Mary Bird Nichols

Mary Bird Nichols was part of the early Adventist movement.

She was married to Otis Nichols, a lithographer connected with production of the 1850 prophecy chart.

On November 18, 1848, Mary Bird Nichols and her husband Otis Nichols hosted a small gathering of believers at their home in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Among those present were James White, Ellen White, and Captain Joseph Bates.

During that meeting, Ellen White went into vision.

What she received was a direct charge to James White: he was to begin publishing a paper. The vision described that the paper would be small at first — but that it would grow and grow until its light went clear around the world.

James White obeyed. He launched The Present Truth in 1849, a small journal printed under difficult conditions and mailed to scattered believers across New England and beyond. That paper was later combined with Advent Review in 1850 to become the Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald — the periodical that would travel the globe and help transform a fragmented post-disappointment movement into an organized, publishing, worldwide church.

The articles published in The Present Truth — read the original: The Present Truth (PDF) — were among the first doctrinal anchors of what would become Seventh-day Adventism.

The meeting in the Nichols home on that November evening was, in retrospect, one of the founding moments of the Adventist press. Mary Bird Nichols opened her home for it.

“Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie.”

— Habakkuk 2:2-3 (KJV)

Mary's home became part of the story that carried the Advent message from a small gathering into print. The 1843 Prophetic Chart made Daniel and Revelation plain for the Advent awakening; its Key of Explanation (PDF) follows Daniel 2, 7, 8, and 9, Daniel 8:14, and Revelation 14. The 1850 Sanctuary and Prophetic Chart brought the heavenly sanctuary, the seventh-day Sabbath, the seal of God, and the warning concerning the beast and his image into the same visual testimony. Read its Chart Explanation (PDF) and Key of Explanation (PDF).

“I was shown that the 1843 chart was directed by the hand of the Lord... Then I was shown that the 1850 chart was directed by His hand, and that the figures were correct.”

— Ellen G. White, Early Writings, p. 74.

The 1850 chart places Revelation 13-14 before the reader: the commandments of God, the faith of Jesus, worship, and the warning concerning the beast and his image. Compare that chart study with the documented April 15, 1904 Incorporation Record and the History of the Seventh-day Adventist Name.

“The message of the fall of Babylon, as given by the second angel, is repeated, with the additional mention of the corruptions which have been entering the churches since 1844. The work of this angel comes in at the right time to join in the last great work of the third angel's message as it swells to a loud cry.”

— Ellen G. White, Early Writings, p. 277.1.

“Those who have betrayed sacred trusts will be unmasked before the world, whatever may be their position, height, or reputation.”

— Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 81.

The vision at the Nichols home points directly to The Present Truth feature: the little paper was to grow like streams of light around the world. Read it alongside Brother Miller's Dream, where the first casket of Advent treasure is gathered into a larger casket and shines with greater glory; the New Jerusalem study; and the 1872 Fundamental Principles. Together these sources invite readers to test every teaching by Scripture and to stand on the truths made plain in the pioneer charts. Read the 501(c)(3) church-state study with the 1904 incorporation record for the later legal history.

James White: Trinity and Sunday

“Here we might mention the Trinity, which does away the personality of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ, and of sprinkling or pouring instead of being ‘buried with Christ in baptism,’ ‘planted in the likeness of his death:’ but we pass from these fables to notice one that is held sacred by nearly all professed Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. It is, The change of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment from the seventh to the first day of the week.”

— James White, “Preach the Word,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, December 11, 1855, vol. 7, no. 11, p. 85. Read the archival PDF.

James White: The Reformers Stopped Reforming

“The ‘mystery of iniquity’ began to work in the church in Paul’s day. It finally crowded out the simplicity of the gospel, and corrupted the doctrine of Christ, and the church went into the wilderness. Martin Luther, and other reformers, arose in the strength of God, and with the Word and Spirit, made mighty strides in the Reformation. The greatest fault we can find in the Reformation is, the Reformers stopped reforming. Had they gone on, and onward, till they had left the last vestige of Papacy behind, such as natural immortality, sprinkling, the trinity, and Sunday-keeping, the church would now be free from her unscriptural errors.”

— James White, “The Word,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, February 7, 1856, vol. 7, no. 19, p. 148. Read the archival PDF.