The man whom God used to start the second advent message in America was William Miller. He was born during the American Revolution, in 1782. His father and mother then lived on a farm in the western hills of Massachusetts, but when little William was four years old, they moved into New York, to a place called Low Hampton, which is a few miles from the south end of Lake Champlain. Can you find this long lake on the map? It lies between New York and Vermont. It was new country then, and the father of little William Miller, whose name was also William Miller, built a log cabin for his family, and set to work to clear a farm for him-self. So William Miller grew up to be a big boy, sturdy, broad-shouldered, and square-faced. As soon as he was big enough, he took hold of the work with his father in the clearing and on the farm; for he was the oldest of sixteen brothers and sisters, and you can imagine the father needed all the help that his son could give him.

He found very little time for school; and, anyway, nobody in that place then could get more than three months of schooling a year; for that was all the time the school held. But his mother taught him to read, and he devoured all the few books there were in the house, so that when he did go to school, he went into the class with the big boys and girls. He loved to read, and he used to sit by the fireplace nights, with a blazing pine knot for light, and read until after all the other people were in bed. The Bible, psalm-book, and the prayer book formed his chief reading until he was ten years of age.

Sitting in the chimney corner when a party was gathered at his father's house, he would listen to the men telling stories of the War for Independence, and he longed to have books that would tell him more. So one of the first he got after this was a history of the United States.

You know our nation was not very old then, and the histories were made up of stories of Washington and Franklin and others, more than of mere facts and dates, like ours today. He was very proud of his country, and he made up his mind he would always stand for the liberties these men had won if he should find them in danger.

When William had grown up to be a young man, he wished very much to go to college, but his father wanted him to stay on the farm. He had already learned all he could at the school there, and he wished to become a learned man. He tried and tried to plan some way to go, but all his plans came to nothing. Yet God trained him better, perhaps, than He could have trained him in college, for the work He wanted him to do.

William Miller married in 1803, and with his wife moved to a farm at Poultney, Vt., a few miles southeast of Low Hampton. He grew to be very popular with the people here, and came to be a man of influence. The young people used to flock to his house for parties, and everybody wanted him and his wife whenever there was going to be "a good time."

But the sad part of it is, he grew away from God. The men he associated with were the great men of the place, the thinkers and doers, but most of them did not believe in Jesus. William Miller began to read the books they read, and he came, like his companions, not to believe in Christ or in the Bible. They believed there was a God, but that He had not much to do with men, and they did not think that Jesus had died to save them from their sins, or that there would be any judgment day. They believed that when they died, that would be the end of it, and they would never live again. Such people are called deists, and for years William Miller was a deist.

He was a soldier for two years, in the War of 1812, and some things he went through at that time made him think very seriously about the Christian religion. Still he did not give up his unbelief, but after the war returned to his farm still a deist. At this time he moved back to Low Hampton, where his mother was still living, though his father was dead.

His father had run into debt, and put a mortgage on his farm to get some money. William Miller paid off the mortgage, and gave the farm to his mother and his brother Solomon, so his mother lived there near him until her death. He bought another farm for himself, half a mile away.

There, on a little hill, he built a comfortable two-story farm house, and planted around it the rose and lilac bushes so dear to the New England heart. From the east room, which was his library and study, he could see two miles away to the Poultney River and the little village of Fair-haven. On the other side of the house, a few rods away, was a beautiful grove, of which we shall hear more afterwards. By this grove the road led to the big town of Whitehall, eight miles to the west, where the lake boats from the north unloaded their freight upon the canal boats that took it down to the Hudson River and to New York City.

Miller's grandfather, his mother's father, was a good old Baptist minister, and he sometimes came to Low Hampton to preach. After awhile there came to be a company of Baptists in that place, and there was built near William Miller's farmhouse a little church, or chapel, for them to meet in. Miller, though he was not a Christian, used to go to this chapel on Sunday, to please his mother. He liked well enough, for that matter, to hear the ministers preach; but some-times there were no ministers to preach, and then one of the deacons would read from the book of sermons. When they were to read, William Miller would stay away; and when his mother asked him why, he said the deacons couldn't read well enough. Then one of the deacons, hearing of this, came to Miller and asked him to do the reading. I suppose he felt rather ashamed to have this good man heap coals of fire on his head like that; but he said he would read. And after that, when there was no minister to preach, William Miller would read the sermons he didn't believe to the people who did believe them.

His grandfather and other ministers who came sometimes to big meetings at Low Hampton, used to stay at his house, and though he liked to argue with them and try to show that they were foolish to believe in Jesus, he was glad to have them stay with him and his family, and they always had a pleasant visit there.

But the time was near when he was to be changed. He was not what we would call a wicked man. He was not a drunkard, nor cruel, nor profane; he was honest with everybody, and always kind to big people and little people. Everybody thought him as good as anybody else, and better than a good many; and I suppose he thought so himself. But did you ever hear what a wise man once said: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked"? He did not know how wicked he really was, just as we do not know how wicked we really are.

But one day he caught himself swearing. It shocked him, and he went off by himself to the beautiful grove west of his house, and started thinking. He began to wonder whether there really might be a life after this life on earth. The more he thought, the less he could tell; but of one thing he was sure, that if after his death he should never live again, that was very terrible; and if, on the other hand, he should live again, at the judgment day, and have to be judged righteous or guilty for what he had done, he would be found guilty, and that would be more terrible still. So it went on for some months, and he was very unhappy. He was now thirty-four years old.

The people of his neighborhood were going to have a big celebration that year, in memory of a battle the Americans had won in the War of 1812. William Miller had been in that battle, and his neighbors all decided on him as the one to take charge of the celebration. They were going to have a ball,—that is, a dance,—and Captain Miller had a number of young men as his staff of helpers to make the preparations. These young men were gathered at the Miller house the day before, when someone proposed that they all should go to hear a minister who was to preach that evening. So in the evening the whole company started off, laughing and talking, and having great fun over the thought of how they were going to celebrate the next night. They weren't thinking at all of a good religious meeting, but were going just to pass the time.

Mrs. Miller stayed at home. Along late in the evening she heard the young men come tramping back, but they were not laughing now, nor talking, nor singing songs. They were very quiet when they came in. She asked them many questions about the meeting and the sermon, but they didn't seem to want to talk. Then she tried asking them about what they were going to do to get ready for the ball next night, but they didn't want to talk about that either. So she came to the conclusion that they had been pretty well sobered by what they had heard at the church. Afterwards her husband told her that the minister had spoken from a text that said: "Run! Speak to this young man," and he talked so straight to the people about their sins and their need of repentance, that every young man there thought the minister surely meant just him. They didn't feel like having their ball next night, and so it was put off, and they never had it.

The next Sunday, Miller was to read the sermon at the church. He started to read, but he felt so bad he couldn't control his voice, and he stopped and sat down. They all felt very sorry for him. He went home from that meeting very wretched. He felt that he was very bad, and that he couldn't make himself good. And he knew that he ought to be punished for his sins, but the only punishment as great as his sins would be death, and he wanted to live. Then suddenly the thought came to him, If there were somebody so good, who had never sinned, who would be willing to take his place and the place of all who had sinned, and die for them, oh, how wonderful and loving such a person would be. Then he thought, that was just what Jesus was said to have done. But only the Bible told of Jesus, and if he didn't believe the Bible, how could he be saved from his crushing load of sins? So then, seeing that the Bible gave him just what he needed, he began to study the Bible, and he began to believe it. He started family worship at home, and told people that he was no more a deist, but that he believed in Christ and in the Bible.

He read the Bible more and more, and cared less and less for other reading matter. The Bible
became his guide, and Jesus became his friend. A very important part of the Bible is its prophecies. Only God knows what is coming to pass in the future and exactly when it will be; but in order that men need not be surprised, "surely," says Amos, "the Lord God will do nothing but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets." Now William Miller, in studying the Bible, began to discover how God had spoken through the prophets of things to come, and they had come just as the prophecies said.

In the book of the Prophet Daniel he read of the time when the Messiah (that is, Christ) should come; and true enough, Jesus the Christ did come at the time foretold, the beginning of His ministry being in the year 27, and His crucifixion in the year 31. Then William Miller read in the same prophecy of the time when "the sanctuary shall be cleansed," and that time, he found by figuring on the basis the prophecy gave, came in 1844.

What did it mean: "the sanctuary shall be cleansed"? Very few, if any, had studied the sanctuary question then, and so a great mistake was made. In common with nearly all Christians at that time, William Miller believed the sanctuary to be this earth, whereas we now know that the sanctuary of God is in heaven. But, believing as he did, William Miller came to the conclusion that the cleansing of the sanctuary meant the cleansing of this earth by fire. And as Peter tells us, the earth and all its works will be burned up when Jesus comes the second time. So Miller believed that the Lord Jesus would come in 1844.

When he first began to study this subject, it was about the year 1816; but for many years he waited, while still studying, thinking that he could never be called to teach or preach. For, as you remember, he was a farmer, not a preacher, and he could not think that he ought to go out and preach that the end of the world was near. He thought God would find somebody else to do that. And so it came along to the year 1831. It was time for the second advent message to begin, and now it would begin, and William Miller was the man God was going to use to start it in America.

So here he sits on an August morning, at his desk in his east room, studying, when there come to his mind, as though God spoke them, the words: "Go and tell it to the world." He sinks into his chair, saying; "I can't go, Lord."

"Why not?" comes the question.

"Oh, I'm not a preacher; I'm a plain farmer. I haven't the ability."

But that wouldn't do, and at last he thought he settled it by promising the Lord that if the Lord would open the way, then he would go.

"What do you mean by opening the way?" came the next question.

"Why," he said, "if I am asked to speak publicly in any place, I will go and tell them what I find in the Bible about the Lord's coming."

Then he felt all right and happy; for he thought nobody would ever ask him to speak. So he arose and prepared to go out to work. But before he was ready, there came a knock at the door. He opened it to find there his nephew, Irving Guilford, who had come with a message from his father in Dresden, sixteen miles away, down Lake Champlain.

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