At an unforgettable camp meeting at Exeter, New Hampshire, in August 1844, the cry at midnight was heard at last. [1]
Former sea captain Joseph Bates, a man who had invested his fortune in the cause, was half-heartedly exhorting the Millerites to hold on and encouraging them with allusions to his old seafaring days.
The congregation fidgeted in the sultry heat, uncomfortable, and unconvinced. When a rider appeared on horseback, dismounted, and took his seat at the end of a pew, everyone turned to watch. Those who were closest engaged him in spirited conversation. But Joseph Bates droned on.
Suddenly Mrs. John Couch stood determinedly to her feet. She was sister to Samuel Snow, the rider who had just arrived. She spoke courteously but with conviction.
"Brother Bates! It is too late to spend our time upon these truths with which we are familiar. Time is short. The Lord has servants here who have meat in due season for His household. Let them speak, and let the people hear them."
As she spoke, an eyewitness reports, the Spirit of the Lord moved over the assembly like a breeze rippling a becalmed lake. Hungry cries of, "Amen, Sister; yes, yes," rose all around. Here and there men and women broke into spontaneous tears, anticipating an answer to their prayers.
Bates gallantly relinquished the pulpit. "If Brother Snow has truth for us from the Lord, let him come and deliver his message." On the train to Exeter he had been impressed that just such a development would take place.
Snow was ready; but it was agreed to give him the freshness of the early morning meeting.
"Our blessed Lord has promised that He will come again and receive His people unto Himself," Snow reminded his thousands of listeners gathered in the cool air the following morning. [2]
"As to the time of His return, Jesus told the disciples that 'that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.' (Mark 13:32) It is thought by many," Snow continued, "that this passage proves that men will ever know the time. But if it proves that, it likewise proves that the Son will never know the time, for it makes the same statement about the Son that it does concerning men and angels! But if this verse does not prove that Christ will never know the time of His return, it does not prove either that men and angels will never know!
"When Jesus came the first time," Snow went on, "He came on time and He had a message about time. He declared, 'The time is fulfilled.' (Mark 1:15) I ask you, brethren an sisters, what time was fulfilled?"
"Prophetic time," replied the crowd. "The sixty-ninth of Daniel's seventy weeks."
"Right, right," Snow encouraged them. "We all know the prophecies of Daniel 8 and 9 about the 2300 year-days and about the seventy weeks of years that were 'determined (or 'cut off') from them. And it has been common among us to carry the 2300 years down to 'about the year 1843.'
"But we have overlooked some things! We have said that the 2300 years began in the spring of 457 BC and ended in the spring of 1844, but the 2300 years were not to commence with the beginning of the year but with the 'going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.' (Daniel 9:25) Now Ezra 7:8 tells us that this decree did not reach Jerusalem until the fifth month of the year! My brethren, if Bible years began and ended in the spring, and if the decree did not go into effect until five months after the beginning of the year, must not the 2300 years extend at least five months beyond the beginning of spring?"
"Amen." "That's right." "Indeed they must," responded the people.
"Then we were wrong to expect Christ's return in the spring of 1844!"
"Yes, yes! Thank God!"
"The next truth which bears on the time of Christ's return"?--Snow advanced in his argument with eager assurance--" is a fuller understanding of the spring and autumn types in the law of Moses.
"The principal festival of the spring ceremonies was the Passover, held in the 'first month' of the Bible year. The principal festival of the autumn ceremonies was the Day of Atonement, in the 'seventh month' of the year. Now, what day was it on which Jesus died on the cross?"
"The Passover," replied the crowd, intently following him.
"Correct! 'Christ our Passover' was crucified for us (1 Corinthians 5:7) in the first month, in the spring of the year, on the very day when the Passover lamb was slain. But that is not all. At what time of day was the Passover lamb slain?"
"In the evening," the people replied.
"Yes; more precisely, 'between the evenings' as the Hebrew has it; not at sundown, but at midafternoon. Tell me, at what hour did Christ our Passover yield up His life for us?"
"At three o'clock," came the response.
Referring to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus and to the able chronologist William Hales, Snow established the date of Christ's death as the spring of AD 31, in the midst of Daniel's seventieth week of years. "I declare to you, brethren, from the Word of God, that when Jesus came the first time, He died as our Passover Lamb in the very year foretold in Daniel's prophecy and on the very day prescribed in the ceremonial law--in fact, at the very hour prescribed in that law. Not one point of the law failed. Every jot and tittle was fulfilled. Time was most strictly regarded!
"Now, brethren, just as the Passover was the principal spring type, so the Day of Atonement was the principal autumn type. And what did the high priest do on the Day of Atonement?"
"He cleansed the sanctuary."
"Yes, indeed! And what work will Jesus complete at the end of the 2300 year-days of Daniel 8:14?"
"The cleansing of the sanctuary!" came back the crowd again.
"Exactly! Now if time was most strictly regarded when Jesus died as our Passover sacrifice, does it not follow that time will be just as strictly regarded when our High Priest fulfills the cleansing of the sanctuary? Is it not clear that Jesus will fulfill the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 not only in the year of Daniel 8 but, more precisely, on the exact date of the Day of Atonement?"
The Millerites looked at their Bibles, at Snow, at each other, in amazement and in deep gratitude.
Snow continued, driving his point home. "And when, brethren, does the Day of Atonement fall in the Bible ceremonial calendar?"
"On the tenth day of the seventh month," they replied, almost in unison.
"Right again! Leviticus 23:27 says, 'On the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement.' Brethren, if the type of the cleansing came on the tenth day of the seventh month, when in the antitype will Jesus complete the cleansing of the sanctuary?" His eagerness was overwhelming.
And the crowd rolled back its reply: "On the tenth day of the seventh month."
Snow paused and drew a breath before delivering his final evidence. "By the most careful reckoning preserved in the Lord's providence by the Karaite Jews, the tenth day of the seventh month falls this year on October 22."
He paused; then he launched his climactic appeal.
"Brethren, think of it. It is now the second week in August. In less than three months the Lord will complete the atonement and come out of the sanctuary to bless His waiting people. (Leviticus 9:22, 23) In less than three months the work of God will be completed. Never another winter on this cold, old earth. In less than three months the Bridegroom will be here to take His waiting bride. Is it not time now for the midnight cry, the midnight cry, 'Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him'?"
Tears of gratitude and joy flowed freely. Snow was asked to repeat his discourse the following day so all could make certain they understood. Other leaders exhorted the people to use well the limited number of days that remained.
Solemn, humble, but electrified, the believers took to the trains, steamboats, and wagons as they made their ways back home. Everywhere they carried the tidings. Camp meeting after camp meeting witnessed the same quiet but thrilling response.
The granite hills of New England soon rang with the "midnight cry." With almost irresistible power it leaped on the wings of the wind from one part of the land to another. From Canada to Maryland, from the Atlantic to the Middle West, simultaneously and almost unanimously, the "seventh-month movement" spread until every city, village, and hamlet heard the news. Himes challenged it, but then took his stand, assured that God was in it. William Miller studied it meticulously, prayed over it intensely, and then wrote about it joyously: "I see a glory in the 'seventh month' which I never saw before. I am almost home. Glory! Glory! Glory!"
October 22! Only days until the end.
What a time to be alive!
As the last days of time run out, Adventist businessmen close their stores; mechanics lock their shops; employees give up their jobs. At the camp meetings, scores confess their faults and flock forward for prayers. Large sums are donated so the poor can settle their debts and so the papers can be published--until the publishers say they can use no more, and would-be donors turn away in grief.
In the country some farmers abandon their harvest to prove their faith. Potatoes remain in the ground, [3] apples rot in the orchards, hay falls down in the fields. In the cities people--many school teachers, several justices of the peace, even a Norfolk magistrate--resign their posts.
In Philadelphia a tailor on Fifth Street closes his shop "in honor of the King of kings who will appear about the twenty-second of October." A large concern in Brooklyn discharges its employees. Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians hasten to the waters of baptism.
Steam presses run night and day turning out the Midnight Cry and other papers. Hundreds of thousands of copies are published in New York and Boston in the last three weeks. Besides other thousands in Rochester, Topsham, Philadelphia, Lancaster, Utica, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Toronto.
Anticipation. Publication. Preparation. Consecration. The climax at the close.
October 15, seven days to go. October 16, six days. October 17. October 18. October 19.
On October 19 the presses stopped running. The great tent had already been rolled up for the last time. The speakers had returned to their homes to be with their families. Joshua V. Himes hurried to Low Hampton to be with Miller.
Within the movement the believers waited with joyous longing. Teen-ager Ellen Harmon later wrote, "This was the happiest year of my life. My heart was full of glad expectation." [4]
Outside, the world waited in suspense. Thousands who had never joined the movement searched their hearts for fear it might be true.
October 20. October 21. October 22, 1844.
As October 22 dawned, Millerites collected in companies large and small; in their tabernacles, in churches, in meeting tents, in private homes; in meetings solemn with prayer arid joyous with praise. At Low Hampton, New York, Miller's friends gathered by the maple grove beside his house, on what are known today as the Ascension Rocks. They watched all day, for they knew not what hour their Lord doth come.
The sun arose in the east, as "a bridegroom coming out of his chamber." But the Bridegroom did not appear.
It stood at the meridian, warm and lifegiving "with healing in his wings." But the Sun of Righteousness failed to shine forth.
It set in the west, blazing, fierce, "terrible as an army with banners." But He that sat upon the white horse did not return as the leader of the hosts of heaven.
Evening shadows stretched still and cool across the land. The hours of night ticked slowly past. In disconsolate Millerite homes, clocks tolled twelve at midnight. October 22 had ended. Jesus hadn't come. He hadn't come!
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