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should long and pray for the second coming of Christ, when this full
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and final conquest shall be made.”—Ibid., vol. 17, p. 500. “This is
the day that all believers should long, and hope, and wait for, as being
the accomplishment of all the work of their redemption, and all the
desires and endeavors of their souls.” “Hasten, O Lord, this blessed
day!”—Ibid., vol. 17, pp. 182, 183. Such was the hope of the apostolic
church, of the “church in the wilderness,” and of the Reformers.
Prophecy not only foretells the manner and object of Christ’s com-
ing, but presents tokens by which men are to know when it is near.
Said Jesus: “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in
the stars.”
Luke 21:25
. “The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall
not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers
that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of
man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”
Mark 13:24-26
.
The revelator thus describes the first of the signs to precede the second
advent: “There was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as
sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.”
Revelation 6:12
.
These signs were witnessed before the opening of the nineteenth
century. In fulfillment of this prophecy there occurred, in the year
1755, the most terrible earthquake that has ever been recorded. Though
commonly known as the earthquake of Lisbon, it extended to the
greater part of Europe, Africa, and America. It was felt in Greenland,
in the West Indies, in the island of Madeira, in Norway and Sweden,
Great Britain and Ireland. It pervaded an extent of not less than four
million square miles. In Africa the shock was almost as severe as in
Europe. A great part of Algiers was destroyed; and a short distance
from Morocco, a village containing eight or ten thousand inhabitants
was swallowed up. A vast wave swept over the coast of Spain and
Africa engulfing cities and causing great destruction.
It was in Spain and Portugal that the shock manifested its extreme
violence. At Cadiz the inflowing wave was said to be sixty feet high.
Mountains, “some of the largest in Portugal, were impetuously shaken,
as it were, from their very foundations, and some of them opened at
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their summits, which were split and rent in a wonderful manner, huge
masses of them being thrown down into the adjacent valleys. Flames
are related to have issued from these mountains.”—Sir Charles Lyell,
Principles of Geology, page 495.