Storrs

From the comment trail it is obvious that some see this as new material. It is in fact an extract from Separate Identity, volume one.

Leaves the Adventist Movement

            The Millerite failure and a reconsideration of Millerite doctrine took Storrs out of the movement in 1844.[1] While many within the Adventist community continued to respect him and consider him a brother in Christ, many more did not. His beliefs were purposely misrepresented and he was reviled in the Second Adventist press. This story has dropped out of most Adventist histories. You will not find it in a recent Advent Christian history. Even some of the older histories such as Johnson’s do not tell it. There is an element of shame attached to it that Adventist historians wish to bury.

            Storrs entered the Millerite movement with reservations, though we are uncertain how loudly he voiced them. He objected to Miller’s cindered-earth doctrine:

We became convinced in the winter of ‘42 and ‘43 that the view, held by Mr. Miller and his adherents, that this age would close with the conflagration of the globe, and the cutting off of all men not then prepared for immortality, and that the next age would open with the new heaven and the new earth, with none inhabiting it but the immortal ones, was an error; an error, too, calculated to make thinking men, who were governed more by reason than excitement, reject the idea of the speedy advent of Christ, altogether. They saw that much remained to be fulfilled on this earth, and that if the conflagration of the globe was to take place at the second advent of Christ that event could not be near.[2]

            Storrs raised this objection by February or March 1843, though we do not know how widely he voiced it. He preached in Philadelphia in the spring of 1843. Thousands heard him and received a specially prepared edition of Six Sermons. This was one of his first opportunities to voice his objections to Millerite theology. If he did so, we cannot find a record of it. After preaching in Cincinnati for several months (from the Fall of 1843 into the Spring of 1844), he returned to Philadelphia for a brief visit in December 1843. Storrs message was well received. He wrote to the editor of The Western Midnight Cry describing the enduring interest there:

The work there is taking a new start; about 30 were forward for prayers last Sabbath evening – some of them found peace in believing. In this city (Philadelphia) I preached a week ago last Sabbath eve, to about three thousand deeply interested hearers, and the cause here is evidently rising higher and higher – no dying away. … I believe the Lord is at the door, and we shall not have to wait long. Tell the brethren and sisters, to be strong and fear not, for our God will come, and come quickly.^[3]

Leaving Philadelphia he returned to the Midwest, evangelizing in parts of Indiana. He was in Philadelphia again in November 1844 with the Seventh-Month message but with Literalist rather than Adventist beliefs. He remained there until 1852.[4]

            The sources of Storrs’ doctrine, who influenced whom, and many of the details of doctrinal shifts are issues for someone else’s research. They have little bearing on Zion’s Watch Tower’s theology. However, we do know some things. Charles Fitch started teaching “probation for the heathen after the Advent.” According to Lewis Gunn, at least by October 1844, some of the Philadelphia Adventists had adopted Storrs’ views. Gunn believed that “many of the Jews will be miraculously converted, and hail His appearing with the exclamation, ‘blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’” They had, wrote Gunn, “changed from their former belief, and differed entirely from Mr. Miller, and the great body of advent believers in this country – but agreeing with the Literalists.”[5]

            Storrs elaborated at length on his doctrine as it was in 1844 and as it, with some modifications, remained until his death. His Literalism served as a growing wedge between him and the Adventist community:

We have since (1843) advocated the doctrine that the advent of Christ as King … is an event nigh at hand – that it will be ushered in with a great and terrible destruction of his enemies, especially among those who have heard the gospel and rejected it; but that there will be “left of the nations,” in the flesh, who will become subjects of the government of Christ and his immortal saints, who shall then rule the nations on this earth, having the seat of empire in Jerusalem, and on mount Zion, from whence “the law shall go forth” to all “left of the nations.” That under this administration “justice and judgment would be executed in the earth,” and “the whole earth be filled with the glory of God,” according to his own oath and promise …. That this period, or age, of the personal reign of Christ … on this earth, is the true millennium, which may be a thousand years; or possibly a much longer period …. That period to close with the final resurrection, judgment, and execution of the judgment on all men: at which time the age of the new heaven and new earth would be ushered in. … For holding such views we have been renounced, shunned, and avoided by a large part of the adherents of Mr. Miller’s theory, who call themselves “Adventists.”[6]

            Undeniably, Storrs was one of the leading lights in Philadelphia. Massive crowds gathered outside the Millerite chapel to hear him and others. Every event was wildly exaggerated by the press. Someone was reported to have stolen money from the Millerite treasury. This was false. Children were said to have frozen to death. This was false. The Philadelphia Ledger, appealing to its barely-literate readership, described the Millerite gatherings with scorn, ridicule, and exaggeration.[7] The Philadelphia Evening Chronicle reported:

Portions of the population of all the large eastern cities in this country, have been more or less, the victims of a singular and fantastical delusion. They call themselves Millerites, and implicitly believed the delirious and impious ravings of one Miller, who had prophesied that the second advent would certainly occur on the twenty-third instant, when this fair globe would certainly be destroyed by conflagration! Here, in Baltimore, and in Boston, the civil authorities have been compelled to close their churches by force, in consequence of hundreds of them having assembled, and thrown the neighbourhood into wild alarm by their yelling and howling cries and lamentations. On the evening of the twenty-second instant, many hundreds of these crazy people repaired to camps near this city, attired themselves in long white cotton dresses, which they called their “ascension robes,” and were seen wandering through the woods and on the banks of the rivers by moonlight, like sheeted ghosts. They left their business and their families, and many children would have perished, had it not been for the kindness of their fellow citizens. For days this flame of dangerous superstition and enthusiasm spread like wild-fire. There was no stopping it. In two or three instances the victims anticipated the end of the world by suicide: one named Culp, threw himself into the cataract of Niagara; and now that the day has passed over, many are found to be (incurably perhaps) delirious. Such scenes … have alluded to have not probably occurred for centuries, and I hope that centuries will again roll away, before such sorry evidences of the weakness of human nature, and the distress which invariably attends them, will harrow up the feelings.[8]

            Almost nothing in this article is true. The Philadelphia and Boston papers were particularly nasty, full of falsehood and ridicule. That they dressed themselves in ascension robes and similar claims were all false. Jane Marsh Parker, Joseph Marsh’s daughter, took pains to refute the Ascension Robes slander. J. V. Himes did as well.[9] Some refutation of the most scandalously false reports was made in the Millerite press, but others wanted to make plain that those in Philadelphia were not “true” Millerites. Lewis Gunn wrote to the Philadelphia papers blaming the whole thing on Storrs and others who had adopted Literalist views:

Some … were not looking for the destruction of the earth, nor for its complete physical renovation, at the present time; they looked for the introduction of the millennium by the personal coming of Christ to the earth; they think this will be the commencement of the promised restitution of all things, to be carried forward until all things shall be made new; they think that probation will close to those who have heard the gospel, but not so with the heathen and all those who have not heard of his fame; they think it will be the beginning of a new dispensation to the heathen, during which it will be emphatically true that the leaves of the tree of life will be for the healing of the nations. These were the published views of Geo. Storrs. … In these views they differed entirely from Mr. Miller and the great body of Advent believers in this country, but agreeing with the Literalists of England (Millennarians) …[10]

By 1845 Storrs “embraced the full Literalist doctrine.” Enoch Jacobs, editor of The Day Star (Cincinnati) wrote: “He has finally gone off into Judaism,” Storrs made the issue clear in 1849, writing that it was “true that we were drawn into Mr. Miller’s theory for a time, but renounced all his peculiarities more than four years ago, and some of them more than five years since; and have had no connection with his peculiar view for more than four years past.” He noted that Millerite “leaders … are among our opponents.”[11]  Sometime in late May or early June 1849, two “brethren” wrote to Storrs objecting to his comments about Millerite opposition to his work. They defined themselves as Millerites: “We are what the world, the church, and Br. Storrs calls Millerites. Why are we this? Is it not because we believe with Br. Miller that the Lord is soon coming?” Storrs replied that they had misapprehended the original article, but he also suggested that their definition of Millerite Adventism was wrong:

Whatever the “church” or ‘the world’ may understand by Millerism, I understand it to have three peculiarities, and nothing more: viz. “Definite time for the advent,” …. That view I gave up in the winter of ’44 and ’45; and time has since demonstrated that I was right in so doing. The two other peculiarities of Millerism I gave up, one in the month of Feb. ’44, and the other in June ’45. The three may be summed up thus, 1. “Definite time for the advent, not to go beyond ’47.” 2, “No return of the literal posterity of Jacob to the land wherein their fathers have dwelt.” 3, “The earth all to be melted at the time of the advent, and none of its inhabitants left upon it.”

These three points constitute the whole of what I call Millerism. … The second personal advent of Christ – that advent premillennial – nigh, even at the door – the kingdom of God on earth, or the earth the inheritance of the saints – the earth renewed, Paradise restored, and all those kindred doctrines relating to the kingdom of God, are no part nor parcel of Millerism: They had a distinct existence from his theory, and before his views were published to the world. The fact that some who embraced his theory had no knowledge that these other points had been published, by English Literalists, years before they heard from Mr. Miller, does not make them really any part of his peculiarities: they are not, and never were, any of his peculiar views. … The three points I have named are all that constitutes the peculiarities of Millerism.

The leaders in his theory did not like to retain the name of Millerites after 1843-4 passed by, though they gloried in being called so in those years. No sooner did the time pass away, and they commenced the work of organizing churches, than they assumed the name of Adventists; thus showing they were unwilling to go forward under their former one, and so assumed that which is equally appropriate to all believers in the speedy return of Christ and his personal reign on earth, of whom there are many who never were Millerites. In assuming the name Adventists they wronged this latter class of believers; who thus became, in the public mind, identified with them; and they were as really a sect as any other. Why should they have left the name Millerite, by which they were every where known, to assume another without having given up one of Mr. Miller’s peculiarities? Was it to cover their errors without “confession?” It certainly has that appearance, whatever might have been their design.[12]

Storrs pointed back to Miller’s letter as printed in Voice of Truth, saying that Miller and his associates, unable to fault his reasoning, faulted him. Attacks from Millerite Adventists continued throughout Storrs’ career. Apollos Hale and Sylvester Bliss issued a list of ten key doctrines that Storrs was supposed to have abandoned. It was largely and knowingly false. Storrs pointed out the misrepresentation, showing that Hale and Bliss did in fact know the truth of the matter. He called them “reckless in a degree and to an extent that must fill every honest mind with disgust who knows the facts.” He said that their attack “bears on the face of it the evidence of design to stigmatise [sic] us willfully.” Storrs set what he’d actually written side by side with Hale and Bliss’s contrivances, pointing out that they had the original article by Storrs at hand. Their behavior was inexcusable: “This effort to blast our character and destroy our influence is not the first that has issued from the same quarter, which has been borne in silence; and it gives us pain to feel that duty now calls us to rebuke openly those who have sinned in this matter. We have long time holden our peace while a stream of slander has been poured over the land concerning us from men who, if their professions could be relied upon, are as truly the representatives of Jesus Christ as the Pope is of St. Peter. But God will judge between us.”[13]

            James White republished Storrs’ 1843 article on the return of the Jews in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, failing to note that it was not his current belief. “When an association, or individuals publish sentiments which the author has publicly renounced – and give no notice of the renunciation – all men, who have knowledge of the facts must pronounce it an act of dishonesty,” Storrs wrote. White replied in the May 12, 1853, issue of The Review and Herald:

We much regret the date of this discourse was not given. We also regret that we did not state that George Storrs had renounced a portion, at least, of the truth contained in that discourse; for we never had the least desire to conceal this fact. Our object in publishing it was for the truth it contains …

We also much regret that the Editor of the Examiner should so rashly charge us with “dishonesty,” and then withhold from us his paper containing this charge. Had it not been for the kindness of a brother in Massachusetts … we might have been ignorant of the charge to this day.

Whether the course pursued by the Examiner is, or is not, in accordance with the gospel of Christ, we now leave the sincere to judge.[14]

            Our historians’ sympathies rest entirely with Storrs. The Whites would gather well-deserved accusations of plagiarism and misrepresentation throughout their careers. White’s sniffing complaint that Storrs hadn’t sent them the issue of Bible Examiner containing his exposure of the Review and Herald’s dishonesty was a bit of misdirection. It blamed the wronged party for being wronged. Storrs was kinder than we are, “cheerfully” forgiving them upon receipt of the apology.

The 1847 Speculation and Other Delusions

            Millerites were inveterate date setters. If Jesus didn’t come in 1843, then it was 1844 or 1845 or 1847. The 1847 movement was multi-faceted and complex, but most of its history is not relevant to this discussion. Storrs reaction to it is.

As with most Adventist speculations, the 1847 date was not original to them. William W. Pym (1793-1852), a British expositor, suggested that the 2300 days and the seventy weeks ended in 1847. His Word of Warning drew mention in early Millerite periodicals.^[15] Joseph Wolf, German Jew turned Christian missionary, also focused on that date as early as 1832.^[16] John Hooper, an Irvingite, suggested that the 2300 days would end in 1847 in his book The Doctrine of the Second Advent Briefly Stated. First published in England in 1830, an American edition was published in 1845. In 1844 The Western Midnight Cry!!! regularly advertised a tract by Hooper entitled The Present Crisis. Johann Richter, a German expositor, ended several prophetic periods in 1847. Bishop Wilson, Ferre, and others – none of them Adventists, though Adventists were willing enough to borrow from them without credit – contributed to the discussion.

J. V. Himes took the 1847 message to England, drawing heavily from Campbellite churches, the source of most Millerite interest in the United Kingdom.  Himes and his British associates pointed to Alexander Campbell’s assertion that 1847 would mark the “cleansing of the temple,” drawing a heated response from the editor of The Christian Messenger and Family Magazine: “Campbell in his debate with Robert Owen teaches no such doctrine as they impute to him. It is true, he refers to the cleansing of the sanctuary about the year 1847, but his meaning of that event is very different from the one they attach to it.”^[17] This bit of obfuscation did not serve the British Campbellites well.

In the United States new charts were made “showing wherein mistakes had been made in calculations, and confidently predicting the end of the world about” 1847.^[18] Storrs raised a warning voice, repeating the objections to time-speculations he made in 1845. He appealed for good sense, writing in the August 1846, Examiner:

Nearly all the exhortations of professed “Adventists,” to saints and sinners, to serve God, are based upon this one thing – “Do it, for the Lord is coming – You will perish then if you do not serve him.”

Such exhortations are proper enough in their place: but to make them the burden of our message … in my judgment is nothing more than an appeal to the selfishness of the human heart. It seems to say – If the Lord was not coming so soon, you need not be so particular to serve him!

Every child of man on earth is under just as much obligation to serve God, with all his heart, if Christ was not coming these hundred years, as if he was coming to-day. The obligation to serve God lies much higher than the mere fact that the day is most over. … The reaction that will take place if ’46 and ’47 pass by as they may, without witnessing the advent, will be disastrous beyond all conception. Experience proves this – I mean the experience of ’43 and ’44. Where are the great majority of those now who professedly were “aroused to serve God” as they ought by the cry of time for the Lord’s coming? … Scarcely one in ten of them are now found walking so as to honor their Christian profession. … They were stimulated by wrong motives. Their selfishness was the principal thing appealed to and excited. …

For what are Christ’s disciples left in this world? Is it just to get safe out of it? Or, is it to glorify God and the Lamb upon earth? … Are they under any more obligation to do it if their Lord is to return to-day than if he was not coming for a hundred years?[19]

Other predictions came and went, and Second Adventist publications sniped at Storrs for rejecting them. Storrs noted that “one objection to the Examiner is that we do not say enough” about the Second Advent of Christ. “We firmly believe,” he wrote, “that even is now ‘nigh, even at the door;’ but we have no idea of attempting to find … an exact day or year … unless events future should shed more light on prophecy and prophetic numbers than has ever yet been elicited.” He pointed to the inconsistent, irrational thought found in the leading Millerite journals and publications, pointing specifically to Apollos Hale who was caught up in the 1847 nonsense. He quoted Hale as writing: “Those who are brought to view as the subjects of the wrath of God at the Second Advent are those who reject the testimony of God on the time of that event.”[20] Storrs observed that “the time of this leader has all failed; but his developments since have painfully shown that his uncharitableness, and that of his associates, has not failed. We see that these leaders have been mistaken both in time and in events; and yet they have severely denounced us for ‘not following’ them.”[21] Storrs reprinted his warning to serve God because it is the right thing to do when the 1854 fever, the founding event behind the Advent Christian Association, spread among Adventists.

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[1]           J. Gordon Melton is in error when he suggests that Storrs was ever a member of the Advent Christian Church. (Encyclopedia of American Religions, page 615.)

[2]           G. Storrs: The Age to Come, Bible Examiner, May 1850, page 74.

[3]           Letter from George Storrs dated November 29, 1843, found in The Western Midnight Cry, December 9, 1843, page 5. Storrs residence in Brooklyn was at 62 Hicks Street. The house still exists. Cornelia Davenport, Alexander Russell’s daughter and C. T. Russell’s first cousin, was his neighbor living at 74 Hicks.

[4]           Storrs’ itinerary is given in Six Sermons, 1856 revised edition, page 14, 17.

[5]           Julia Neuffer: The Gathering of Israel: A Historical Study of Early Writings, Digital Edition, page 4.

[6]           G. Storrs: The Age to Come, Bible Examiner, May 1850, page 74.

[7]           See A. S. Braham: The Philadelphia Press and the Millerites, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, April 1954, page 189ff.

[8]           As reprinted in The Christian Messenger and Reformer, December 1844, page 205. Christian Messenger was published in London, England.

[9]           J. M. Parker: Did the Millerites Have Ascension Robes? The Outlook: A Family Magazine, October 15, 1894, page 582-583.

[10]          Wellcome, op. cit, page 382.

[11]          G. Storrs: Tour East with Various Observations, Bible Examiner, May 1849, page 73.

[12]          G. Storrs: Misapprehension Corrected, Bible Examiner, July 1849, page 106.

[13]          G. Storrs: Misrepresentations Corrected, Bible Examiner, August 1851, pages 127-128.

[14]          J. White: Hear Us; Then Judge, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, May 12, 1853, page 208.

[15]          An American edition was published in 1839 and was mentioned in the December 15, 1840, issue of Signs of the Times.

[16]          L. E. Froom: Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Volume 3, page 473.

[17]          James Wallis: The Christian Messenger and Family Magazine, August 1846, page 366.

[18]          Daniel McDonald, A Twentieth Century History of Marshall County, Indiana, Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908, page 271.

[19]          G. Storrs: Why Serve the Lord? as reprinted in the February 15, 1854, Bible Examiner, page 59.

[20]          A. Hale: Harmony of Prophetic Chronology, and Time of the Advent to be Known, J. V. Himes, 1845.

[21]          G. Storrs: The Second Advent of Christ, Bible Examiner, June 1849, pages 89-90.