For 5 years, after converting his entire family to Adventism, Dudley served as an evangelist for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, traveling and preaching across the midwestern U.S.
In 1865, at the age of 24, Dudley Canright was ordained by James White and J. N. Loughborough, in a service held at Battle Creek.
For 20 years, Canright was a minister and evangelist for the Seventh-day Adventist Church across the United States.
After a year of itinerant living, he returned to Battle Creek, Michigan, where he reconciled himself with Elder and Mrs. White.
In a September 13, 1881 article in the Advent Review and Herald, entitled, "Danger of Giving Way to Discouragement and Doubts", Canright wrote: I came to Battle Creek - and freely talked over with Eld.
As for years in the past, so in the future, all that I am and have shall be thrown unreservedly into this work...I humbly trust in the grace of God to help me keep this resolution.
In a short time, everything seems to put on a different color...Of course I regret now that I gave way to discouragements and doubts, but I think I have learned a lesson by it which I shall not need to learn again as long as I live.In 1881, back as a Seventh-day Adventist minister, Canright remarried, and continued his life as a traveling evangelist for another year.
He wavered repeatedly, several times emerging from his early retirement to hold meetings and preach.
He thinks that Seventh-day Adventists are too narrow in their ideas, and that in quoting so much as they do from the Old Testament are going back into the moonlight rather than experiencing the sunlight of the gospel of Christ.
During his time as pastor of these churches, he occupied himself in writing his 413-page critique, Seventh-day Adventism Renounced, which was published in 1889.
In 1915, he and his brother Jasper attended the funeral of Ellen G. White, during which he reportedly exclaimed, "There is a noble Christian woman gone!"
Unaware that extensive remodeling had taken place, and arriving at the church after dark, Canright fell through an open hole into the basement, broke his leg, and remained there for two days.
In it he criticised White heavily and maintained, among other charges:[1] In 1933, the Review and Herald published In Defense of the Faith: A Reply To Canright.