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picture of a fig tree casting its figs when blown by a mighty wind,
it was not possible to behold.”—“The Old Countryman,” in
Portland
Evening Advertiser, November 26, 1833
.
In the New York Journal of Commerce of November 14, 1833,
appeared a long article regarding this wonderful phenomenon, contain-
ing this statement: “No philosopher or scholar has told or recorded an
event, I suppose, like that of yesterday morning. A prophet eighteen
hundred years ago foretold it exactly, if we will be at the trouble of
understanding stars falling to mean falling stars, ... in the only sense
in which it is possible to be literally true.”
Thus was displayed the last of those signs of His coming, concern-
ing which Jesus bade His disciples: “When ye shall see all these things,
know that it is near, even at the doors.”
Matthew 24:33
. After these
signs, John beheld, as the great event next impending, the heavens
departing as a scroll, while the earth quaked, mountains and islands
removed out of their places, and the wicked in terror sought to flee
from the presence of the Son of man.
Revelation 6:12-17
.
Many who witnessed the falling of the stars, looked upon it as a
herald of the coming judgment, “an awful type, a sure forerunner, a
merciful sign, of that great and dreadful day.”—“The Old Country-
man,” in
Portland Evening Advertiser, November 26, 1833
. Thus the
attention of the people was directed to the fulfillment of prophecy, and
many were led to give heed to the warning of the second advent.
In the year 1840 another remarkable fulfillment of prophecy ex-
cited widespread interest. Two years before, Josiah Litch, one of the
leading ministers preaching the second advent, published an exposition
of
Revelation 9
, predicting the fall of the Ottoman Empire. According
to his calculations, this power was to be overthrown “in A.D. 1840,
sometime in the month of August;” and only a few days previous to
its accomplishment he wrote: “Allowing the first period, 150 years,
to have been exactly fulfilled before Deacozes ascended the throne
by permission of the Turks, and that the 391 years, fifteen days, com-
menced at the close of the first period, it will end on the 11th of August,
1840, when the Ottoman power in Constantinople may be expected to
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be broken. And this, I believe, will be found to be the case.”—Josiah
Litch, in
Signs of the Times, and Expositor of Prophecy, August 1,
1840
.