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Appendix Notes
417
lowing the disappointment in the autumn of 1844, when Christ did
not come as was expected, the adventists divided into several groups.
The principal survivors today are the Advent Christian Church, a
small body, and Seventh-day Adventists. Relatively few among the
Adventists immediately following the disappointment, maintained
their confidence in the fulfillment of prophecy in 1844. But those
who did stepped forward into the third angel’s message with its
seventh-day Sabbath
.
Page 27.
Systematic Benevolence
: In 1859 the leading brethren
among the Sabbath-keeping Adventists came to see the necessity of
a systematic plan of supporting the work of God, and from a confer-
ence at which this matter was studied, there came recommendations:
“1. Let each brother from eighteen to sixty years of age lay by
him in store on the first day of each week from five to twenty-five
cents
.
“2. Each sister from eighteen to sixty years of age lay by her in
store on the first day of each week from two to ten cents
.
“3. Also, let each brother and sister lay by him or her in store on
the first day of each week from one to five cents on each and every
$100 of property they possess.”—
The Review and Herald, February
3, 1859, 84
. Adopted by the General Conference, June 4, 1859
.
As further clarification of involvements of point 3, James White,
in the
Good Samaritan
of January, 1861, explained:
“We propose that the friends give a tithe, or tenth of their income,
estimating their income at 10 percent on what they possess.”
In the
The Review and Herald, April 9, 1861
, James White
explained how the brethren in Michigan applied this
.
“They regard the use of their property worth the same as money
at 10 percent. This 10 percent they regard as the increase of their
[523]
property. A tithe of this would be 1 percent, and would be nearly 2
cents per week on each $100, which our brethren, for convenience
sake, are unanimous in putting down.”
Thus systematic benevolence embodied freewill offerings and
a tithe reckoned on what would be considered a fair income from
property held. The method of reckoning the tithe was, in the year
1876, discerned to be actually one tenth of the income to the indi-
vidual from whatever source it might come, and this led to a concept
which would reach out to a much larger number than those who were