Connecticut western news., 1899-11-23
THE MILLERITES."
And the MeteOrs of 1883. Boston Advertiser.)

Boston AQVerLlSer.)
 The Tact is curiuos and in some ways | instructive that the great meteoric show CT of November l3, 1888. had an enor-
 nous influence on popular theology. It | was believed by tens of thousands of pious people to be proof that the end of the world was at hand. For the next | II years 1t formed one of the most com-
 mon topics of sermons. It was lead | ing theme in many religious tracts. The | vast vogue achieved by William Miller, | the great apostle and prophet of modern | Adventism, owed considerable part of its success to the overpowering impress | sion made upon the human mind by the sublime spectacle of that memorable nlgit, when, during seven ho ITS, the
 whole heavenly dome was ablaze with | unreckonable multitudes of meteors, leapipg and pouring and flying, with | lightEing speed, hither and thither, in all the azure Armament.
 Among the signs mentioned Tn the New Testament as indicative of the sec- ond coming of Christ and the end of the | present dispeusation is this: "The stars | shall fall from Heaven" If we can place ourselves, imaginatively, in the position of devout and humble worship pers two generations ago, we shall have
 no difficulty in understanding their state of mind. The Bible was literally inter-
 preted, in those days, by even well edu- cat clergy men, with rigidity strange ly in contrast to the more liberal meth ods of our own day The doctrine that there was to be, sooner or later, physi- l cal, visible crisis in the history of man. faE ha If onln lnna not- astrophe, and the dissolution of all exist | ing things, to make way for "a new heavens and new earth, was common. ly held as an unquestioDable article of | Christian faith. "Millerism" was pe- culiar only in teaching that the univer- sally expected worlds crisis" was at that precise period, 'nigh, even at the | doors."
 Locking backward, we are bound in | fairness to admit that the Adventists of
 1833-43.44 had much reason on their | side. They were able to make out a
 very strong case. They did not lack
 materials to fill up the ample measures
 of their proofs. There were earth
 quakes in diverse places" There were
 "wars and rumors of wars" Men 8
 hearts were ''failing them for fear" The
 ''sun and moon" had but recently been
 ''darkened." Men, by means of the
 comparatively new introduction of steam
 railways. we're enabled to ''run to and
 fro ? Knowledge" was wonderfully
 increased Evil men and seducers"
 were sufficiently numerous and auda-
 cious to make .sorrowful saints feel that
 the prophecy was indeed fulfilled which
 declared that just before the end of all
 things such sinners should "wax worse
 and worse. !"
 It is easy enough now to comment up
 on Millerism with an indulgent pity for I men whose narrow zeal could thus mis-
 take the phenomena of science and the
 usual course of history for awful DOT
 tents of swiftly approaching doom. and
 of the millennial glory to follow. But
 we must remember that three score and six years ago popular science scarcely | existed; history was nearly sealed book
 to the great majority of people; and,
 more than all else, the Christian church had not then so much as learned to tol- crate the broader, more scholarly prin- ciples of biblical philosophy which find in the picturesque visions of the Book | of Daniel and the Revelation of St John,
 not predictions of literal events, but d.
 vinely inspired poetry; prophecies to be I spiritually rather than oarnally fulfilled.