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From Here to Forever
enough to meet the expense of travel to the places where he was
invited. Thus his public labors were a heavy tax upon his property.
“The Stars Shall Fall”
In 1833 the last of the signs appeared which were promised by
the Saviour as tokens of His second advent: “The stars shall fall
from heaven.” And John in the Revelation declared, “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.”
Matthew 24:29
;
Revelation
6:13
. This prophecy received a striking fulfillment in the great
meteoric shower of November 13, 1833, the most extensive and
wonderful display of falling stars ever recorded. “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. ... 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.
“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 horizon; and yet they were not
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exhausted—thousands swiftly followed in the tracks 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 was not possible to
behold.
In the New York Journal of Commerce of November 14, 1833,
appeared a long article regarding this phenomenon: “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, con-
cerning which Jesus bade His disciples: “When ye shall see all these
6
R. M. Devens, American Progress: or, The Great Events of the Greatest Century,
ch. 28, pars. 1-5.
7
F. Reed, Christian Advocate and Journal, Dec. 13, 1833.
8
“The Old Countryman,” Portland (Maine) Evening Advertiser, Nov. 26, 1833.