Advent Experience
53
the waiting people of God, were in a common error on the question of
time.
We fully believe that God, in His wisdom, designed that His people
should meet with a disappointment, which was well calculated to reveal
hearts and develop the true characters of those who had professed to
look for and rejoice in the coming of the Lord. Those who embraced
the first angel’s message (see
Revelation 14:6, 7
) through fear of the
wrath of God’s judgments, not because they loved the truth and desired
an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, now appeared in their true
light. They were among the first to ridicule the disappointed ones who
sincerely longed for and loved the appearing of Jesus.
Those who had been disappointed were not long left in darkness;
for in searching the prophetic periods with earnest prayer, the error
was discovered, and the tracing of the prophetic pencil down through
the tarrying time. In the joyful expectation of the coming of Christ the
apparent tarrying of the vision had not been taken into account, and
was a sad and unlooked-for surprise. Yet this very trial was necessary
to develop and strengthen the sincere believers in the truth.
Our hopes now centered on the coming of the Lord in 1844. This
was also the time for the message of the second angel, who, flying
through the midst of heaven, cried: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that
great city.” That message was first proclaimed by the servants of God
in the summer of 1844. As a result, many left the fallen churches. In
connection with this message the midnight cry [
See
Matthew 25:1-13
.]
was given: “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him.”
[54]
In every part of the land, light was given concerning this message, and
the cry aroused thousands. It went from city to city, from village to
village, and into the remote country regions. It reached the learned
and talented, as well as the obscure and humble.
This was the happiest year of my life. My heart was full of glad
expectation, but I felt great pity and anxiety for those who were in
discouragement and had no hope in Jesus. We united, as a people, in
earnest prayer for a true experience and the unmistakable evidence of
our acceptance with God.
We needed great patience, for the scoffers were many. We were
frequently greeted by scornful references to our former disappointment.
“You have not gone up yet; when do you expect to go up?” and similar
taunts were often vented upon us by our worldly acquaintances, and