While browsing or searching the wealth of content on our website is fun and rewarding, we also wanted to provide another means of discovering the richness of Adventist History. Features give users a more in depth study of the ideas, events, and people associated with Adventism.
The History of Sabbath SchoolSomewhere along a dusty country road, James Springer White stopped the horse-drawn carriage in which he and wife, Ellen G. White, were itinerating from Rochester, New York, to Bangor, Maine. It was sometime in the year 1852. White pulled into the shade of a tree for lunch, tethered the horse nearby where it could graze, and took out pen, ink, and paper. Using the lunch box as a desk, he began to write. It was on this journey that James White, a certified teacher, wrote some of the initial Sabbath School.... Read more
The Disappointed: Millerite Adventists and Their “New World”
Thousands of Millerite Adventists expected to ascend to heaven on Tuesday, October 22, 1844. The next day brought great disappointment, however, as Christ did not return. Hiram Edson captured the experience of many when he wrote: "Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I 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.... Read more
"Where Are You, God?": The Story of John Rust and His Conversion in Libby Prison
Wounded and dying on the hot and blood-drenched battlefield at Cold Harbor, John Ethan Rust cried out in desperation, “God, where are you?” After further reflecting in Libby Prison, John’s question was answered and he joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church a short time later. At the commencement of the Civil War, in July 1861, John E. Rust has joined the 20th of Indiana, an infantry regiment organized... Read more
The Christians Duty to Reprove: Ellen G. White’s Testimonies for the Church and Christian Discipline in Nineteenth-Century AmericaSo what is a testimony? Jerry Moon has explained that it is a “general term for a believer’s declaration or profession of faith, either spoken to one or more individuals, or written, or lived, from which are derived several more specialized meanings in Adventist usage.” One such specialized meaning in Adventism is taken from Ellen G. White’s Testimonies for the Church, as well as her other various publications .... Read more