IN previous chapters it has been proved that the Lord marked the time when the light should be given relative to the close of the great prophetic period leading to the investigative judgment; and that He accurately fulfilled the prediction at that time, that “knowledge shall be increased,” by raising up many who discovered that light; and that He also marked the time when the “parable of the fig-tree” should be learned, by raising up His teachers then and there to go forth and herald that parable to the world. [1] Just so accurately has He marked the point when the time message should swell to its loud cry; and just so accurately was that fulfilled.

In Revelation, chapter 10, is a prophecy relating to this very subject: “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: and he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roars: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. . . . And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and swore by Him that lives forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.”[2]

THE ANGEL A SYMBOL

As already shown, the work of preaching the Lord’s truth to the inhabitants of earth has been committed to mankind, [3] and the Lord has promised His blessing on that instrumentality till the “end of the world.”[4] So this angel, bearing this message, must be a symbol of a work of preaching time to earth’s inhabitants. The message is proclaimed from a book that is “open,” clearly implying that it had once been closed. These messengers are esteemed of God; for the “bow,” a token of God’s covenant, is over them, and they stand clothed with the light of God’s glory, and declare the message on the authority of the Creator of all things. That which is here declared is a time message, once “sealed,” but now proclaimed from an “open” book.

The point of time when the loud cry of this proclamation was to be made is a question of interest.

SOUNDING OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET

It is here placed between the sounding of the sixth and seventh trumpets, which may be seen not only by its position in the Scripture record, but by the message itself, which says: “In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.” This is conclusive evidence that the time proclaimed in this message is the time extending to thesounding of the seventh trumpet.

When the seventh angel sounds, we read that “the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament.”[5] In the service of the earthly sanctuary, the apartment containing the ark - the most holy place - was only opened once a year; that was on the day of atonement, and for the blotting out of sins - the cleansing of the sanctuary. The time spoken of by the prophets, when this cleansing work, as accomplished by Christ, should take place, is at the close of the twenty-three hundred days. [6] It is also stated that when the seventh angel sounds, voices in heaven say that the time is come for the dead to be judged. [7]

In the days of the Jewish sanctuary, the yearly service was an “example” of the work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, - first a service for those confessing their sins, and finally a work to blot out the sins which had been confessed, which is really the investigative judgment. So it is seen that this time message of Revelation 10 is but another symbol of the message in Revelation 14, - “The hour of His judgment is come.”

This prophetic symbol of Revelation 10 presents the time when this message is to go forth “with a loud voice,” and finally, “as when a lion roars.” The time when, according to this prophecy, the message was to increase to its “loud cry,” is from the close of the sixth trumpet to the end of that prophetic period leading to the cleansing of the sanctuary, - in other words, to the end of the twenty-three hundred days. The first four trumpets met their fulfillment in the wars of the Goths, Vandals, Huns, etc., which divided Western Rome into ten parts or kingdoms.

THE FIFTH TRUMPET

Presents the rise of Mohammedanism with its cloud of errors, but especially the period of “five months,” one hundred and fifty prophetic days (one hundred and fifty years) from the time they “had a king over them.” July 27, 1299, Othman, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, invaded the territory of Nicomedia. From that time the Ottomans harassed and “tormented” the Eastern Empire of Rome till July 27, 1449, the one hundred and fifty years of the sounding of the fifth trumpet. At that time the Turks came with their forces against the city of Constantinople itself, using gunpowder in their warfare; and from a ponderous cannon, which the historian Gibbon says required sixty oxen to draw, they fired great rocks against the walls of Constantinople.

About this time John Palaeologus - who is set down by historians as the last Greek emperor - died. Constantine Decozes was the rightful heir to the throne, but it is said that his fears of Amurath, the Turkish sultan, who was waging this warfare against him, led him to ask permission of Amurath to ascend the throne. Such an act would almost seem a resignation of the throne to the Turks. In fact, very shortly the Ottomans had possession of the city of Constantinople, and the Eastern Empire of Rome. Thus they (politically) “killed” that empire which they had before “tormented.” They were to “slay” it for “an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year.” Taking this as prophetic time, a day for a year, how long a time would it be? The problem is a simple one: A year, 360 days, or years; a month, 30 days, or years; and one day, one year, - in all, 391 days, or, literally, 391 years. An hour being the twenty-fourth part of a day, as a symbol it would be half a month, or fifteen days.

The whole time of Mohammedan independent rule of Eastern Roman territory would therefore be 391 years and 15 days. This added to July 27, 1449, brings us to August 11, 1840. On that very day, the affairs of the Turkish government passed into the hands of the “allied powers” of Europe, and there they have remained until the present time. The four governments which at that time took in hand to manage for the Turk were England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia.

CLOSE OF THE SIXTH TRUMPET

The sounding of the sixth trumpet, as it closes with the independent rule of the Turk, brings us down to August 11, 1840. From that time until the close of the twenty-three hundred days in 1844, the time message was to increase to a mighty cry.

The question as to the termination of the twenty-three hundred days in 1844 rested on the ground that a day in symbolic prophecy means a year of literal time. N. Colver, a theologian of Boston, Mass., said: “If these days are years, the world will end in [with] 1843; any schoolboy can see it; for if the four hundred and ninety days terminated at the death of Christ [more explicitly stated, A. D. 34], the twenty-three hundred days would terminate in [with] 1843; and the world must end, unless it can be shown that some other event is to take place, and I do not see how that can be done.”

CLOSE OF TURKISH INDEPENDENCE

In 1838, Dr. Josiah Litch, of Philadelphia, Pa., published to the world an exposition of the seven trumpets of the Revelation, claiming, on the ground that a day in symbolic prophecy means a year of our time, that the Ottoman power would lose its independence on the 11th of August, 1840. The fulfillment of the prophecy at that exact date demonstrated to the satisfaction of thousands that a day in symbolic prophecy was a symbol of a year. Brother Litch said that after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1840, he had letters from over one thousand prominent infidels (some of them had been leaders in infidel clubs) who, on the fulfillment of the predicted fall of the Ottoman independence, renounced their infidelity, and accepted the Christian religion, and declared their faith in the word of God.

WILLIAM MILLER’S WORK PRIOR TO 1840

Now, as it has been shown that 1840 is the date in the prophecy when the time message is to begin its “loud voice,” let us carefully review the facts. We have already seen that when we came to the sign in the stars - 1833 - we had reached the time when the Lord would raise up His teachers to teach the parable of the fig-tree; and to the time when He did raise up teachers in various parts of the world. By the publication of books, and in lecturing, they began to teach the people the parable, and that the coming of Christ was at the doors; but it was this side of August 11, 1840, that the public mind was so fully aroused, and the message increased to its “loud cry,” as may be shown by Willaim Miller's work prior to 1840.

Elder Himes, in a letter dated at McConnelsville, Ohio, speaks of his first joining Elder Miller in his work in the year 1840, and says that up to that time “Brother Miller stood almost alone, but his labors had been incessant and effectual in awakening professors of religion to the true hope of God’s people, and the necessary preparation for the advent of the Lord; as also the awakening of all classes of the unconverted to a sense of their lost condition, and the duty of immediate repentance and conversion to God, as a preparation to meet the Bridegroom in peace at His coming.”

To show the increasing interest in the work from that time to the close of the prophetic period in 1844, more than three hundred ministers joined Brother Miller in his work in the northern portion of the United States. In like proportion did the interest increase in other countries. In Great Britain, seven hundred ministers of the Church of England enlisted in giving the message for that time.

The fall of the Ottoman Empire on the very day predicted, demonstrating so clearly that the “yearday” theory was true, aroused intense interest everywhere to hear the advent message. To meet the growing interest to hear on this subject, some of the largest church buildings were occupied; but these being too small in the summer season to accommodate the vast crowds that assembled, tents were employed, capable of seating thousands. E. C. Williams, a tent-and sail-maker, of Rochester, N. Y., embraced the doctrine, and furnished, gratis, a large tent, which was used in such cities as Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, etc. Thus the message was brought to the attention of many thousands.

When, in the year 1855, Mr. Williams was making a tent for the Seventh-day Adventists of the state of New York, he said to the writer: “This reminds me of the work of Brethren Miller and Himes. I had a circular tent one hundred and twenty feet in diameter, and I said to them, ‘I will erect this tent, and seat it, and care for it; now come on, and preach the message.’ And so they came. The tent being too small to seat the people who came to hear, we put in a forty-foot splice, using two center poles. I made a nice bunting banner for them, with a motto, reading, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ which was placed above the tent between the two center poles.”

CALL TO THE CHURCHES

With this mammoth tent, the message was proclaimed in many of the large cities in the United States until the fall of 1844.

Having shown that the prophecy relating to the time when the “loud voice” of the message should go forth was fulfilled, we will examine predictions relating to other features of the work, noticing how they met their accomplishment.

MARRIAGE SUPPER OF THE LAMB

The first prediction relates to the class of people to whom the call should first be made, found in Luke’s record of Christ’s teachings, and reads: “A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servants at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.”[8] The supper is the last meal of the day, and at the close of the day. This call, undoubtedly, has reference to the marriage supper of the Lamb, of which the apostle John speaks: “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.

It is customary to serve the marriage supper after the marriage ceremony has been performed. [9] This marriage supper must be after Christ’s coming, because Luke’s testimony in regard to Christ’s coming reads: “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and you yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.”[10]

This call to the marriage supper must be the same as the first message of Revelation 14, and the time proclamation of the tenth chapter already noticed. As recorded in Luke, this first call goes to those persons who had “been bidden.” It must, therefore, have gone direct to the churches, and there is just where the first call of the Second Advent message went. Protestant churches were open in all directions for the preaching of the message. Elder Himes thus spoke of the labors of Brother Miller, down to the spring of 1844:

LABOR AMONG THE CHURCHES

“He labored among all parties and sects without interfering with their organization or discipline, believing that the members of the different communions could retain their standing, and at the same time prepare for the advent of their King.”

He speaks of his own and Brother Miller’s united labor thus: “Most of the ministers and churches that opened their doors to us and our brethren who were proclaiming the advent doctrine, cooperated with us until the last year.”

The calls for the labors of Adventist ministers among the churches were so numerous up to April, 1844 - the close of the Jewish year, 1843 - that neither Brother Miller nor his numerous associates could possibly answer them.

The first call went in and to the churches; but, according to Luke’s statement,11 we now reach a time when excuses abound, and a second call of short duration - being “made quickly” - goes out to gather those together who, by some means, have become “maimed,” “halt,” and “blind.” The cause of such a deplorable state of things the writer will endeavor to show.

SECOND CALL TO THE SUPPER

In the first announcement of the time message the Adventists supposed the twenty-three hundred days began with the natural Jewish year 457 B. C., and the period would end with the natural Jewish year 1843, which would really be in our April, 1844. When that period of time passed, and the Lord did not come, those in the churches who had not sincerely embraced the advent doctrine turned to persecute those who still held fast their faith in Christ’s immediate coming. This brings us to notice another point predicted by the Savior, which began its fulfillment immediately after April, 1844.

TWO CLASSES OF SERVANTS

Referring again to the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, you will notice that after the proclamation of the parable of the fig-tree, two classes of servants are presented, in the following language: “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he comes shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delays his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”[12]

These two classes of servants have been “fellow servants.” They must then have been engaged in the same work. This was true of those ministers in the churches who said “Amen” to the advent doctrine up to April, 1844, but who, after that time, turned to oppose the doctrine. They had been “fellow servants” with those who still continue to give “meat in due season,” and had joined them in saying, “The Lord is coming,” and in teaching the needed preparation to meet Him. Now they begin to smite their fellow servants, and at the same time “to eat and drink with the drunken.”

MODERN CHURCH FESTIVALS

Up to the passing of the time in April, 1844, such gatherings as modern church festivals, which have since, in some instances, been carried to great extremes, were unknown. When the circumstances of their origin are given, the accuracy of the fulfillment of the prediction concerning them will be understood. The first of such entertainment known to the writer was in the city of Rochester, N. Y., in May, 1844.

While Brother Miller was meeting with hundreds of the Adventist believers in a large hall in the city, encouraging them to hold fast, - although there was a “tarrying” in the fulfillment of their hopes, the Lord would give the light to His people in due time, - a different scene, new to the people of that place, was enacted in another part of the city. The following quoted paragraph is Brother Miller’s own description of it:

“One of the D. D.’s, in Rochester, Mr.-----, of the M----- Church, [13] wrote a pamphlet against Millerism, called his lords and ladies into the house of the Lord, made a great feast of oysters and other ‘picnics,’ Belshazzar-like, drank their coffee and tea, ate their costly delicacies, and sold their ice-cream and sweetmeats, and his pamphlets against the Second Advent of the dear Savior. The night before I left, another of the reverend gentlemen had a picnic feast at a public house, or hall, and sold, as above, his tickets, ice-cream, and sweetmeats. I was happy to hear that some of the churches of the different sects did not approve of such Babylonian feasts; and I do hope, in my soul, that not all of these sectarian churches will be found ‘eating and drinking with the drunken’ when Christ comes. I am astonished that these reverend gentlemen do not see themselves in the glass of God’s word; and I would recommend them to read Luke 14:12-14; Matthew 24:48-51; Luke 13:25-28; 2 Peter 2:13; Jude 10-21. These are the last times, surely.”

SMITING FELLOW SERVANTS

The prophecy fulfilled concerning those who had been fellow servants was not confined to their “eating and drinking” merely, but extended to and included the smiting of their fellow servants. This smiting is not to be understood as literal smiting with the fist, but as expressed by the prophet Jeremiah, when those who were rejecting his counsel said, “Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.”[14]

As to how this was done, the following quotation from Brother Himes’s writings of August 29, 1844, will show: “Most of the ministers and churches that opened their doors to us and our brethren who were proclaiming the advent doctrine, cooperated with us until the last year. The ministry and membership who availed themselves of our labors, but had not sincerely embraced the doctrine, saw that they must either go with the doctrine, and preach and maintain it, or, in the crisis that was right upon them, they would have difficulty with the decided and determined believers. They therefore decided against the doctrine, and determined, some by one policy and some by another, to suppress the subject. This placed our brethren and sisters among them in a most trying position.

Most of them loved their churches, and could not think of leaving. But when they were ridiculed, oppressed, and in various ways cut off from their former privileges and enjoyments, and when the ‘meat in due season’ was withheld from them, and the siren song of ‘peace and safety’ was sounded in their ears from Sabbath [Sunday] to Sabbath, they were soon weaned from their party predilections, and arose in the majesty of their strength, shook off the yoke, and raised the cry, ‘Come out of her, My people.’“

“It was not until ‘divers were hardened’ and ‘spoke evil of that way [the Lord’s coming] before the multitude,’ that our brethren were moved to come out and separate from the churches. They could not endure this ‘evil speaking’ of the ‘evil servants.’ And the churches that could pursue the course of oppression and ‘evil speaking’ toward those who were looking for the ‘blessed hope,’ were to them none other than the daughters of mystic Babylon. They so proclaimed them, and came into the liberty of the gospel. . . . It is death to remain connected with those bodies that speak lightly of or oppose the coming of the Lord. It is life to come out from all human tradition, and stand upon the word of God, and look daily for the appearing of the Lord.”

SECOND ANGEL’S MESSAGE

The Adventists who were thus treated, [15] as above described, quoted to their oppressors the words addressed to the Sardis church: “Remember therefore how thou has received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shall not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shall not know what hour I will come upon thee.”[16]

The believers said to their persecutors: “In thus rejecting and opposing the doctrine of Christ’s soon appearance, you will meet with a moral fall, and become the fallen Babylon of the Revelation, of which it is finally said, they are ‘a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” [17] Thus it is seen how the people who were the first to hear the second call to the supper, as mentioned in Luke 14,[18] became “maimed,” “halt,” and “blind.”

Of the situation at that time, George Storrs, one of the leading Adventist ministers of those times, thus spoke: “Which of them [the churches] will suffer a soul to remain among them in peace that openly and fearlessly avows his faith in the advent at the door? Are not the terms of remaining among them undisturbed, that you ‘wholly refrain’ from a public expression of faith in the coming of the Lord this year, whatever your convictions may be on the subject, and however important you may feel it to be to cry, ‘Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come’?”

It was this condition of things, as above described, that brought about the proclamation of the second angel’s message, - “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”[19] The wine of Babylon, as explained by the Adventists, was the doctrines by which the church was blinding the eyes of the people as to the great truths connected with the judgment-hour message.

SEPARATION ADVISED

The course pursued by the Adventists at that time was in accordance with the decision of a conference of believers, held in Boston, Mass., May 31, 1845, which was as follows:

“We should, however, be decided in doing our duty, in testifying for the truth on all proper and suitable occasions; and if, by taking this course, we give offense to the churches, and they threaten us with expulsion unless we remain silent (though if we see fit to dissolve our relation to the church amicably, it may be the better way), let us do our duty, and when we are expelled, be patient in suffering the wrong, and be willing with our Master to ‘go forth without the gate, bearing His reproach.’“

STORRS’S SIX SERMONS, NATURE OF MAN

About this time George Storrs published his six sermons on the “Nature of Man, and Final Punishment of the Wicked,” showing from the Scriptures that there is no immortality out of Christ, and that future eternal life is the reward promised alone to the righteous. With this view he claimed that future punishment of the wicked could not be eternal conscious misery, but must be destruction, as the Bible plainly says.

While this doctrine was largely accepted by the Adventist believers, and to them gave greater force to the event of Christ’s second coming than they had before seen, - all future life of His people depending on His coming again to raise them from the dead and give them their final reward, - it, on the other hand, increased the opposition of the churches, so that, as previously quoted from Brother Himes, the Adventists “arose in the majesty of their strength, shook off the yoke, and raised the cry, ‘Come out of her, My people.’“

As the result of the second angel’s message thus proclaimed in America, over fifty thousand, in the northern portion of the United States, separated themselves from the different churches and came out an independent people, who, untrammeled by church creeds, could now carefully and prayerfully search the word of God for truth and duty. The cry of separation spread to foreign countries, and thousands were separated from the “established” church.

While the Adventists were thus oppressed and excluded from the churches, they consoled themselves by often quoting the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble at His word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for My name’s sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified: but He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.”[20]