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The Great Controversy 1888
to the places where he was invited. Thus his public labors, so far from
being a pecuniary benefit, were a heavy tax upon his property, which
gradually diminished during this period of his life. He was the father
of a large family, but as they were all frugal and industrious, his farm
sufficed for their maintenance as well as his own.
In 1833, two years after Miller began to present in public the
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evidences of Christ’s soon coming, the last of the signs appeared
which were promised by the Saviour as tokens of his second advent.
Said Jesus, “The stars shall fall from heaven.” [
Matthew 24:29
.] And
John in the Revelation declared, as he beheld in vision the scenes
that herald the day of God: “The stars of heaven fell unto the earth,
even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a
mighty wind.” [
Revelation 6:13
.] This prophecy received a striking
and impressive fulfillment in the great meteoric shower of November
13, 1833. That was the most extensive and wonderful display of falling
stars which has ever been recorded; “the whole firmament, over all the
United States, being then, for hours, in fiery commotion. No celestial
phenomenon has ever occurred in this country, since its first settlement,
which was viewed with such intense admiration by one class in the
community, or such dread and alarm by another.” “Its sublimity and
awful beauty still linger in many minds.... Never did rain fall much
thicker than the meteors fell toward the earth; east, west, north, and
south, it was the same. In a word, the whole heavens seemed in
motion.... The display, as described in Professor Silliman’s journal,
was seen all over North America.... From two o’clock until broad
daylight, the sky being perfectly serene and cloudless, an incessant
play of dazzlingly brilliant luminosities was kept up in the whole
heavens.”
“No language indeed can come up to the splendor of that mag-
nificent display; no one who did not witness it can form an adequate
conception of its glory. It seemed as if the whole starry heavens had
congregated at one point near the zenith, and were simultaneously
shooting forth, with the velocity of lightning, to every part of the hori-
zon; and yet they were not exhausted—thousands swiftly followed in
the track of thousands, as if created for the occasion.” “A more correct
picture of a fig-tree casting its figs when blown by a mighty wind, it is
not possible to behold.”
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