Career
Following the Great Disappointment, he adopted the shut-door doctrine at first, along with Joseph Turner. Later he abandoned this interpretation. Hale began his work as a Methodist Episcopal minister in Charleston and Medford, Massachusetts, in 1833.
He left the Methodist Episcopal ministry in 1842.
Hale spent the last years of his life in Washington, District of Columbia, where he died. Hale also served as an associate editor for the Signs of the Times, and later when it became the Advent Herald, he continued in the same responsibility.
He also authored the first three chapters of William Miller"s Memoirs. In January, 1845, Hale and Joseph Turner published an interpretation of what had happened on October 22, 1844 in which they articulated what became known as the shut-door doctrine.