252
The Great Controversy 1888
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 become as blood.” [
Revelation 6:12
.]
These signs were witnessed before the opening of the present
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 ex-
treme 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 the very foundation; and some of them opened
at their summits, which were split and rent in a wonderful manner,
huge masses of them being thrown down into the subjacent valleys.
[305]
Flames are related to have issued from these mountains.”
At Lisbon “a sound of thunder was heard underground, and im-
mediately afterward a violent shock threw down the greater part of
that city. In the course of about six minutes sixty thousand persons
perished. The sea first retired, and laid the bar dry, it then rolled in,
rising fifty feet above its ordinary level.” “The most extraordinary
circumstance which occurred at Lisbon during the catastrophe, was
the subsidence of the new quay, built entirely of marble, at an immense
expense. A great concourse of people had collected there for safety,