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Chapter 52—The Midnight Cry
“While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And
at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh;
go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed
their lamps.”
Matthew 25:5-7
.
In the summer of 1844 Adventists discovered the mistake in
their former reckoning of the prophetic periods, and settled upon the
correct position. The 2300 days of
Daniel 8:14
, which all believed
to extend to the second coming of Christ, had been thought to end
in the spring of 1844; but it was now seen that this period extended
to the autumn of the same year, and the minds of Adventists were
fixed upon this point as the time for the Lord’s appearing. The
proclamation of this time message was another step in the fulfillment
of the parable of the marriage, whose application to the experience
of Adventists had already been clearly seen.
As in the parable the cry was raised at midnight announcing the
approach of the bridegroom, so in the fulfillment, midway between
the spring of 1844, when it was first supposed that the 2300 days
would close, and the autumn of 1844, at which time it was afterward
found that they were really to close, such a cry was raised, in the
very words of Scripture: “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye
out to meet Him.”
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Like a tidal wave the movement swept over the land. From city
to city, from village to village, and into remote country places it
went, until the waiting people of God were fully aroused. Before
this proclamation fanaticism disappeared, like early frost before the
rising sun. Believers once more found their position, and hope and
courage animated their hearts.
The work was free from those extremes which are ever man-
ifested when there is human excitement without the controlling
influence of the Word and Spirit of God. It was similar in character
to those seasons of humiliation and returning unto the Lord which
among ancient Israel followed messages of reproof from His ser-
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