Second Coming Survey
by Hal Upchurch

Some of the topics discussed in this chapter:
Introducing the Millerites William Miller Joshua Himes Frenzy and Failure Final Days October 22, 1844 The Afteryears Conclusion

			      Chapter 9

			   The Millerites


			     Introduction

 1.	In addition to her mainline churches and basic
	religious institutions, America, because of her
	matchless freedoms, especially the freedom of
	religion, has always had an entrenched subculture
	of zany sects, weird cults, and wacky religions.

 2.	If one should set forth to determine the zaniest
	and weirdest and wackiest of religious movements
	that America was ever subjected to, one would
	inevitably arrive at the Millerites, who, more than
 	150 years ago, captured the attention and response
	of the young nation as has no other religious
	activity in the entire course of our history.

 3.	Unquestionably, the most pervasive and enthralling
	religious excitement that ever touched America was
	the one sparked by William Miller and Joshua Himes
	in 1843 and 1844.


		 The Background and Beginning

 1.	William Miller:

	 (1)	Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1792.

	 (2)	Reared in the Green Mountains of Low Hampton,
		New York, by a deeply religious father and
		mother.

	 (3)	His maternal grandfather was a frontier
		Baptist preacher.

	 (4)	After his marriage to a Vermont girl, he fell
		away from his religious heritage and became
		an avowed skeptic.

	 (5)	He went to war in 1812, and attained the rank
		of captain.

	 (6)	He testified that one day, in 1816, he let go
		in a tremendous blast of blasphemy, and that
		something transforming 	happened deep inside
		him.  That was the last time he took the name
		of God in vain.

	 (7)	He began a diligent and extended study of
		the Bible, especially the books of Daniel
		and Revelation.

	 (8)	He said that during his study, "a clear
		light dawned from the pages of the Bible
		that Christ Almighty was about to return
		to the earth."

	 (9)	Across more than 14 years, Miller studied
		the Bible and arrived at the conclusion that
		the world would end and Christ would return
		between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844.

	(10)	He said that this commandment kept ringing
		in his ears: "Go forth and tell the world
		of their danger!"

 2.	In the summer of 1831, he preached his first
	sermon in Dresden, New York, and the people
	persuaded him to remain and lecture for a full week.
	(Note: Two years later, in 1833, Robert Ingersoll,
	the scourge of all Christendom, was born in Dresden,
	New York.)

 3.	The times were ripe for Miller's message:

	 (1)	The spirits and souls of men and women
		were restless and searching.

	 (2)	The old Puritan dogmas and dictums were
		breaking down.

	 (3)	The absolute authority of the Congregational
		clergy was dead and buried.

	 (4)	All sorts of abominations were rampant
		in the land, including Baptists.

	 (5)	Out in Ohio, a Vermont prophet, Joseph Smith,
		had been having conversations with the angels,
		and his heralds of Moroni were even then in
		the Green Mountains seeking converts.

	 (6)	Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had recently
		launched their Mormon movement.

	 (7)	John Humphrey Noyes, another Vermont prophet,
		was on the verge of announcing his "Association
		of Perfectionists."

	 (8)	Up in Maine, a wild man named Cochran, who
		called himself "Jacob the Second," was preparing
		his followers for something or other by urging
		them to exchange wives and husbands.

 4.	In the midst of all these abominations, Miller
	boldly and repeatedly announced that the end of
	the world and the Second Coming of Christ would
	occur between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844.

 5.	By 1836, nine prominent Baptist preachers had
	converted to Miller's Adventist theology, and
	each passing year brought a fresh crop of converts
	to Miller and a deepened interest and intensity
	to the movement.

 6.	Joshua Himes:

	 (1)	Himes was the founder and pastor of the
		First Christian Church in Boston,
		Massachusetts.

	 (2)	In 1839, he announced that he had become
		a Miller convert.

	 (3)	A Boston reporter described him as
		"possessing the qualities of Aaron of old
		and P. T. Barnum of late, and a faster
		worker than either."

	 (4)	Himes became the publicity man for the
		Millerite movement, and in a short time
		turned Miller from a backwoods preacher
		into a national prophet.

	 (5)	Himes founded two memorable Adventist
		newspapers, The Signs of the Times in
		Boston, and The Midnight Cry in New York.

	 (6)	(Note:  Across the last 40 years of my
		pastorates The Signs of the Times came
		to my desk, compliments of modern Seventh
		Day Adventists.)

 7.	Miller's main watchword, included and repeatedly
	emphasized in every message, was:  "Be prepared,
	and watch for signs in the skies."

 8.	Other Adventist newspapers almost magically
	appeared in Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and
	Canada, all of which, along with The Signs
	of the Times and The Midnight Cry, sounded
	and resounded Miller's main watchword in every issue:
	"Be prepared, and watch for signs in the skies!"

 9.	Immediately, readers of the Adventist papers began
	to see and report "strange rings around the sun,"
	"crosses appearing in the clouds," "ominous balls
	of fire in the heavens," and "huge swords hanging
	in the clouds, threatening a guilty world."

10.	In the early-fall of 1843, Bielas' Comet brilliantly
	flashed across the heavens, which the Millerites
	immediately interpreted as "a divine confirmation"
	of Miller's prophecy.

11.	The Millerites received another dramatic encourage-
	ment when, shortly before dawn on November 18, 1843,
	there occurred, according to a leading astronomer,
	"The greatest celestial display since the day of
	creation."  A newspaper reporter described it in
 	these words:  "Untold thousands of stars were seen
	falling from the sky, great balls of fire hurtled
	through the air and exploded like giant pinwheels,
	and hundreds and thousands of smaller streamers
	of flame moved across the heavens."

12.	The prophetic chart:

	 (1)	Miller meticulously constructed a prophetic
		chart, which he used in every service to
		illustrate and reinforce his message of doom.

	 (2)	The chart was decorated with frightening
		monsters, ogres, crawling beasts, winged
		beasts, ten-horned beasts, a dragon with
		seven hideous heads, and a bewhiskered
		giant with a belly of brass.

	 (3)	Among all of the sinister monsters and
		ogres and beasts and dragons and giants,
		numbers were added to and subtracted from
		one another to arrive at the date when
		the world would end and the Second Coming
		of Christ would occur:  Between March 21,
		1843, and March 21, 1844!

	 (4)	Beside that sinister conclusion stood
		"The Angel" with a trumpet in his hand.

	 (5)	A New York newspaper reporter said, "Even
		an idiot could see what was about to happen."

13.	The tent:

	 (1)	Joshua Himes secured a tent that would
		accommodate 4,000 people, and moved it
		from city to city for nightly services.

	 (2)	Himes, as advance agent and publicity man,
		prepared the coming of Miller into the
		different cities.

	 (3)	The tent was filled to capacity every night
		between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844.

	 (4)	And Miller displayed his chart and explained
		his numbers and pronounced his message of doom
		every night between March 21, 1843, and
		March 21, 1844.

14.	The tabernacle:  Joshua Himes built a tabernacle in
	Boston which would seat 10,000 people, which was
	nightly filled to overflowing for several months
	prior to the prophesied day of doom.

15.	In New York, the Millerites rented a large theater,
	"for an indefinite period of time."

16.	Horace Greely published a New York Tribune extra,
	which was devoted entirely to the Millerite movement,
	with the front page given over to a reproduction of
	the prophetic chart.

17.	The final year waned, the months departed, the
	weeks slipped 	away, and the "days dwindled down
	to a precious few."

18.	March 21, 1844, dawned and passed quietly away,
	except for the raucous ridicule and scornful derision
	which the irreverent unbelievers heaped upon the
	crushed and sorrowful Millerites.

19.	Miller stood in the Boston tabernacle with
	agonizing consternation on his face, and tears
	streaming down his cheeks, and brokenheartedly
	confessed that he had made a mistake.

20.	Most of us would instantly assume that this was
	the end of the Millerite story, but it was really
	the second beginning.


		The Final Frenzy and Failure

 1.	Enter Joshua Himes!  Himes, the knight-errant of
	the Millerites, donned his coat of arms, mounted
	his faithful charger, unsheathed his magic sword,
	and rode to the rescue of the despairing Millerites,
	slaying all dragons along the way.

 2.	Himes consoled and comforted Miller, roused
	and restored the faithful, revisited Daniel and
	Revelation, reworked the chart, revised the
	message, rejuggled the numbers, and revealed
	a new conclusion:  The world would end and
	Christ would return on October 22, 1844!

 3.	Almost overnight, Miller and the Millerites
	roused and rallied with a degree of fervor
	and frenzy and fanaticism that had never before
 	existed among them, and, with total faith and
	blind confidence, they madly moved toward
	the day when the world would end and Christ
	would return:  October 22, 1844!

 4.	From the Baptist, Methodist, Christian and
	Congregational churches, countless new converts
	flocked to Miller.  The mainline churches began
	to expel pastors and members who followed Miller.
  	Miller welcomes the expelled with the cry,
	"Come out of her, my people!"  And come out,
	they did; by the hundreds, and thousands,
 	and ten-thousands.

 5.	The tent and tabernacle were again packed to
	capacity every night, and Miller again presented
	his chart and propounded his watchwords and
	proclaimed his message of doom.

 6.	March, April, May, June, July, August and
	September inexorably dropped from the 1844
	calendar, and were replaced by the October
 	countdown to doom.

 7.	And the clock kept ticking, and October 22
	and the end of the world and the Second Coming
	of Christ drew nearer and nearer.


			The Final Days

	(Following this paragraph is a limited sampling
of the almost-countless final-days reports which appeared
in the early-October newspapers in Massachusetts, Penn-
sylvania, New York, Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, Vermont,
New Hampshire, Maine and Canada.)

 1.	The ecstatic Millerites had white muslin gowns
	tailored for each of them to wear on October 22:
	Ascension robes!

 2.	In Philadelphia, a merchant published this ad:
	"My store is closed forever in honor of the
	King of Kings who will appear on October 22."

 3.	In New York City, a show company threw open
	its doors and placed its entire stock at the
	disposal of the public, saying:  "We have no
 	further need or use for our merchandise."

 4.	In upstate New York, a merchant, who was either
	a faithful Millerite or an astute businessman,
	published this ad:  "Notice!  As I am fully
	persuaded that the end of the world is at hand,
	and that in a few days the Savior will come in
	the clouds of glory, I offer my entire stock
	of goods, including ladies' and childrens' shoes,
	AT REDUCED PRICES!"

 5.	The Millerites refused to vote in public elections,
	saying it was useless to elect a public official
	who was doomed to destruction before he could be
	sworn into office.

 6.	In Meredith, New Hampshire, the number of Miller-
	ites neglecting and abandoning their families
	became so great that the probate court appointed
	special guardians for the abandoned children.

 7.	In Philadelphia, the sheriff suspended all
	Millerite services because so many were overcome
	with nervous prostration and mental impairment.

 8.	As the final day drew nearer, there were increasing
	numbers of suicides and mental derangements.

 9.	One small Vermont asylum had 25 cases from that
	one community whose minds had snapped under the
	strain of waiting.

10.	In Pennsylvania, a farmer killed his family and
	himself because one of the children had scoffed
	at Miller.

11.	In Massachusetts, a Millerite cut his wife's
	throat, (the report said "from ear to ear"),
	because she did not believe in Miller.

12.	In Connecticut, a woman, claiming to be Peter
	reincarnated, was drowned when she tried to
	walk across the Connecticut river.

13.	In the tent-and-tabernacle services, mentally
	unbalanced men and women crawled up and down
	the aisles on their hands and knees with someone
	riding on their backs, imitating the triumphal
	entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.


		      October 22, 1844

 1.	The final day!

 2.	The morning broke under cloud-laden skies, and
	light rain fell intermittently throughout the day.

 3.	Massive crowds streamed out of the cities,
	seeking the rural spaces, and immense tent-cities
	sprang up in the open fields.

 4.	Along the eastern seaboard, and westward toward
	the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi
	rivers, more than one million giddy and enraptured
	Millerites swarmed the mountaintops and churchtops
	and housetops and barntops and hillsides and trees
 	and meadows and open fields and cemeteries, waiting
	for the sound of the trumpet that would announce
	the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ.

 5.	(Note:  Regarding the above-mentioned one million
	enraptured Millerites, I need to point out that
	in the 1840 census the population of America was
	numbered at slightly more than 17 million.  This
	means that one of every 17 persons in 1844-America
 	believed in and followed William Miller, and, on
	October 22, 1844, ecstatically watched and waited
	in the rain-laden countryside for the end of the
	world and the Second Coming of Christ.  The modern
	equivalent would be for a 1997 country preacher
	to inspire 16 million Americans to overflow the
	cemeteries (etc.) of our land and wait for a
	trumpet to announce the end of the world and
	the Second Coming of Christ.)

 6.	One reporter said, "The children scurried about
	in the mud and 	muck, wild-eyed and frightened,
	their heads filled with thoughts of fire and
	destruction.  The sight of their mentally disturbed
	parents terrified them.  The children milled and
	wandered, many of them 	becoming lost in the sea
	of white-robed fanatics who were interested only
	in the trumpet and sheet of flame that would end
 	the world."

 7.	Another reporter said that in one of the tent-
	cities, two frightened children, overcome with
	fear and cold, laid down on the soggy ground
	and were found by their parents the following
	morning, dead and trampled into the mud and mire.

 8.	In Philadelphia, "a mild-mannered man" stepped
	from a third-story window and tried to fly to
	heaven and was found in the street with his body
	mangled in death and his ascension robe soiled
	with mud and spattered with blood.

 9.	In Worcester, Massachusetts, "a highly honored
	citizen" put on a pair of turkey wings, climbed
	a tall tree, and tried to fly to heaven.  He,
	too, was later found dead, with his body mangled
	and broken.

10.	In New York, an elderly gentleman, who was
	described as "white haired and full of years
	and rheumatism," put on his ascension robe,
	climbed into a tree, and sat there all night.
	The next morning, his limbs and joints were
	so cramped and stiffened that it required the
	help of several neighbors to get him down
	from the tree.

11.	Thousands of white-robed Millerites, not know-
	ing how they were to be lifted into eternity,
	crouched all night in padded boxes, laundry
 	baskets and washtubs, determined that their
	journey to heaven would be as comfortable
	as possible.

12.	One young woman in Chicago, not being aware
	that all earthly things were doomed, bought
	a new wardrobe, packed it in a steel trunk,
	asked her friends to strap her to the top
	of the trunk to ensure that she and her clothes
	would enter the pearly gates at the same time,
	and that she, being so well dressed, would be
	the envy of every woman in heaven.

13.	Another "somewhat-elderly" man climbed upon
	a haystack in order to better behold the
	events of the day.  Attired in his ascension
 	robe, he watched and waited.  In the early
	hours of the evening, he grew weary and fell
	asleep.  Some skeptical and mischievous boys
 	set the haystack afire.  As the smoke and flames
	swirled around the old man, he awoke and hyster-
	ically cried, "Just as I expected, hellfire!"

14.	On October 22, 1844, as it had done since the
	morning of creation, and in obedience to the laws
	of the magnetic poles of the earth, the world
	kept on turning, morning gave way to high noon,
	the sun passed the zenith of the sky and began
	its inevitable drop toward the western horizon,
	the shadows slanted and lengthened, daylight
	yielded to dusk, dusk melded into sundown,
	sundown surrendered to darkness, the final
	moment of that final day merged into midnight,
	and October 22, 1844, was no more!

15.	There came no peal of the trumpet, there came
	no celestial shout, there came no flash of flame
	to consume the world, the Bridegroom cometh not!

16.	In 1843, 1000 settlers left Independence,
	Missouri, for the 5-month trip up the Oregon trail
	to the Oregon territory.

17.	In 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of
	telegraphy, sent the first message over the
	first telegraph line, from Washington, D.C.,
 	to Baltimore, Maryland, "What hath God wrought!"

18.	But in 1843, or 1844, the world did not end
	and the Second Coming of Christ did not occur.


			The After-years

 1.	With the coming of the soggy and dreary morning,
	with their ascension robes all soiled and stained,
	with their lives and dreams and hope and faith all
	lying in shambles, and with emotional depression that
	bordered on panic, the disheveled and bedraggled
	Millerites faced the tragic realities of their
	prolonged mental and religious aberrations:
	The broken homes, the broken families, the
	broken hearts, the broken minds, the insanities,
	the suicides, and the disturbed and damaged and
	dead children.

 2.	Also with the morning, came the renewed ridicule
	and jeers and taunts of the unbelievers as the
	disgraced Millerites made their way back to
	their homes.

 3.	Some of the Millerites remained staunch in their
	faith, some returned to the churches from which
	they had come to follow Miller, some lost faith
	in all religions and groped in the outer darkness
	of agnosticism and infidelity for the remainder
	of their lives.

 4.	For more than five years, William Miller went
	back to the Bible, back to Daniel, back to
	Revelation, back to his prophetic chart,
 	and back to his numbers, always wondering
	and searching for the answer to where and
	how and why he had missed the truth about
	Christ's Second Advent.

 5.	Miller died in 1849, still wondering, still
	searching, still studying the Bible, still
	studying Daniel, still studying Revelation,
	still revising his chart, still juggling
	his numbers, still searching for the answer,
	and still listening for the trumpet.

 6.	Joshua Himes died in the wilds of the Dakotas
	at the age of 90 years, still wondering where
	they had missed the truth, still studying the
	Bible, still studying the chart, still studying
	the numbers, still searching for the answer,
	and still listening for the trumpet.

 7.	Miller and Himes had missed, or ignored, the
	thrice-repeated words of Christ which contain
	the answer for which they had so avidly searched.
	(Matthew 24:36; Matthew 24:42; and Mark 13:32)


			Conclusion

	After more than sixty years of studying and preaching
and teaching what I believe to be the biblical truths regarding
the Second Coming of Christ, and after more than two years of
compiling and printing (in this little booklet) the Second-Coming
notes and sermon outlines and writings which I have filed across
more than sixty years, my only conclusion is:

	"But of that day and that hour
	knoweth no man, no, not the angels
	which are in heaven, neither the Son,
	but the Father."
			  (Mark 13:32)

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