Chapter 6—December, 1844

Ellen Harmon’s First Vision Changed Her Mind About the Significance of the “7th Month Experience.”

Under date of May 30, 1847, James White wrote:SDD 4.3

When she received her first vision, Dec. 1844, she and all the band in Portland, Maine, (where her parents then resided) had given up the midnight-cry, and shut door, as being in the past. It was then that the Lord shew her in vision, the error into which she and the band in Portland had fallen. She then related her vision to the band, and about sixty confessed their error, and acknowledged their 7th month experience to be the work of God.—James White, A Word to the Little Flock, 22.

The “7th month experience,” or “midnight cry,” was the proclamation that Christ would return on the 10th day of the 7th Jewish month, which in 1844 fell on October 22. In her first vision Ellen Harmon was shown that the seventh month movement was “the work of God.” In other words, the Millerite calculations based on Daniel 8:14 were not to be discarded as an unfortunate blunder.SDD 5.1

This vision substantiated the validity of the October 22 date. However, since Christ had not returned on that date, the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 must have been fulfilled by some other event. James White indicates that, on the basis of what she was shown in her first vision, Ellen Harmon reverted to her earlier view that the door was shut on October 22. She apparently now believed that the door of mercy was closed.SDD 5.2