Ellen White became a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which was organized on May 21, 1863 with 3,500 members. Her husband, James White, is considered the founder, given the contributions his publishing enterprises and organizational and business abilities made. Ellen White provided a prophetic voice, and Joseph Bates, a second co-founder, was the untiring, itinerant evangelist. Just fifteen years before, during the Sabbath Conferences of 1848, the handful of impoverished believers came to the conviction that the Sabbath truth was the sealing message of Revelation 7, and that they were to take this message to the entire world. At the time, James and Ellen White, and Joseph Bates were the only preachers of the group.