources:
Clapham, Noel et al "Seventh-day Adventists in the South Pacific 1885-1985" Signs Publishing, Warburton, Victoria, Australia, 1985
White, Arthur L., "Ellen White: Woman of Vision" Review and Herald Publishing, Hagerstown, Maryland, USA, 2000.
Visit the Ellen G White website.
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