Has any reader of this paper any recollection of having heard parents or grandparents tell of the great religious excitement in 1843, the year that William Miller predicted the end of the world?

     Any anecdotes of that period, or any information however trivial will be gratefully received by

            Clara Endicott Sears.
            Address, etc., etc.

The immediate response was proof of the interest now widely prevalent in preserving everything relating to bygone days, whether of concrete facts or mental states, that can help to interpret the times to which they belonged. Members of Historical Societies in various places suggested ways and means of acquiring material, and gave the names of persons who could give reliable information. This assistance, as well as a spontaneous response from many quarters from those who love to recall the past and hold it in tender memory, has enabled the author to turn her account of this strange bit of psychological history into more or less of a human document. No attempt has been made to unravel the various points of William Miller’s doctrine. A few explanations regarding his prophecy have been necessary in order to make clear the reasons that started the wave of agitation, which, gaining headway, carried thousands of over-impressionable men and women out on to a sea of dreams and delusions. First and foremost of those carried out was William Miller himself – an honest and sincere man, held fast in the throes of a fixed idea.

Out of a great number of letters received, the author has quoted only from those giving personal recollections or recollections received directly from near relatives, and has made sure of the sources from which she has drawn. The dating of the letters varies from 1920 to 1923.

The rest of the book needs no explanation – it tells the tale through the testimony of the writings and various outside reminiscences of that day, and through data collected by the author during years of neighborly intercourse with many of the dear people of Worcester and Middlesex Counties. She has tried to write the book in such a way as to give offence to none, and at the same time draw a truthful picture of those hysterical days with the aid of the material acquired by her through her appeal to the public.

The collection of original letters, many of which have in them material which the author would have liked to use, but which her limited space did not permit, will, after being bound, find a niche in the library of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in Boston.

            Clara Endicott Sears
            Harvard, Massachusetts

Will they discover some day that far back of all these marvelous phenomena sweeps a force of infinitely rarer, more tenuous, more rapid vibrations that under certain conditions directly affects the mental and spiritual sides of man’s nature – stirring them into extreme and even supernormal as well as abnormal activity?

It would account for those strange periods in history when geniuses, poets, reformers, orators, idealists, revivalists, as well as those the world calls “cranks,” spring up suddenly on every side – each one responding according to individual capacity and degree of development, as though under the spell of a compelling agitation.

At such times some reach great heights of thought – some are moved to heroic action; pure and highly sensitive natures repudiate the world and its pleasures and turn their thoughts beyond the veil of flesh into the regions of the Spirit. There are also enthusiasts who venture from the beaten track of thought and get bewildered in labyrinths of their own making. There are seemingly sensible people who suddenly accept preposterous theories and become fanatics and run hither and thither propounding vagaries. The voices of orators, preachers, statesmen, can be heard exhorting the emotional masses. There are respectable and well-meaning persons of limited vision who become hysterical – and some of them even go mad.

Just as from the strings of some aeolian harps the wind will bring forth harmonies of transcendent beauty, so others lacking resonance will give out only discords. Thus the minds and souls of men and women respond in inverse ratio to undercurrents of mental and spiritual agitation.

Such periods come and go mysteriously. The pages of history are dotted with them. They will return again and yet again as long as human beings inhabit the earth. They are marked by a vital impulse toward breaking away from existing conditions. Restlessness and a sense of change are prevalent – there is a straining upward after ideals that are seemingly unattainable; the public at large is unaccountably stirred and shaken – something unseen and intangible possesses it.

Now in 1843 and 1844, within the recollection of some who are still living, the crest of just such a wave as this was reached. It was a time when the invisible currents found vent through innumerable types of personalities. The reverberation caused by the inspiring public utterances from lips of men now famous rang through the length and breadth of the land. Daniel Webster, Wendell Philips, Garrison, Emerson, and our poets Whittier and Longfellow, and others of that notable group were giving out powerful flashes of light as though suddenly illumined from within. Transcendentalism was rampant. New sects were springing up like weeds in every direction. There was unrest in the churches. The Unitarians had already come out from the Congregational Church; now the Universalists were coming out from the Baptist denomination; these were called “Come-Outers”; and this was causing much excitement and discussion. Theodore Parker had broken away from the Unitarian faith and was filling Tremont Temple in Boston to overflowing – hundreds of persons being unable to gain admittance to hear him lecture on his radical views upon religion. In the midst of this confusion of ideas a voice was heard coming from the rural districts – faint and indistinct at first, but continually increasing in volume as it gave out its strident warning: “Behold, the end of all things is at hand!” The credulous masses paused and listened with blanched faces.

“Who is saying that?” they asked askance. “A man named William Miller,” some one answers – “’Prophet’ Miller they call him; he’s going from village to village and from town to town and thousands are flocking to hear him.”

“Who is he?”

“Why, he’s a farmer – born up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It seems he lived for some years in Poultney, Vermont, but now his home is in Low Hampton in New York State; - an earnest good man they say, and seems to know what he is talking about. He says the Day of Judgment is at hand and the earth is going to burn up like a scroll, and all the wicked that are on it. He’s warning people to wake up and look out for what is coming.”

Some shrug their shoulders and laugh derisively; others look serious – but some go home nervous and troubled.

It did not take long for the prophecy to spread; - it seemed to fit in with the times. From one country village to another the word leapt like a tongue of fire until it reached the cities, and then it could not be ignored. Hundreds, and in some places thousands, of people fell under the spell of it; not only the ignorant, but men and women with good minds and erstwhile sound judgment ran breathlessly to and fro – some in terror, others rejoicing, watching for the heavens to open and for the appearance of the Saviour in clouds of glory. The clergy of all denominations were force to preach vehement sermons, to write and distribute pamphlets, to address meetings, in an attempt to stem the tide of the fanatical tendencies that were only too evidently ready to spring forth and spread far and near as William Miller’s intricate calculations and interpretations of the scriptural prophecies were made known, and his method of deciphering the symbols in King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and the prophecies of Daniel and John, including the mysteries of “the ten-horned beast,” “the ram and the he- goat,” “the little horn,” and “the beast rising out of the sea, having seven heads,” and “the exceeding Great Horn!”

Edward Everett Hale says, in his biography of James Freeman Clarke: “Meanwhile the idolatry of the letter of Scripture bore legitimate fruit in the proclamation of William Miller that the world would end in the year 1843, on or about the 20th of March. The mathematical instincts of New England especially approved of the additions and subtractions of figures which were found in the Book of Daniel and the Revelation, which, beginning with the dates in Rollin’s History, came out neatly by the older calendar at the beginning of 1843.”

The Reverend Abel C. Thomas, in his “Autobiography” (published in 1852), says: “It required analysis and confutation of every branch of the notion, including both its principles and details of chronology, to stay the progress of the delusion. Despite even multiform demonstrations of its falsity, there were multitudes who clung to it until the last subterfuge of modification was exploded by time.”

It must not be supposed, however, that William Miller and his followers were the only ones under the influence of an undue agitation; - 1843 was also a year of great revival among the Shakers. Elders and Eldresses, Brethren and Sisters, were all discovering mediumistic powers within themselves, and were continually conversing with those long dead, and with prophets, martyrs and scriptural characters, even in public meeting – the accompanying exaltation resulting frequently in extreme demonstrations of hysteria. Emerson, who wrote and article in the “Dial” in July of that same year on the “Convention of Friends of Universal Reform,” says of that gathering: “If the assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Madmen, Madwomen, Men with beards, Dunkers, Muggletonians, Come-Outers, Groaners, Agrarians, Seventh-Day Baptists, Quakers, Abolitionists, Calvinists, Unitarians, and Philosophers – all came successively to the top.”

It is rather impressive to note the comment of Margaret Fuller Ossoli upon this occasion: “Amid all these wild gospelers,” she writes, “came and went the calm figure of Emerson, peaceful and undisturbed.” [Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli”]

Again, referring to this period, Octovius Brooks Frothingham speaks of it in his biography of Theodore Parker as “a remarkable agitation of mind,” and adds that “it did not seem to be communicated – to spread by contagion; but it was rather an intellectual experience produced by some latent causes in the air. No special class of people were affected by it. While in Boston the little knot of transcendentalists – Channing, Ripley, Margaret Fuller, Emerson, Alcott, Hedge, Parker – were discussing the problems of philosophy at the Tremont House and elsewhere, the farmers of the country and the plain folks of Cape Cod were as full of the new spirit as they.”

It was the farmers of the country who were first to respond to William Miller’s cry of warning, but it soon spread into the industrial centres and among tradespeople, until finally some of every class were numbered among his followers.

But it must not be supposed that the part of his prophecy that dealt with the Second Coming of our Lord in clouds of glory belonged exclusively to William Miller at this time. A converted Jew in Palestine, named Joseph Wolff, who was well known in England, was predicting the Advent would be 1847; but his theory regarding it differed wholly from that of our New England prophet, inasmuch as he claimed that the Saviour would appear from the Mount of Olives – enter Jerusalem, and there reign for a thousand years over the twelve tribes of Israel. Then there was also the beautiful but eccentric Harriet Livermore, daughter of a member of Congress from Massachusetts, and one of the characters represented in Whittier’s poem “Snow-Bound,” who had been preaching the near approach of the Second Coming for several years, in many different parts of the country, as well as on four different occasions in the Hall of Representatives at Washington where great crowds gathered to hear her. Her views coincided with those of Joseph Wolff, only she went a step farther and claimed to have convincing proof that the American Indians were descendents of the lost tribe of Israel, and urged transporting them to Palestine so that they might take their rightful place in the Millennial Kingdom. [Harriet Livermore’s father, Judge St. Low Livermore, was originally from New Hampshire, but he moved to Lowell early in his married life and lived there until he was sent to Congress. His first wife’s name was Mehitable Harms, and after her death he married Sarah Crease Stackpole, of Boston, who was Harriet’s mother. He died in 1832 and was buried in the Granary Burying Ground in Boston. The tomb is No. 77, adjacent to Tremont Street, and has a costly bronze coat of arms set in the wall separating the wall from the street. He had three nephews who were prominent in their times: the Right Reverend Charles Grafton, Bishop of Fond du Lac; Father Edward Welch, a great preacher in his day at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Boston; and Mr. Guerney Grafton, an art connoisseur who lived in Paris. Judge St. Low Livermore had two daughters, Harriet and Caroline; the latter married Josiah Abbott, of Lowell, who moved to Boston and was well known as a prominent lawyer.]

There was also Lady Hester Stanhope, a niece of William Pitt, and a granddaughter of the great Lord Chatham, who had installed herself in a home on Mount Lebanon in order to be ready for “the Coming.” In “Snow-Bound” she is referred to as “The Crazy Queen of Lebanon,” and no wonder, for the poor lady was so deluded that she actually kept two rare and beautiful white Arab horses in her stable ready and waiting for the great event. On one of these she planned that our Lord would enter Jerusalem and she intended to follow Him on the other!

Whittier positively asserts, in a letter written to the Reverend Abel C. Thomas on September 18, 1879, that Harriet Livermore told him of a visit she made to Lade Hester Stanhope while she was on one of her pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and he adds that these two quarreled on account of the former claiming the right to be the one to ride the spare horse when the Great Day should come, instead of the owner. The Reverend C. V. A. Van Dyke, who had frequently met Harriet Livermore in Syria, doubts, however, the fact of the two women having met, but in a letter written to the Reverend S.T. Livermore he says: “Had there been a meeting I would have given my little finger to have witnessed it – it would have been diamond cut diamond; - the haughty aristocratic English woman, and the fearless republican. I doubt not there would have been some sharp passages between them.” [Rev. S. T. Livermore, “Harriet Livermore – The Pilgrim Stranger”.]

(N.B. – Poor deluded thing! May they be forgiven!)

This bears out an assertion made by Margaret Fuller Ossoli, that “One very marked trait of the period was that the agitation reached all circles.” [Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli”.]

Now William Miller’s views differed widely from those of these three self-made prophets. He not only predicted the date of the Second Coming of our Saviour, but he also predicted the destruction by fire of the earth and the wicked that were upon it. To sum it up, his belief was as follows: “That Christ would appear a second time in the clouds of heaven some time between 1843 and 1844; that He would then raise the righteous dead and judge them together with the righteous living, who would be caught up to meet Him in the air; that He would purify the earth by fire causing the wicked and all their works to be consumed in the general conflagration, and would shut up their souls in the place prepared for the Devil and his angels; that the saints would live and reign with Christ on the new earth a thousand years; that then Satan and the wicked dead would be raised, this being the second resurrection, and, being judged, would make war upon the saints, be defeated and cast down to hell forever”; or, as the Reverend John Henry Hopkins, D.D., describes it, in a pamphlet published in 1843 refuting Miller’s theory: “and consign them together to the Lake of Fire, and the smoke of their torment shall ascend forever and ever.”

Such were the conditions in 1843 and 1844, when the strange religious agitation swept thousands away from the path of normal reasoning here and throughout the Eastern States only one generation ago! To many it seemed like a sort of religious farce; to others it was comedy – pure and simple; some were grievously shocked and troubled; many jeered; but to the misguided and deluded ones most closely involved the end was tragedy – overwhelming disappointment and tragedy.

Just as delirium rages before a fever breaks, leaving the patient limp and scarcely breathing, so the pitiful, simple, credulous souls who followed William Miller up to the Great Day of his prophetic calculation were left prostrated and dazed by their shattered hopes.

The years 1843-1844 – years of exaltation – of transcendent visions – of beatific aspiration – of idealistic impossible experiments – of high and balanced thoughts and strange unbalanced ones; at the end of which the dreamers awoke and the velocity of the mysterious invisible currents slowed down and gradually subsided.

As for William Miller, despite all that his detractors have said of him, he was a truly earnest and devout man, but self-hypnotized into believing in his own method of calculation and his presumptuous powers of interpretation. He failed as all must fail who venture to attempt to crowd into a space of finite days and years the sum of infinite incalculable mysteries. The pathos, the assumption, the foolishness, the ignorance of poor blind human nature, with its pitiful inconsequence and its inconsistencies! – the humor of it, and here and there the beauty of it will be found in the following meagre scraps that remain to tell the tale of this extraordinary episode in our religious history.

Mr. Phineas Harrington, Groton, Mass.
Mrs. Ellen A. Barrows, Groton, Mass.
Mr. Charles H. Waitt, West Acton, Mass.
Mr. Henry Clare, New Bedford, Mass.
Mrs. Ellen G. S. Wood, Springfield, Mass.
Miss Helen Bartlett Hamill, Worcester, Mass.
Miss Mary E. Hurley, Clinton, Mass.
Mrs. C. W. Spring, Cambridge, Mass.
Mrs. W. P. Walton, Lynn, Mass.
Mr. Henry Kittredge, Lowell, Mass.
Mrs. Susan L. Harris, West Millbury, Mass.
Mr. F. Rodliff, Pigeon Cove, Mass.
Mrs. George R. Peabody, Fitchburg, Mass.
Mr. Charles E. Foster, Manchester, N.H.
Mrs. J. K. Turiot, Washington, D.C.
Mr. John Whitcomb, Lunenburg, Mass.
Mr. B. H. Savage, Townsend, Mass.
Miss Jane S. Hall, Washington County Historical Society, Pa.
Miss Ellen K. Stevens, Clinton, Mass.
Miss Annie Montague Winslow, Danvers, Mass.
Mr. H. T. Boyington, Prentiss, Maine.
Miss Helen Nescott Noyes, Lowell, Mass.
Mr. M. F. Plimpton, Fitchburg, Mass.
Mrs. Ellen M Davenport, Worcester, Mass.
Mrs. W. S. Dudley, Harvard, Mass.
Miss Julia M. Warner, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mrs. M. J. Warner, Boylston Centre, Mass.
Mrs. George U. Lass, Worcester, Mass.
Miss Marion R. Sawyer, Rockville Centre, L.T.
Mrs. Hattie A. Robinson, Littleton Common, Mass.
Mrs. Delia E. Dalrymple, Millbury, Mass.
Mrs. J. K. Barker, Longmeadow, Mass.
Mr. Charles E. Keyser, Philadelphia, Pa.
Miss Laura Davis, Fitchburg, Mass.
Mrs. M. J. Taber, New Bedford, Mass.
Miss Eugenie J. Gibson, Woodsville, N.H.
Mrs. Thos. H. Berry, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. S. J. Marsh, Manchester, N.H.
Mrs. Estella Cone Fanning, Westfield, Mass.
Mrs. Horace T. Smith, West Springfield, Mass.
Miss Ida M. Wing, New Bedford, Mass.
Mrs. L. J. Sanderson, Winchester, Mass.
Mr. B. Treadwell, Grand Lake Stream, Maine.
Mr. Daniel Kinsley, Worcester, Mass.
Mr. Edwin D. Thompson, West Brookfield, Mass.
Mr. William Clough, Lowell, Mass.
Miss Bertha Simpson, Lowell, Mass.
Mrs. E. M. Bowen, Lowell, Mass.
Miss Catherine A. Severy, Chelmsford Centre, Mass.
Miss Adelaide Baker, Lowell, Mass.
Miss Marietta R. Jefferson, Lowell, Mass.
Mr. J. S. Bragdon, Westbrook, Maine.
Mrs. M. C. Owen, West Buxton, Maine.
Mr. Frederic J. Laughlin, Portland, Maine.
Mr. Augustus S. Thayer, Portland, Maine.
Miss Mary Ann Carroll, South-West Harbor, Maine.
Mr. Robert Haines, Island Falls, Maine.
Mrs. Mabel L. Quinn, Levant, Maine.
Miss Lucy Bigelow, Fairfield Centre, Maine.
Mrs. A. H. Walker, Ashland, Maine.
Mrs. George L. Hussey, Dover, Maine.
Mr. A. W. Kelley, Indian River, Maine.
Mrs. S. E. Morrison, Bangor, Maine.
Miss Phylis E. Rapelje, Far Rockaway, N.Y.
Miss Issie Crabbe, Troy, N.Y.
Mr. Dennis E. Wheeler, North Leominster, Mass.
Mr. Francis A. Mason, Caldwell, N.J.
Mrs. H. E. Walton, Eastport, Maine.
Mr. James C. Newland, Vineland, N.J.
Mr. Milton G. Brown, Ocean View, Norfolk, Va.
Mr. A. S. Dalton, Ashland, N.H.
Mrs. Grace M. Weston, Manchester, N.H
Mrs. Ellen G. S. Wood, Springfield, Mass.
Mrs. L. G. Maranville, Rutland, Vt.
Mr. Henry Williams, Fair Haven, Vt.
Mr. John Hamilton Wilson, Chelmsford, Mass.
Miss L. D. Sanderson, Winchester, Mass.
Mrs. Annie Gohl, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mrs. S. A. Noble, Rutland, Vt.
Mrs. Henry C. Mallory, Sudbury, Vt.
Mrs. Frederick A. Hastings, Lancaster Junior College, Lancaster, Mass.
Mrs. Emma Upham Alney, East Brookfield, Mass.
Mrs. Philip H. Loughlin, Westminster, Mass.
Miss Mabel Lillian Warren, Worcester, Mass.
Mr. Henry A. Goodrich, Fitchburg, Mass.
Miss Angela Boutelle, Townsend, Mass.
Mr. H. R. Lloyd, Springfield Republican, Springfield, Mass.
Mrs. Annie Page, Boxboro, Mass.
Mr. William J. Hathaway, New Bedford, Mass.
Miss Angelina Dalton, Salem, Mass.
Miss Mary B. Nichols, South Lancaster, Mass.
Mrs. Daniel N. Wight, West Berlin, Mass.
Miss Anna R. Kittredge, Leominster, Mass.
Miss Emily Brigham, Groton Inn, Groton, Mass.
Mr. Edward C. Gettigan, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. Thomas Craighton, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. William H. Kettler, Camden Free Public Library
Mr. John Lenni Sheldon, Delaware Co., Pa.
Mr. William Fochr, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mrs. W. J. Thomas, Fairhaven, Vt.
Mrs. Lucy G. Haselton, Hampton, N.H.
Miss S. H. Parker, Lancaster, Mass.
Mr. John F. Wilson, Rutland, Vt.
Mr. George Newhall, Swampscott, Mass.
Miss Elizabeth P. Evans, Salem, Mass.
Mr. Frederick L. Avery, Ayer, Mass.
Mr. A. J. Wilcox, Fall River, Mass.
Mr. Thomas E. Mack,, New Bedford, Mass.
Mrs. Grace E. Smith, Springfield, Mass.
Mrs. L. M. Hill, Warren, Mass.
Mrs. E. T. Stephens, Springfield, Mass.
Miss Carrie A. Galloupe, Springfield, Mass.
Mrs. T. C. Parsons, Agawam, Mass.
Mrs. Eliza M. Colburn, New Boston, N.H.
Mr. B. F. Spalding, Springfield, Ohio.
Mrs. A. H. Bigelow, Harvard, Mass.
Mrs. Caroline F. Austen, New Bedford, Mass.
Miss Catherine White Grant, Leicester, Mass.
Miss Lydia Porter Warner, Boylston, Mass.
Miss Mary Gerrish Higley, Castleton, Vt.
Miss Honora Harrison, Castleton, Vt.
Miss Sarah N. Harrison, Castleton, Vt.
Mrs. E. R. Parmelee, Brandon, Vt.
Mr. F. E. Gilson, Groton, Mass.
Mrs. J. G. Bradley, Harrisburg, Pa.
Mrs. Alice E. Sargent, Fitchburg, Mass.
Mrs. Lydia D. Waitt, Saugus, Mass.
Messrs. A. Ilsley & Co., Lowell, Mass.
Mrs. Carrie Sprague Sawyer, Dunstable, Mass.
Mr. William W. Brown, Erving, Mass.
Mrs. Paul Ruggles, Carmel, Maine.
Miss Katherine L. Lawrence, Still River, Mass.
Mrs. Mabel P. Robbins, West Acton, Mass.
Miss Kate C. Hennigan, Belmont School, Malden, Mass.
Mrs. Elizabeth Day Totten, Reading, Mass.
Mrs. J. L. Keyes, Still River, Mass.
Capt. C. F. Winch, Georgetown, Mass.
Mrs. Harriet E. Sawyer, Clinton, Mass.
Mr. William H. Graham, South Lancaster, Mass.
Mr. L. Clark, Wilmington, Pa.
Mr. Leonard G. Pells, Cataumet, Mass.
Miss Lillian V. Wilson, New Bedford, Mass.
Mrs. Hannah W. Huston, New Bedford, Mass.
Mrs. Laura A. Underhill, Marshfield Hills, Mass.
Miss Ethel B. France, New Bedford, Mass.
Mrs. E. M. Flint, West Peabody, Mass.
Mrs. W. N. Shipley, East Lynn, Mass.
Mrs. Emily Huston, New Bedford, Mass.
Mrs. Carrie E. Newton, Bangor, Maine.
Mr. Leon A. Goodale, Worcester, Mass.
Mr. Alden Smith, Holden, Mass.
Mr. L. C. Simon, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. Frank Stevens, Stow, Mass.
Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Dwennell, Stow, Mass.
Mr. Eliphelet Tenney, Stow, Mass.
Miss Sarah Houghton, Bolton, Mass.
Leominster Public Library.
Miss Clara Hutchens, Groton, Mass.
Mrs. William C. Endicott, Boston, Mass.
Mr. G. Augustus Peabody, Danvers, Mass.
Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, New York City, N.Y.

“What kind of a man could William Miller have been?” is the wondering question often asked when the Millerite excitement of 1843 is spoken of.

Well – he was what one might call a character. If he had been told in his youth that some day he would be prophesying the near approach of the Day of Judgment and the destruction of the world by fire, he would have been as surprised as anybody. The paths of Destiny sometimes lead into unexpected pastures.

To begin with, in his childhood William Miller was the kind of a boy who would creep downstairs with as little noise as possible after his parents and all his brothers and sisters had gone to bed and thrust some pitch-wood into the embers smouldering in the depths of the broad brick chimney in the kitchen so as to get light from the flames, and then stretch himself at full length upon the hearth and read with trembling ecstasy of the thrilling adventures of Robinson Crusoe and Robert Boyle, and all those heroes of fiction so dear to the heart of every normal lad who conceals within him a touch of romance, of poetry, and chivalry. Then, too, the difficulty of procuring the precious volumes enhanced their value to him. It was only when he could earn money chopping wood “out of school hours” that he could ever buy one, and each book added to his meager store was loved as a friend. He was the oldest of sixteen children and the only one of them that cared for books. His parents, who were quiet, respectable people in humble circumstances – good Baptists both of them and firm adherents of that faith – were troubled by the desire he showed to read whatever he could lay his hands on. The father was just a typical farmer such as can be found anywhere in our country districts – a God-fearing, industrious man, able to feed and clothe his family upon the resources of his farm, but unable to give them more than country villages provided in the way of education.

So William Miller went to the district school as all the country children did, but he was better than any of his comrades at his lessons, and after a while it became a matter of comment that he was likely to outstrip his teacher in knowledge if he persisted in reading outside of school hours, and it was not approved of by some. But there happened to be several well-to- do men in the neighborhood who looked upon it differently, and they became enough interested in him to lend him books that were far beyond his means to buy, and these he poured over with a joy that was incomprehensible to his parents, who looked upon this desire for literature on the part of their eldest son with a good deal of disapproval and suspicion as well as apprehension. But this did not deter him; in spite of their admonitions he still kept on, and as he grew older a longing for a real education beset him with such intensity that, as he afterwards expressed it, “it seemed almost essential to his existence”; but it was not to be – work in the fields and helping out on the farm claimed all his spare hours. So he had to get what learning he could through his own efforts – reading all that he could with so much perseverance and tenacity that when he had acquired the age of manhood he had left his associates far behind him in matters of book lore and was accorded a degree of consideration by his fellow townspeople that was unusual in one so young. By this time his parents had changed their view in regard to him. They deplored the fact that they could not help him to get the knowledge that he longed for. The best they could do was to let him have more time for his reading and they gave him a room to himself – a luxury unlooked for in so large a family – and there he absorbed a heterogeneous mixture of history, poetry, fiction, etc., with no instructor or guide to point the way other than his own inclination.

For the young people of the place “he became a sort of scribbler general,” and his biographer tells us, “If any one wanted verses made, or a letter to send, or some ornamental or symbolic design to be interpreted by the tender passion, or anything which required extra task or fancy in the use of the pen, it was pretty sure to be planned if not executed by him.” [Sylvester Bliss, “Life of William Miller”.]

He was married a few months after his twenty-first birthday to Miss Lucy Smith, of Poultney, Vermont. The wedding took place on June 30, 1803, and there they started life together on a small farm.

It so happened that there was quite a sizable library in the village which especially attracted young Miller, and whatever time he could spare from his farm work was given to poring over the books he found there. It must be said that he was extremely fortunate in his choice of a wife. Instead of trying to draw him away from the bookshelves, the young woman encouraged him to indulge his craving for knowledge, realizing that his spare time was limited. It was not long before some of the superior men of the place – those with bigger farms and broader outlook – began to notice him and to watch him with some interest. It was unusual to find a young man newly wedded poring over the old musty volumes in the village library instead of keeping out in the sunshine with his bride during his spare hours, and their curiosity was stirred.

It was just about a year or two after the young couple had started farming in Poultney that exceptional preparations were being made in the village to celebrate the Fourth of July, and every one was entering into the spirit of it with great enthusiasm, including, of course, young Miller and his wife, and while the former was hoeing in his cornfield he felt inspired to write a patriotic hymn for the occasion. That evening, after he had finished his farm work and attended to the chores, he sat down and wrote verses that could be sung to the tune of “Delight” – an old song familiar to every one in those days.

Now the appointed marshal for the day was Squire Ashley, a near neighbor of his, and, being somewhat diffident in regard to his poetical effusion, the young man took some time to consider how he could bring it to this gentleman’s attention without appearing presumptuous. He thought it over during the night, and the next morning he walked over to Squire Ashley’s farm, and, catching a glimpse of Mrs. Ashley sitting sewing close to the sitting-room window, he managed to slip his manuscript on to the window sill without attracting attention and hurried away. When the good lady looked up from her sewing, her eyes fell upon it, and, thinking it was something belonging to her husband, she took it to him and he opened it and read what was written inside.

“Why, what’s this? – what’s this poem?” he asked his wife.

“I thought it was something belonging to you,” she replied, opening her eyes wide with surprise – “I found it on the window sill.”

“Well – that’s certainly strange! – why, but these are fine words that express fine sentiments! – and the footnote states it cane be sung to the tune of ‘Delight’ – We’ll sing it at the celebration – it’s just what we need!”

The Squire immediately sought ought several friends and deputed them to make numerous copies which could be distributed among the village people and thus enable all present to join in the signing. There was great curiosity expressed as to who the mysterious author could be and it created quite a stir.

When the hour came for the celebration and the people had assembled, they were told to form in line and apply in turn for one for the copies so as to sing this newly acquired patriotic hymn with a good big volume of sound. Mr. Kendricks, the Baptist minister, stood where he could watch the face of each person as he came forward to receive a copy, and, seeing young William Miller’s countenance flushed with embarrassment as he put his hand out, he became convinced that he was the one they all were looking for. Consequently, he questioned him closely and drew forth an admission from him regarding the authorship of the hymn which they were preparing to sing, whereupon all lifted up their voices and sang it with enthusiasm. It was declared to be a great success, and perfectly suited to the occasion.

The verses are as follows:

“Our Independence dear, Bought with the price of blood,
Let us receive with care, and trust our Maker God,
For He’s the tower to which we fly;
His grace is nigh in every hour.

“Nor shall Columbia’s sons forget the price it cost,
As long as water runs, or leaves are nipped by frost,
Freedom is thine; Let millions rise,
Defend the prize through rolling time!

“There was a Washington, a man of noble fame,
Who led Columbia’s sons to battle on the plain;
With skill they fought; the British host
With all their boast soon came to naught!

“Let traitors hide their heads and party quarrels cease;
Our foes are struck with dread, when we declare for peace.
Firm let us be, and rally round
The glorious sound of liberty!”

“This production with other prose and poetry,” so says his biographer, “made him at once notable in the community and secured for him a wide circle of friends. The young folks made his house a place of common resort to which they gathered to spend their leisure hours, while he and his wife became the central unit which drew them together and kept all in motion.” Things were looking bright for them; the farm was prospering, and young William Miller had become a member of the Masonic fraternity in which “he advanced to the highest degree which the lodges then in the country, or in that region could confer.” [Sylvester Bliss, “Life of William Miller”.] More than that, he was soon appointed to the position of Constable, and in 1809 to the office of Sheriff, and he was well on the road to the promotion of High Sheriff when, to the amazement of his friends, he became bitten with an overwhelming desire to enter the Army.

“What strong impulse could have turned him off in that direction?” asks his biographer; “already the business of his office had placed him in easy circumstances. Such was the amount of his business that he kept two horses, one of which he drove, while the other was kept up to rest week by week, alternately. He enjoyed the respect and unbounded confidence of the public. His preference for the Army, so far as we know, sprang from two motives: first, he desired to participate in the glory which rested on the memory of those he held most dear in the history of his country and his family (his father had fought in the Revolution); secondly, he hoped to enjoy a more inviting exhibition of human nature in the scenes of military life than experience or books had afforded in civil life. He was satisfied with the trial of what was around him and wished to try a new field.” This is stated by himself in his published “Memoirs.” “In the mean time I continued my studies,” he writes, “storing my mind with historical knowledge. The more I read, the more dreadfully corrupt did the character of man appear. I could discern no bright spot in the history of the past. Those conquerors of the world and heroes of history were apparently but demons in human form. All the sorrow, suffering, and misery in the world seemed to be increased in proportion to the power they attained over their fellows. I began to feel very distrustful of all men. In this state of mind I entered the service of my country. I fondly cherished the idea that I should find one bright spot at least in the human character as a star of hope - a love of country – Patriotism.”

This tone of pessimism and depression which was beginning to tarnish the brightness of his outlook was due to two things, the influence of the men with whom he had daily intercourse, and the books that he had been reading. A course of study of the works of Voltair, Hume, Volney, Paine, Ethan Allen, and others in the same line of thought, had borne fruit after their kind. Now these friends of his were respectable, moral men, and good citizens as well, but they did not trouble themselves about spiritual matters, they cared only for the material world, and most of them were avowed deists – men who in an offhand way admitted the existence of a Creator, but repudiated all belief in the revealed religion of our Saviour – and in their ignorance they ridiculed and made fun of William Miller’s strict ways and religious belief, and twitted him for going to church. The Millers were all Baptists, by nature devout, and looked upon religion with reverence; but this perpetual scoffing on the part of his friends proved to be more than William could stand and he turned about and declared openly that he had become a deist. His biographer describes the deplorable effect of this change upon his character:

“During this period the effect of deism upon him was such as to make him treat the Bible and all sacred objects with pitiable levity. He seemed to take a sort of defiant pleasure in banishing from his memory the impressions of his early life, and he gave to his sceptical associates an assurance that he had mastered his superstition, as they deemed it, by performing for their sport the devotions of the worship to which he has been accustomed, and especially by mimicking the devotional peculiarities of some of his own family relations. One of these was his grandfather Phelps, pastor of the Baptist Church at Orwell; the other was his uncle, Elihu Miller, who was settled as pastor of the Baptist Church at Low Hampton. These honorable ambassadors of Christ, and other pious relatives, often visited Mr. Miller’s house at Poultney, and although he received them with affection and respect, and entertained them in the most generous manner, he was in the habit of imitating with the most ludicrous gravity their words, tones of voice, gestures, fervency, and event he grief they might manifest for such as himself, to afford a kind of entertainment for his sceptical associates, which they seemed to enjoy with peculiar relish.”

“Little did he think,” his biographer pertinently remarks, “that he was measuring to these faithful men what was to be measured to him again – pressed down, shaken together, and running over!”

His wife and parents were almost prostrated with grief at the revelation of this phase of his character, as opposed to all that he had been before, and which was so alien to their simple and serious faith.

“There was more than one heart that was almost inconsolably afflicted by this conduct of Mr. Miller,” his biographer continues. “His mother knew of it, and it was as the bitterness of death to her. Some of her pious sisters witnessed with tears his improprieties, and when his mother spoke of the affliction to her father Phelps, he would console her by saying; ‘Don’t afflict yourself too deeply about William. There is something for him yet to do in the cause of God.’”

Such was the state of his mind when he entered the Army as a Lieutenant. His commission is dated July 21, 1810, and is signed by Jonas Galusha, Governor of Vermont. A copy of his oath written on the back of his commission is as follows:

“I, William Miller, solemnly swear that I will be true and faithful to the State of Vermont; that I will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the Constitution or Government thereof as established by Convention. So help me God. I also swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.
“William Miller, August 13, 1811.”

“The foregoing oaths were taken and subscribed to before me, Caleb Handy, Jr., Brig. Gen.”

“On the 18th of June, 1812, the declaration was made in due form; and the first note of preparation found Mr. Miller with hundreds of his hardy and patriotic Green Mountain neighbors ready to take the field. A very short time after, it was announced that he would take his place at the head of a company of State Volunteers. On the day after the date of the act of the State Government of Vermont, which authorized the raising of such a body, his captain’s commission is dated.” [Sylvester Bliss, “Life of William Miller”.]

It was expected that the fighting would take place in the direction of Burlington, and Captain Miller’s company was ordered there, as well as all the other volunteers who came from that part of the country. An accident happened to him while on the march to Burlington which not only came near being fatal to him, but which left its mark upon him, and it is a question whether it did not make deeper inroads upon his health than were recognized at the time. He described his unfortunate experience to his wife in the following letter:

“Camp at Burlington, June 13th, 1813

“Dear Lucy: “I am now at this place after a fatiguing march. My feet are all worn out, and my body is very sore. On our march from Bennington to this place I met with an accident which almost deprived me of life. The last day of our march, my feet and ankles being very lame, I hired a passage in a wagon with four or five of my brother officers. Capt. Clark and myself got into the hind part of the wagon, and while fixing the seat the horses started and threw me out. I fell on the back of my head, and they have since informed me that I lay as if dead for fifteen or twenty minutes. They put me into the wagon and carried me five or six miles before I came to my senses.

“I have not much of consequence to write. We expect the British in at Burlington every hour. There were about a thousand men came in yesterday from Bennington and Windsor, and we are ready to meet them with any force they can bring against us. I have nothing more to write but to subscribe myself
“Your ever loving husband, William Miller”

On the very day that he wrote this letter he received notice that he had been transferred from the Volunteers of the State of Vermont to the rank of Lieutenant on the Regular Army of the United States, as the following order will show:

“Encampment Burlington, June 13, 1813

“Sir: You are hereby commanded to repair to the County of Rutland, and there attend to the Recruiting Service for the 30th Regt. Infantry in the U.S. Army. You will govern yourself by the laws of the United States, and return to this post when commanded. [Signed] “Mason Ormsbie, Maj. Inf’ry “To Lieut. Miller, U.S. Army.”

In remarking upon this change his biographer says: “Such a transfer is considered honorable in the military sense; and the change of service, which allowed him to enjoy the comforts of home and the attention of friends while suffering from his late accident, must have been very acceptable.” [Sylvester Bliss, “Life of William Miller”.] But he had not been there a month when he received an imperative command from Headquarters as follows:

“Cantonment Burlington, July 7th, 1813

“Lieut. W. Miller, at Poultney, “You are hereby commanded to join your regiment at Burlington immediately, and report yourself to the Commanding Officer.
“Elias Fasset, Col. 30th Infantry.”

Again came the hurried good-byes and the departure, and fortunately he little suspected what awaited him at Burlington. Shortly after joining his regiment the dreaded army fever broke loose and spread rapidly among the troops, and the fatalities were so numerous that orders were issued to remove the bulk of the army to higher land. But Lieutenant Miller, who succumbed to the fever quickly, owing to his health being weakened on account of his accident, was too ill to be removed, and he and a few other severe cases remained to fight their way back to health where they were.

When autumn came he had practically recovered with the exception of a terrible sore upon his arm. As he suffered very much from it, an operation was advised. The following anecdote regarding it reveals a very human quality in his character which is worth noting and which his biographer relates: “He was somewhat displeased by the rudeness of the thoughtless medical students or surgeon’s mates, who too often seemed to think that a disabled soldier is good for nothing but to cut up for experiments. As they handled the diseased limb one day somewhat roughly, and spoke very lightly of its amputation as a matter of course, he reminded them that his sword arm was still sound; and putting his hand on the hilt of his sword before him, gave them to understand that whatever might be advised in the case, he should not submit to any unnecessary pain for their amusement. They understood him and it ended their rudeness. He managed to keep his arm, and was able to join his regiment which was now in active service, searching for the enemy on the Canadian frontier.”

The year 1814 came at last, which was to be the crucial period of the war. In August of that year Lieutenant Miller was promoted to the rank of Captain in the Regular Army. He received the following summons that same month:

“Burlington, August 12, 1814

“To Wm. Miller, Capt. In the 30th In’y. “Sir: You are ordered to report yourself to the Commanding Officer of said regiment without delay at Plattsburg. I am, Sir, with respect, etc., etc.
“Elias Fasset, Col. 30th and Comd. Recruiting.”

It was close upon the heels of his arrival at camp that the thrilling moment for which our army had been waiting, and an extract from the following letter to his wife, dated September 4, 1814, reveals the suppressed excitement under which Captain Miller was laboring:

“The British are within ten miles of this place and we expect a battle tomorrow; and I think they must be d----d fools if they do attack us, as they are ten or eleven thousand strong, and we are only fifteen hundred, but every man is determined to do his duty. It may be my lot to fall; if I do I will fall bravely. Remember, you will never hear from me if I am a coward.

“I must close, as it is almost eleven o’clock.
“Remember your William Miller.”

How vividly these few lines reveal the suspense and excitement that were beating in every one of those fifteen hundred courageous hearts!

They had to wait a week, but at last the looked-for moment came on the 11th of September,

It was a beautiful mild morning and our warships rode quietly at anchor, while all about them sparkled the blue waters of Plattsburg Bay in the early autumn sunshine. Suddenly the lookout boat gave a sharp warning of the approach of the enemy, and presently the British fleet could be seen passing Cumberland Head, while at the same moment the firing of the royal salute shook the air and echoed from shore to shore.

Immediately every sailor on our ships and every soldier in the forts bordering on the lake sprang to their posts. The battle had begun.

History has eloquently recorded Commodore Macdonough’s victory and described the precipitous retreat of the British land forces, commanded by Sir George Provost, with a loss of twenty-five hundred men killed, wounded, and missing after the naval defeat.

The following jubilant letters written by Captain Miller paint a vivid picture of that memorable day. The first was written to Judge Stanley, of Poultney, and read as follows:

“Fort Scott, Sept. 11, 1814, 20 minutes past two o’clock P.M. “Sir: “It is over! It is done! The British fleet has struck to the American flag! Great slaughter on both sides! They are in plain view where I am now writing. My God! The sight was majestic, it was noble, it was grand!

“This morning at ten o’clock the British opened a very heavy and destructive fire upon us, both by water and by land; then congreve rockets flew like hailstones about us, and round shot and grape from every quarter. You have no idea of the battle! Our force was small, but how bravely they fought! Sir Lord George Provost feels bad. His land force may expect to meet their fate if our Militia do their duty; but in time of action they were not to be seen. The action on water lasted only two hours and ten minutes; the firing from their batteries has just ceased – ours is still continuing; the small arms are now just coming to action. I have no time to write any more; you must conceive what we feel, for I cannot describe it. I am satisfied that I can fight; I know that I am no coward; therefore call on Mr. Loomis to drink my health, and I will pay the shot. Three of my men are wounded by a shell burst within two feet of me. The boat from the fleet, which has just landed under our fort, says the British Commodore is killed.

“Out of three hundred on board their ship twenty-five remain alive. Some of our officers who have been on board say the blood is knee-deep.

“Their force we have taken consists of one ship, thirty-six guns, one brig of eighteen guns, and two sloops.

“Huzza! Huzza! Twenty or thirty British prisoners taken by our Militia have just arrived in fort! I can write no more, for the time grows dubious.
“Yours forever, Wm. Miller.
“Give my compliments to all, and send this to my wife.”

A horse and rider galloping through the village of Poultney shouted the news of the victory, and William Miller’s wife, waiting with an anxious heart, was one of the first to hear his coming. It seemed not the space of a moment when the bells pealed forth; the people shouted and sang for joy, and the greatest excitement prevailed.

Captain Miller’s letter to his wife gives a graphic account of that memorable September 11th which is worth reading. It not only describes the battle, but between the lines one gets glimpses that reveal something of the character of the man:

“Fort Scott, Sept. 12, 1811, 7 o’clock, morning

“Dear Wife: Yesterday was a day of great joy. We have conquered! We have drove them! About nine o’clock A.M. yesterday the British fleet fired a salute as they passed Cumberland Head; it was a token for a general engagement. About twenty minutes after they hove in sight. How majestic! How noble! Our fleet lay in Plattsburg Bay; and like a saucy Yankee paid no attention to their royal salute! The British fleet still bearing down upon us, bold as a lion – in a moment we were all prepared for action. The British had thrown up a number of batteries on all sides of us. The next minute the cannon began playing – spitting their fires in every quarter. What a scene! All was dreadful! Nothing but roaring and groaning for about six or eight hours. I cannot describe to you our situation. The fort I was in was exposed to every shot. Bombs, rockets, and shrapnel shells fell thick as hailstones. Three of my men were wounded, and one killed, but none that were from Poultney or that quarter.

“In one hour and forty-five minutes the enemy’s fleet was conquered. My God! What a slaughter on al sides! Out of three hundred on board of one ship, twenty four alone remained unhurt! I cannot describe to you the general joy!

“At sundown our forts fired a national salute, accompanied by a tune called ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and each gun was loaded with an eighteen-pound shot. This soon frightened our foe to that degree that this morning at daybreak not a soul was to be seen; and they went off in so great a hurry that not one article of their baggage could they carry away. Some they burnt, and some they left behind. Their loss in killed and wounded is immense, besides one hundred taken prisoners, and three or four hundred deserters. Our loss was not so great, but considerable. Every officer and soldier is now singing for joy, and there is nothing now heard but the 11th day of September, and Lord George Provost retreating for Canada. You may well conceive by my unconnected mode of writing that I am as joyful as any of them. A naval and land engagement within the compass of a mile or two, and fifteen or twenty thousand engaged at one and the same time, is superior to anything my eyes ever beheld before. How grand! How noble, yet how awful! The roaring of cannon, the bursting of bombs, the whizzing of balls, the popping of small arms, the crackling of timbers, the shrieks of the dying, the groans of the wounded, the commands of the officers, the swearing of the soldiers, the smoke, the fire – everything conspires to make the scene of a battle both awful and grand!

“The fort I was in was on the bank of the lake and in plain view of everything which passed. Remember me to all my friends; and in the mean time accept of me as I am
“Faithfully yours, Wm. Miller.”

One of the incidents that gave him the greatest satisfaction as a culmination of that never-to- be forgotten day, and in which he was deputed to take part, was preparing the body of the English Commodore for burial. To quote from his biography: “The honor paid to the dead by the Americans was as worthy of remembrance as the bravery with which they fought.” [Sylvester Bliss, “Life of William Miller”.]

Thus ended the military career of Captain Miller. He retired from the Army in June, 1815, and sought the little farm in Poultney once more, where his devoted wife and a little son now awaited him. Once again he systematically planted his crops and in the fullness of time harvested them. Again his neighbors wondered to see him spend his spare hours poring over a large, ponderous volume – not in the library this time, but in the seclusion of his own home. Nor was it Voltaire, no Hume, nor Volney, nor Paine that absorbed his interest. A change had come over William Miller. Now it was the Book of books – the Bible, with its magnificent interpretations of Life and Death – its mysterious prophecies, its glorious promises, its inspired diction that held him spellbound.

Who can tell how and why such changes come?

The following chapter will attempt to trace the mental processes that turned the retired soldier into the man known far and wide as “Prophet" Miller, with a newly awakened power to sway mighty gatherings of people, with a gift of vividly pictorial language – with a personality that baffled even those bitterly opposed to his convictions – chastened in spirit; more or less broken in health; repentant of past scepticism, and calling upon those spiritually asleep to awaken and repent, for the end of the world was at hand!

There were two incidents that occurred during William Miller’s military career, just as he was about to return to civil life, that swept his thoughts into new channels. The first was during a night in camp, and at an hour when he was making his rounds to see that all was quiet and that his men were in their tents. While performing this duty, he espied a light gleaming in one of them and he heard a low voice speaking in tones of great intensity. He stopped short and listened. Presently he heard other voices, also lowered, and he was on the alert in a moment. There had been great difficulty in preventing the men from gambling in camp, and strict rules had been given out against it. For a moment he thought he had caught some transgressors red-handed. Drawing nearer to the tent, he stopped and listened again. There was a pause, and then the voice he had heard at first began to speak again – this time in tones of apparent supplication. He realized now that the man was praying. Shrugging his shoulders impatiently, he strode off. Life in the Army has not lessened his miserable habit of ridiculing all religious observances, and in thinking over what he had heard, he made up his mind to play a joke upon this young soldier the next day, and to give him a good fright regarding the sound of voices that had issued from his tent during the night. Accordingly, when morning came, he summoned him and stood awaiting him with an ugly frown upon his brow.

“Sergeant Willey,” he said, addressing the young man as he approached him, “you know that it is contrary to Army regulations to have any gambling in the tents at night. I was sorry to see your tent lip up for that purpose last night. We cannot have any gambling at such times. You must put a stop to it at once. I hope I shall not have to speak to you again about it.”

The young soldier, taken completely by surprise, flushed to the roots of his hair. “We were not gambling, Sir,” he stammered, lowering his eyes.

There was something in the boyish, candid face before him and in the tones of his voice that touched Captain Miller in spite of himself. He cast the impression away from his mind and went on with his joke. He believed he could enjoy forcing Sergeant Willey to confess what he had been doing and he then planned to ridicule it.

“Yes, you were gambling!” he cried, contradicting him with added severity, “and it won’t do! What else could you have your tent lighted up for all evening if you were not gambling?”

The young soldier drew himself up to his full height, and, squaring his shoulders, looked Captain Miller in the face. “We were praying, Sir,” he answered, very quietly and simply.

There was so much dignity and truth in the answer and the manner of delivering it that Captain Miller suddenly found himself abashed and humiliated. Without another word he turned on his heel and walked away. The brave and earnest eyes that had met his so fearlessly troubled him. He had indulged in gambling himself at times, and he recalled this, and that fact now shamed him as he thought over the joke he had tried to play which had failed so lamentably. He was more disturbed than he cared to admit. He sat up the following night to try to shake off the impression the occurrence had made upon him, but it would not leave him. He pondered over the courage displayed by the group of young soldiers whose voices he had heard in the tent, and their fearless independence in uniting together right in the rough and brutalizing atmosphere of the camp to pray for the safety of their souls. He felt shaken by it, and he thought of his own soul – what was its condition? Had he drugged it into so deep a sleep that it could not awaken? He remembered that sometimes – indeed often – he, like those about him, had made free use of the name of the Almighty. This also troubled him now.

“One day,” he states in his “Memoirs,” “I detected myself in the act of taking the name of God in vain – a habit I had acquired in the service; and I was instantly convicted of its sinfulness.”

Now, in spite of all William Miller’s much-vaunted deism, it needed but little probing to discover an ingenuous, simple, kindly nature hidden under the outer coating of his heart. The following statement made by his biographer who was his personal friend will show this: “All who have any knowledge of the question will confirm that his personal integrity and official honor were such throughout his connection with the Army as to command in an almost unexampled degree the respect and affection of all who were under him as an officer, and the hearty confidence and esteem of his official associates. “For years after the war closed, it was a common thing for his brethren in arms to turn aside from the great route of travel five or six miles to enjoy a short interview with one to whom they were strongly attached; and some of the less provident, feeling sure he would receive them with a sort of fatherly sympathy, which a poor unfortunate soldier seldom finds in the world, were accustomed to tarry with him some days or weeks at a time.” [Sylvester Bliss, “Life of William Miller”.]

The second incident which made a deep impression upon him was when a friend of his named Spencer died of fever in camp. During the latter’s illness, Captain Miller had a long talk with him of which he wrote an account to his wife. It is evident that this conversation, followed by the death of his friend, again touched the chord within him that had long been lying dormant. Watching the life forces wane and finally pass out from the body of one who had been a trusted comrade seems to have stirred him to the depths his being, and to have started questions in his mind regarding the existence of the soul after death that bewildered him and caused poignant distress and apprehension.

“But a short time,” he wrote to his wife, “and like Spencer I shall be no more. It is a solemn thought. Yet could I be sure of another life there would be nothing terrific; - but to go out like an extinguished taper is insupportable – the thought is doleful. No! Rather let me cling to that hope which warrants a never-ending existence; - a future spring where troubles shall cease and tears find no conveyance; - where never-ending spring shall flourish, and love, pure as the driven snow, rest in every breast. Dear Lucy do write to me, and let me know how you pass your time. Good evening – I am troubled. Wm. Miller.”

It can be seen that his mind was tossed over these questions when he received his discharge from the Army that same year and returned to the humble occupations of a farmer. During his absence of seven or more years, his father, whose home had been for some time in Low Hampton, had died, and in order to be near his mother he left Poultney and moved his family, which now consisted of his wife and a young son, to a farm near hers, comprising about two hundred acres. Here he built one of those typical New England farmhouses, painted white with green blinds, that are so familiar to those who know the country, and began to farm in earnest. But the manual labor did not suffice to quiet his troubled spirit. He was facing now a battle worse than any he had been engaged in during his military career, but it was no bodily conflict this time – it was a mental experience, fraught with distress and anguish of mind; - fears and doubts assailed him on one side, and a yearning for faith and the joy of peace and the security of a quiet conscience on the other. Even his devoted wife could do nothing to help him. She was forced to stand aside and watch his misery in silence and pray for relief to come.

In referring to this unhappy period in his “Memoirs,” he says: “I thought to seek for that happiness which had always eluded my pursuit in my former occupations, in the domestic circle. For a little space, a care and burden was taken off my mind; but after a while I felt the need of some active employment. My life had become too monotonous. I had lost all those pleasing prospects which in youth I expected to enjoy in riper years. It appeared to me that there was nothing good on earth. Those things in which I had expected to find some solid good had deceived me. I began to think man was no more than a brute, and the idea of hereafter was a dream; annihilation was a chilling thought; and accountability was sure destruction to all. The heavens were as brass over my head, and the earth as iron under my feet.”

Whether he was working in the hayfields or hoeing in his garden, he could not escape from his tormenting thoughts.

“Eternity!” he cried, “what was it? And death, why was it? The more I reasoned, the further I was from demonstration. The more I thought, the more scattered were my conclusions. I tried to stop thinking, but my thoughts would not be controlled. I was truly wretched; but did not understand the cause. I murmured and complained, but knew not of whom. I felt there was a wrong, but knew not how or where to find the right. I mourned, but without hope.” [J.V. Himes, “Memoirs”. Published 1841.]

It sometimes happens that a drastic statement will stir a sense of opposition in the listener that is salutary, and this occurred in a conversation he had with an acquaintance of his – Judge Stanley by name, who was evidently a confirmed deist.

“I asked him his opinion respecting our condition in another state,” Miller says in his “Memoirs.” “He replied by comparing it to that of a tree, which flourishes for a time and turns to earth; and to that of a candle, which burns to nothing. I was then satisfied that deism was inseparably connected with, and did tend to the denial of a future existence. And I thought to myself that rather than embrace such a view I should prefer the heaven and hell of the Scriptures, and take my chance respecting them.”

This condition of mind lasted for some time and caused acute suffering. Just when all seemed darkest to him, however, a light broke in upon his misery. It happened in the little Baptist Church at Low Hampton, and he gives the following account of it:

“Suddenly,” he says, “the character of a Saviour was vividly impressed upon my mind. It seemed to me that there might be a Being so good and compassionate as to atone for our transgressions, and thereby save us from suffering the penalty of sin. I immediately felt how lovely such a Being must be, and imagined that I could cast myself into the arms of, and trust in the mercy of such a One. I saw that the Bible did bring to view just such a Saviour as I needed. I was constrained to admit that the Scriptures must be a revelation from God. They became a delight,” he goes on to say, “and in Jesus I found a friend. The Saviour became to me the chiefest among ten thousand; - and the Scriptures, which before were dark and contradictory, now became the lamp to my feet, and light to my path. My mind became settled and satisfied. I found the Lord God to be a rock in the ocean of life.”

With what prayers of thanksgiving did Lucy Miller watch her husband coming out from the valley of shadows where he had suffered the poignant suffering of spiritual and mental conflict!

“The Bible now became my chief study,” he goes on to explain, “and I can truly say I searched it with great delight. I found the half was never told me. I wondered why I had not seen its beauty and glory before, and marveled that I could have ever rejected it. I found everything revealed that my heart could desire, and a remedy for every disease of the soul. I lost all taste for other reading, and applied my heart to get wisdom from God.”

Every other thought was now subservient to this one great, absorbing question of immortality, and the assurances he found expressed in the Bible regarding it. But in studying this book of revelation, he refused to be guided by the great weight of opinion that has accumulated through the centuries, nor would he accept the interpretations given by a long line of enlightened minds to some of the obscurer passages. He decided to be his own interpreter.

According to his biographer (Elder Sylvester Bliss was a member of the Historical and Genealogical Societies of Boston, Mass.), “he resolved to lay aside all preconceived opinions and he received with childlike simplicity the natural and obvious meaning of Scripture. He pursued the study of the Bible,” we are told, “with the most intense interest, whole nights as well as days being devoted to that object. At times delighted with truth, which shone forth from the sacred volume, making clear to his understanding the great plan of God for the redemption of fallen man; and at times puzzled and almost distracted by seemingly inexplicable or contradictory passages, he persevered until the application of his great principle in interpretation was triumphant. He became puzzled only to be delighted, and delighted only to persevere the more in penetrating its beauties and mysteries.”

It caused a tremendous stir among his friends and former associates in Poultney when he made his change of belief known to them. “His infidel friends,” his biographer says, “regarded his departure from them as the loss of a standard-bearer” – but the rejoicing among his own people was deep and sincere. He soon, however, began to specialize in his researches and to focus his attention upon the mysterious prophecies of Daniel, and strove to penetrate the symbolism of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and to connect them with other prophecies found largely in the Old Testament. He accepted them literally, refusing to recognize the Hebrew custom of using metaphor, and it was not long before he became enmeshed in an intricate system of hypothetical periods of dates, all pointing toward the destruction of the world by fire, preceded by the Second Advent of our Lord.

For upwards of fourteen years William Miller’s whole time was spent thus – working on his farm and in his leisure hours drawing up charts covered with a network of mathematical calculations, all tending to prove the accuracy of his system of interpreting the prophecies according to his own personal methods. And all these calculations showed that the year 1843 would usher in the Millenium. The more he worked out his theory, the more convinced he became of the truth in it.

“Various difficulties and objections,” he states, “would arise in my mind from time to time; certain texts would occur to me which seemed to weigh against my conclusions; and I would not present a view to others while any difficulty appeared to militate against it. I therefore continued the study of the Bible and to see if I could sustain any of these objections. My object was not merely to remove them, but I wished to see if they were valid.

"In this way I was occupied for five years - from 1818 to 1823 - in weighing the various objections which were being presented to my mind.

“With solemn conviction that such momentous events were predicted in the Scriptures to be fulfilled in so short a space of time, the question came home to me with mighty power regarding my duty to the world, in view of the evidence that had affected my own mind. If the end was so near, it was important that the world should know it."

Later he says: "The duty of presenting the evidence of the nearness of the Advent to others - which I had managed to evade while I found the shadow of an objection remaining against its truth - again came home to me with great force. I had previously only thrown out occasional hints of my views. I then began to speak more clearly to my neighbors, to ministers and others. To my astonishment I found very few who listened with any interest. Occasionally one would see the force of the evidence, but the great majority passed it by as an idle tale.

"I supposed it would call forth the opposition of the ungodly; but it never came into my mind that any Christian would oppose it. I supposed that all such would be so rejoiced, in view of the glorious prospect, that it only would be necessary to present it for them to receive it." [Sylvester Bliss, “Life of William Miller”.]

This temporary setback depressed him not a little, but it did not last long. As time went on, this desire to give out his warning took possession of him again. He seemed to hear distinct voices telling him to go out and make his discovery known to the world.

"When I was about my business," he writes, "it was constantly ringing in my ears - 'Go and tell the world of their danger.' . . . I felt that if the wicked could be effectually warned multitudes of them would repent." But in spite of a peculiar assurance in regard to his convictions, William Miller was a diffident man in many respects. Though he had formerly freely indulged in ridiculing others, he shrank from the shafts of it himself, and he dreaded criticism, and feared being misunderstood.

"I did all I could," he states, "to avoid the conviction that anything was required of me; and I thought that by freely speaking of it to all I should perform my duty; but still it was impressed upon me, 'Go tell it to the world.'

"The more I presented it in conversation, the more dissatisfied I felt with myself for withholding it from the public. I tried to excuse myself to the Lord for not going out and proclaiming it to the world. I told the Lord that I was not used to public speaking; that I had not the necessary qualifications for gaining the attention of an audience; that I was very diffident, and feared to go before the world; that I was slow of speech and of a slow tongue. But I could get no relief.”

According to his own accounts, he resisted these inward promptings for nine years more. He was fifty years old by then, and his life of constant mental struggle and physical labor, together with the lasting effects of his illness contracted in the Army, had aged him beyond his years, and he appeared much older than he was. He was inclined to be over-stout and he felt the effort of making unusual exertion.

It was in the autumn of 1831, however, that he finally started his lecturing, and it came about in this way: After breakfast one Saturday morning, he was sitting down to work upon his calculations of Jewish time and to review his interpretation of the prophecies when a voice seemed to say to him louder than he had ever heard it before - "Go tell it to the world!”

"The impression was so sudden," he writes "and came with such force that I settled down in my chair, saying, 'I can't go, Lord.' 'Why not?' seemed to be the response; and then all my excuses came up - my want of ability, etc.; but my distress became so great I entered into a solemn compact with God that if He would open the way I would go and perform my duty to the world. 'What do you mean by opening the way?' seemed to come to me. 'Why,' I said, 'if I should have an invitation to speak publicly in any place, I will go tell them what I find in the Bible about the Lord's coming.' Instantly all my burden was gone, and I rejoiced that I should not probably be called upon, for I had never had such an invitation."

About half an hour after this, so he states, a young man called at the door. He was the son of a Mr. Gifford, of Dresden. He explained that there was no preacher to fill the pulpit of the church there the next day, and such being the case his father had thought it would be a fine opportunity for the congregation to hear Mr. Miller's views on the near approach of the Second Advent and the attending destruction of the world, and sent him to ask if he would come and give a lecture on the subject.

It came as a great shock to William Miller. He found himself regretting his compact with God, but he felt bound by it, and sent back the answer that he would come. It was his first experience of the kind, and he was too much agitated to make any real preparation. As he mounted the steps of the pulpit the following morning, he felt almost unequal to filling his part of the compact. Standing before the little Baptist congregation at Dresden, he hesitated for a brief moment and then he began to speak. Immediately, it seemed to him that a new talent was born in him of which he had never been conscious before. As he explained his reasons for believing, in the near approach of the Day of judgment - as he pictured the sudden appearance in the heavens of the Saviour in clouds of glory, which they must be prepared to watch for any time between 1843 and 1844 - when he found a sudden flow of words to depict the consternation and confusion of the wicked - their unavailing cries for mercy - the earth shriveling in flames - the victorious shouts of the redeemed while being caught up into the air, safe from the fiery destruction beneath them - his listeners sat upright in their pews as though spellbound.

As a spark from a passing engine is sufficient to start a forest fire, so William Miller's first lecture in the little Baptist Church at Dresden started a conflagration that the opposing clergy of the Orthodox churches, the newspapers, lecturers, and the more normal and sane-minded of the public could not quell.

After this the country folk flocked from the neighboring villages, curiosity bringing them at first, but as the news of his prophecy spread a revival commenced, accompanied by great enthusiasm, and "in thirteen families all but two were happily converted" according to the accounts of the time.

Immediately invitations came pouring in to him to lecture at various places. The town of Paulet came next, and after that it was one continual travel from place to place. In writing of this time he says:

"The churches of the Congregationalists, Baptists, and Methodists were thrown open. In almost every place I visited, my labors resulted in the reclaiming of backsliders and the conversion of sinners. I was usually invited to fields of labor by the ministers of the several congregations whom I visited, who gave me their countenance, and I have never labored in any place to which I was not previously invited. The pressing invitations from the ministry and the leading members of the churches poured in continually from that time during the whole period of my public labors, and with more than one half of which I was unable to comply. I lectured to crowded houses through the western part of Vermont, through the northern part of New York, and in Canada East."

By now he had acquired an unerring capacity for claiming the attention of his listeners at all times and he gave the following advice to Elder Hendryx, a Baptist friend of his who had evidently written asking the secret of this art: "One great means of doing good," Miller explains in answer, "is to make your parishioners sensible that you are in earnest, and fully and solemnly believe what you preach. If you wish your people to feel, feel yourself. If you wish them to believe as you do, show them, by your constant assiduity in teaching, that you sincerely wish it."

The following year requests that he should publish his views began to reach him. As usual, he wrote to Elder Hendryx on the subject. His letter is dated January 23, 1832: “I have written a few numbers on the coming of Christ and the final destruction of the Beast, when his body shall be given to the burning flame. They may appear in the 'Vermont Telegraph; - if not, in pamphlet form. They are written to Elder Smith of Poultney, and he has liberty to publish."

By this time William Miller had acquired a style and manner of preaching that gave his sense of dramatic values free rein. This can be seen in a letter which he wrote to Elder Hendryx, dated May 30, 1832 : "I am satisfied that the end of the world is at hand. The evidence flows in from every quarter. -'The earth is reeling to and fro like a drunkard.' . . . Is the harvest over and past? If so, soon, very soon, God will arise in his anger, and the vine of the earth will be reaped. See! See! - the angel with his sharp sickle is about to take the field! See yonder trembling victim fall before his pestilential breath! High and low, rich and poor, trembling and falling before the appalling grave, the dreadful cholera.

“Hark! - hear those dreadful bellowings of the angry nations! It is the presage of horrid and terrific war. Look! - look again! See crowns, and kings, and kingdoms trembling to the dust! See lords and nobles, captains and mighty men, all arming for the bloody, demon fight! See the carnivorous fowls fly screaming through the air! See - see these signs! Behold, the heavens grow black with clouds; the sun has veiled himself; the moon, pale and forsaken, hangs in middle air; the hail descends; the seven thunders utter loud their voices; the lightenings send their vivid gleams of sulphurous flames abroad; and the great city of the nations falls to rise no more forever and forever! At this dread moment, look! The clouds have burst asunder; the heavens appear; the great white throne is in sight! Amazement fills the Universe with awe! He comes! - He comes! - Behold the Saviour comes! - Lift up your heads, ye saints - He comes! He comes! He comes!
"WILLIAM MILLER."

One can easily see why the little Baptist congregation at Dresden sat spellbound!

Now Brother Hendryx delighted in a letter of this kind with a good revivalist flavor to it, and this was one reason why William Miller found a special enjoyment in his society. During the following March he wrote again to him and expressed himself thus: "I want to see you more than ever, and when we have less company, so that we can sit down and have a good dish of Bible together. The light is continually breaking in and I am more and more confirmed in those things which I told you."

He then goes on in a chatty sort of way to give him the local news, an item of it being that a pastor was needed for the church at Low Hampton and that every one was expressing himself freely as to the kind of a man most fitted for the place. " Some of our people want 'a quick gab,"' he writes. "But I should prefer a quick understanding!"

Now it was about this time that strange signs appeared in the heavens and with such frequency as to cause great uneasiness. They were the precursors of the famous phenomenon of the falling stars of 1833 which produced terror and consternation among those who had heard of William Miller's prophecy. As it was, these precursors of that phenomenon were causing much comment not only from the general public, but scientific men were watching them with unusual interest.

The author was fortunate enough to find a quaint account of one of these appearances in an old Shaker journal written at that time. It reads as follows:

"Remarkable lights seen at the Second Family - Watervliet, December 2d, 1831. "On Saturday night, December 2d, just after I retired, being still awake and looking towards the wash house, I saw it was on fire as I thought. I called to Asaneth Harwood to come and see what the matter was. She came, and on seeing the same, she said, 'Oh - that is spiritual light!' Then, two Sisters got up and came to the window and saw the same. One of them told me I had better call up the Sisters in the front room 'for it may be fire,' said she. "I went and called up Polly Bacon and Ellen Brandet. They looked out and thought the South House barns were on fire.

"Polly then went and called up Joel Smith to go and see if the barns were really on fire. While Joel was dressing, we kneeled and prayed that if it was a fire it might be put out. "Then I went into the hall and met William Seeley and asked him to go and see. He went, but neither he nor Joel could see anything of the light or fire.

"I saw two large lights - then there appeared to be two dozen large sheets of light; then they all appeared to turn into little stars spreading out to great extent; and then they would seem to be gone, except the two large lights which remained when all the rest were gone. The stars would then appear again.

“I went to bed and laid as much as an hour, and saw them all the time. I fell asleep, woke again, and saw then the same as before.

"After laying awake some considerable time, I again fell asleep, and when I awoke they had disappeared.
[Signed] "PERMILIA EARLS.”

"Note: Permilia further said that it appeared as though the light gathered into sheets that came up one behind another. When they had gathered up in this way, one large star would shoot out to the west, and then a great many would shoot upward like sparks from a blacksmith's chimney.

"Then they would collect again as before, and shoot out again in like manner, repeating the same a great many times.

"The light was of a silvery color. The other Sisters say it appeared to them in the same manner.

"Permilia also says that as she closed her eyes it appeared to her that somebody came and brushed them open two or three times, and then the room was filled with lights."

It was two years after this, and just when the belief in William Miller's prophecy was rapidly gaining ground, that the night skies to all appearances began to fall to earth. Nothing could have happened so to promote the acceptance of his prophetic calculations as the awe- inspiring sight of this strange phenomenon. The newspapers were full of it and speculated upon the causes at length.

"Surely” people exclaimed, "the prophecies of the Bible are being fulfilled! These are the signs in the heavens spoken of !" - and many trembled with fear. Some of the accounts that appeared in the newspapers are so extraordinary and reveal so clearly the tenor of the public mind at that time that a few of them must be included in the next chapter.

Man is used to looking up at the starry firmament with confidence and a sense of boundless security. He watches the planets rise and set. He knows where to look for the glittering group of the Pleiades, and for the pointed angles of Cassiopea's Chair. He can rely upon finding the exact position of the North Star, and knows the hour to watch for the Constellation of Orion. When, therefore, some time before dawn on November 13, 1833, thousands upon thousands of brilliant stars were seen falling toward the earth, and strange, shimmering lights shot upward against the background of a cloudless sky, and balls of fire blazed in the zenith and exploded in the air, it can hardly cause astonishment that intense alarm was felt in many places. With acute concern some recalled another agitating demonstration of Nature's power which had occurred fifty years before and was recorded by scientists as the "Dark Day," when the sun, to all appearances, neither rose nor set, and darkness covered the earth, as in the nebulous days before light was. Linking that terrifying event with the present one, many hurriedly searched the Scriptures, comparing what they found there with what was happening in the skies above them, and they tremblingly believed that the hour had come when one of the Biblical prophecies was being fulfilled right before their eyes. Throughout the districts where William Miller had been sounding the alarm of approaching doom, the excitement was intense, and wherever his word had spread, this awe-inspiring spectacle produced a profound sensation, and brought many heretofore scoffers to join those who believed in his prophecy.

The following letter addressed to the editor appeared in the "Baltimore Patriot" of November 13, 1833, and gives a vivid account of this famous phenomenon:

"Mr. Munro:
" Being up this morning, I witnessed one of the most grand and alarming spectacles which ever beamed upon the eye of Man. The light in my room was so great that I could see the hour of the morning by my watch, which hung over the mantle, and supposing that there was a fire near at hand, probably on my own premises, I sprang to the window and, behold, the stars, or some other bodies presenting a fiery appearance, were descending in torrents as rapid and numerous as ever I saw flakes of snow or drops of rain in the midst of a storm.

"Occasionally a large body of apparent fare would be hurled through the atmosphere which without noise exploded, when millions of fiery particles would be cast through the surrounding air. To the eye it presented the appearance of what might be called a raining of fire, for I can compare it to nothing else. Its continuance, according to my time from the moment I discovered it, was twenty minutes, but a friend, whose lady was up, says it commenced at half-past four - that she was watching the sick-bed of a relative and therefore can speak positively as to the hour of its commencement. If our time was correct, it rained fire fifty minutes. The shed in the yard adjoining my own was covered with stars, as I supposed, during the whole time.

"A friend at my elbow who also witnessed it and in whose veracity I can place the most implicit reliance, confirms my own observation of the phenomenon, and adds that the fiery particles which fell south descended in a southern direction, and those north took a northern direction. He thinks it commenced earlier than at the period at which I first witnessed it, and that it lasted longer - that when the clock struck six there were still occasional descents of stars.

"I have stated facts as they present themselves to my mind. I leave it to the philosophers to account for the phenomenon.
“Yours truly “’B.’”

Startling as this description is, there are many others written at the time that are equal to it. Henry Dana Ward's account sent to the "New York Chamber of Commerce,” is one of them. He writes as follows: "In your paper this morning some notice is taken of the phenomenon of yesterday. It comes so far short of the view taken of it by myself, and a number of friends who gazed upon it with me, that I send you the story of that eventful scene, as we witnessed it.

"One of the family rose at five o'clock A.M. to prepare for leaving the city in the seven o'clock boat. He threw up the window to see whether the dawn had come, and behold! the east was lighted up and the heavens were apparently falling. He rubbed his eyes in doubt, but seeing on every side the starry firmament as it were broken up and falling like flakes of snow and whitening the skies, he aroused the whole family. At the cry, 'Look out of the window!' I sprang from a deep sleep, and with wonder saw the east lighted up with the dawn of meteors.

'The zenith the north and the west also showed the falling stars in the very image of one thing and of only one I ever heard of. I called to my wife to behold, and while robing she exclaimed, 'See how the stars fall!' - and we felt in our hearts that it was the sign of the last days. For truly ‘the stars of Heaven fall onto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken by a mighty wind."'

This same idea was ex-pressed in an article in the " Connecticut Observer of November 25, 1833, which was copied from a paper called the "Old Countryman." It reads as follows: "We pronounce the raining of fire which we saw on Wednesday morning last, an awful type, a sure forerunner - a merciful sign of the great and dreadful day which the inhabitants of the earth will witness when the Sixth Seal shall be opened. The time is just at hand described, not only in the New Testament, but in the Old. A more correct picture of a fig tree casting its leaves when blown by a mighty wind is not possible to behold."

A correspondent of the "New York American" at Acquackanonk seems to have had a peculiarly trying experience. He states that the shooting stars varied in size from the bulk of a pea to that of a walnut, and were varied in colors - red, blue, yellow, and white! "Several," he writes came within a foot of the writer’s person, and one exploded close to his face, and instantaneously disappeared without any particular odor!"

In a publication called "Last Day Tokens" (1843) several newspaper reports of this phenomenon of the falling stars were reprinted, one of which reads thus: "The Sussex papers described the exhibition in their vicinity as having been somewhat singular. The people seem to have been much alarmed. They thought that the stars had in reality shot madly from their spheres, and that the whole economy of Nature was returning to its original chaos. One person said that he kept his eye upon the morning star, resolved that if that departed he should give up all hope!"

The "Rockingham (Virginia) Register" called it "a rain of fires - thousands of stars being seen falling at once; some said it began with considerable noise!"

The "Lancaster Examiner" declared that "the air was filled with innumerable meteors or stars - hundreds of thousands of brilliant bodies might be seen falling at every moment."

The "Salem Register" stated that "some attributed them to stones ejected by volcanoes on the moon."

After these graphic accounts it is interesting to note the opinion of a scientist. In commenting upon the extraordinary spectacle, Professor Olmstead, of Yale College, made the following statement, according to the aforesaid paper, "Last Day Tokens" (1843):

"Those who were so fortunate as to witness the exhibition of shooting stars on the morning of November 13, 1833, probably saw the greatest display of celestial fireworks that has ever been seen since the creation of the world, or at least within the annals covered by the pages of history."

After this, as his following grew in numbers, William Miller's enthusiasm and faith in his own prophecy increased accordingly. In a letter to good Brother Hendryx that same year he burst forth into a Walt Whitman-like flow of language that is bewildering. Yet this style was peculiarly his own and the following is an interesting example of it:

"I wish I had the tongue of an Apollo, and the mental powers of a Paul!" he writes in this exuberant letter. "O may the Bible be to us a rock, a pillar, a compass, a chart, a statute, a directory, a polar star, a traveler’s guide, a pilgrim's companion, a shield of faith, a ground of hope, a history, a chronology, an armory, a storehouse, a mirror, a toilet, a closet, a prayer-book, an epistle, a love letter, a friend, a foe, a revenue, a treasury, a bank, a fountain, a cistern, a garden, a lodge, a field, a haven, a sun, a moon, a star, a door, a window, a light, a lamp, a luminary, a morning, a noon, an evening, an hour-glass, a dayman, a servant, a handmaid!

"It is meat, food, drink, raiment, shelter, warmth, heat, a feast, fruit, apples, pictures, wine, milk, honey, bread, butter, oil, refreshment, rest, strength, stability, wisdom, life, eyes, hands, feet, breath; it is a help to hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, understanding, forgiving, loving, hoping, enjoying, adoring, and saving; it teaches salvation, justification, sanctification, redemption and glorification; it declares condemnation, destruction and desolation; it tells us what we were, are, and shall be; begins with the beginning, carries us through the intermediate and ends only with the end; it is past, present, and to come; it discourses the first great cause of all effects, and the effects of all causes; it speaks of life, death, and judgment, body, soul, and spirit, heaven, earth, and hell; it makes use of all nature as figures, to sum up the value of the gospel; and declares itself to be the word of God. And your friend and brother believes it.
"William Miller.”

But he had to suffer for this change of faith. His former associates were indignant at it. They termed it an audacity for him to be preaching to others that he had denied as a fallacy in the past. Other friends, remembering his scathing ridicule of themselves and their faith in former days, could not resist casting his own taunts back into his face.

From this he suffered keenly, and at times he felt his courage sorely tried. Like many who indulge in casting ridicule upon the religious faith of others, he felt the sting of it to be almost beyond endurance when he found it turned upon himself. But he was too deeply in earnest to be led into swerving away from the path he was now following, and he continued to plod from place to place, carrying his message and sounding his warning.

The Baptist Church had by this time accorded him a license to preach and in a letter to Brother Hendryx dated February 23, 1834, he refers to this:

"You have undoubtedly heard that I have been trying to preach (as some call it) about in this vicinity (Low Hampton). I have been laboring, it is true, in my weak manner, in Dresden two or three months…. You laugh, Bro. Hendryx, to think old Bro. Miller is preaching! But laugh on: You are not the only one that laughs; and it is all right. I deserve it. If I could preach the truth, it is all I could ask."

In reply to a letter addressed to him as Reverend he again writes to Brother Hendryx:

“Dear Bro. Hendryx: "I wish you would look into your Bible and see if you can find the word Rev. applied to a sinful mortal like myself, and govern yourself accordingly…. Let us be determined to live and die on the Bible. God is about to arise and punish the inhabitants of the world. The proud, the high, the lofty must be brought low; and the humble, the meek, and the contrite be exalted. Then, what care I for what the world calls great and honorable? Give me Jesus, and a knowledge of his word, faith in his name, hope in his grace, interest in his love, and let me be clothed in his righteousness, and the world may enjoy all the high-sounding titles, the riches it can boast, the vanities it is heir to, and all the pleasures of sin; and they will be no more than a drop in the ocean."

Again he writes:

"After haying and harvesting are over, I shall go forth again. If I am correct, how important is time! Nine years will pass soon; and then, dear brother, you and I must render our account before the solemn bar of our omnipotent Judge."

Evidently Brother Hendryx, while agreeing with his friend's views on many points did not wholly subscribe to his belief in the coming destruction of the world, and this was a source of great trouble to William Miller; in fact this attitude of neutrality on his part and on the part of many others of the clergy regarding the subject was one that tried his patience exceedingly.

“The evidence is so clear," he writes to him on October 28, 1834, "the testimony is so strong that we live on the eve of the present dispensation, towards the dawn of the Glorious Day, that I wonder why ministers and people do not wake up and trim their lamps. Yes, my brother, almost two years since you heard the news, 'Behold the bridegroom cometh!' - and yet you cry, 'A little more sleep, a little more slumber.' Blame not your people if they go to sleep under your preaching. You have done the same. Bear with me, my brother. In every letter you have written me you have promised to study this all-important subject, and in every letter you confess your negligence. The day draws near. More than one sixth of the time is gone since my Brother Hendryx promised, and is yet asleep! Oh, God, forgive him! Are you waiting for all the world to wake up, before you get up? 'Where has your courage fled?' Awake! Awake! O Sluggard! Defend your own castle, or take sides with the word of God; destroy, or build. You must not, you cannot, you shall not be neutral. Awake! Awake! Tell Deacon Smith to help wake you. - Tell him, for me, to shake you, and not give up shaking until Bro. H. will put on the whole armor of light.... In every church where I have lectured on this important subject, many, very many, seem to awaken, rub open their eyes, and then fall asleep again. But the enemy is waking up. In one town (North Beekmantown) I received a letter the day after my first lecture from bullies and blackguards, 'that if I did not clear out of the State they would put me where the dogs could never find me!' - The letter was signed by ten of them. I stayed and, blessed be God! He poured out his spirit, and began a work which gainsayers could not resist.

"Some ministers try to persuade their people not to hear me; but the people will go, and every additional lecture will bring an additional multitude, until their Meeting Houses cannot hold them. Depend upon it, my brother - God is in this thing!"

As William Miller said, some of the clergy took a definite stand and tried to prevent their flocks from listening to him, but there were others who took a different attitude toward him, though they, like Brother Hendryx, remained indifferent to his prophecy that the world was soon coming to an end.

Before this time a sort of spiritual lethargy had been prevalent in some of the churches, and the preacher standing in the pulpit wilted under the discouraging display of nodding heads in full view every Sabbath morning while he discoursed upon some mooted point in theology. It did not add to his inspiration to see the sexton go up and down the aisles, as was the habit of those days, flicking the noses of snoring old gentlemen, and stout heavy-breathing elderly ladies, with a weapon resembling a feather duster, as a means of awakening them. Their bewildered expressions on being aroused did not tend toward kindling oratorical fervor on the part of the preacher!

Many of the clergy, especially among the Baptists, Methodists, and Congregationalists, contended that any harm which might come from the alarm excited by his prophecy was greatly outweighed by his power to arouse even the oldest down to the youngest in their congregations into a whirl of religious enthusiasm. When they witnessed those habitual Sabbath morning sleepers jump to their feet shouting, "Glory! Glory!” or else melting into tears under the influence of Prophet Miller's exhortations, they felt themselves justified in giving him their support.

One of the compelling factors in this drawing power which William Miller unquestionably possessed was his variety of moods. Sometimes he would give out the impression of a typical farmer using quaint phraseology, and revealing a certain amount of real old Yankee shrewdness; at other times he appeared as a somber and serious man, demonstrating his undisputed knowledge of the letter of Scripture, by quoting with accurate memory front even the most obscure passages; at other times he would burst into a flood of dramatic and often poetical prose as if possessed by a fever of enthusiasm and religious ecstasy; and then again his listeners would sit for hours intent upon his explanation of those intricate calculations that brought out the startling deduction that some time between 1843 and 1844 the world would be destroyed by fire.

This natural and unstudied manner of speaking out his thoughts as they came to him, without hesitation and according to his mood, instilled pulsating life into the long explanatory lectures he was now being called upon to deliver day after day, almost without cessation.

The following February (1835) he wrote again to Brother Hendryx:

"The Lord opens doors faster than I can fill them. Tomorrow I have an appointment at Whiting which will occupy a week. The next week I shall be in Shoreham; the last week in this month at Bridgeport; the first week in March in Middletown, the second in Hoosac. I have calls from Schroon, Ticonderoga, Moriah, Essex, Chazy, Champlain, Plattsburg, Peru, Mooretown, Canton, Pottsdam, Hopkinton, Stockholm, Parishville, and other places too numerous to mention."

The result of these lectures was a formal announcement made by a large number of Baptist clergymen to this effect:

"This may certify, to whom it may concern, that we whose names are hereunto affixed - being ministers in the denomination of regular Baptists - are personally acquainted with Bro. William Miller, the bearer of this certificate; that he is a member, and licentiate in good regular standing, in the particular Baptist Church, in Hampton, N.Y.; that we have heard him lecture on the subject of the Second Coming and Reign of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that we believe his views on that particular subject, as well as others pertaining to the Gospel, are worthy to be known and read of all men. . . .
[Signed] "J. SAWYER, Jr., South Reading
"E. HALPING, Hampton
"AMOS STEARNS, Fort Ann
"EMERSON ANDREWS, Lansingburgh."

Below this is written: "Having heard the above-mentioned lectures, I see no way to avoid the conclusion that the coming of Christ will be as soon as 1843." And to this is affixed a list of thirty-eight names of men from New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

His public lectures during the winter of 1835 were interrupted by his preparation of sixteen lectures which were published the following spring in Troy, New York, by Elder Wescott, with the arrangement that the copies held by William Miller should be purchased by him at the market price. The desire to reach broader fields and to spread his doctrine among all classes was so great that when the proposition was made to him, he accepted it eagerly. The public accused him of trying to reap a fortune from his publication being ignorant of the terms made concerning it.

The following summer his friend Brother Hendryx received another letter from him dated July 21st.

"I have been confined at home for three weeks past by a bilious complaint," he writes.

"I was taken unwell while lecturing at Lansingburg, N.Y., but I finished my course of lectures and returned home, and have not been well since. My lectures were well received in that place and excited attention. The house was filled to overflowing for eight days in succession. I feel that God was there, and believe that, in His glorified kingdom I shall see the fruits.... Infidels, deists, Universalists, and sectarians were all chained to their seats in perfect silence for hours - yes, days - to hear the old stammering man talk about the Second Coming of Christ, and show the manner, object, time, and signs of His Coming."

That a distinct uneasiness and apprehension regarding the prediction of the approach of the Second Advent troubled the public mind was strikingly apparent from the fact that while Prophet Miller was lecturing to great crowds in the smaller towns and rural districts upon his interpretation of the prophecies, Harriet Livermore, who viewed the manner and object of the coming of our Saviour from a totally different standpoint, was preaching in the Hall of Congress in Washington before President Madison and many of his Cabinet, and a vast concourse of people. Moreover, a new prophet had arisen in England, a Captain Saunders, of Liverpool, who was predicting the Second Advent would occur in 1847, agreeing with Joseph Wolff, who was awaiting it in Jerusalem. From this time on Prophet Miller labored incessantly, delivering as many as eighty-two lectures in the fall of 1836. People were now beginning publicly to acknowledge themselves as his followers, and an incident of this sort happened when he visited Shaftsbury, Vermont, on January 1837, where he gave his full course of sixteen lectures.

"At the close of one, lecture a Baptist clergyman arose and stated that he had come there for the purpose of exposing the folly of Mr. M., but he had to confess that he was confounded, convicted, and converted. He acknowledged that he had applied various unhandsome appellations to Mr. Miller, calling him 'the end of the world man' - 'the old visionary' - 'dreamer' - 'fanatic,' and for which he felt covered with shame and confusion. That confession, evidently so honest, was like a thunderbolt on the audience." [Sylvester Bliss, Life of William Miller.]

No sooner did he lecture in one town or village now than all the neighboring towns and villages wished to hear him, and space does not admit of the long list of places covering a wide territory where he gave forth his solemn warning to the bewildered inhabitants.

He had little time for farming in these days - all his strength was given to what he considered to be his mission.

His family now consisted of a wife and ten children - seven sons and three daughters; some of them grown up by this time and able to care for the farm. Little reference is made to them in his biography, but he frequently wrote to his eldest son and one of his letters written to him from Montpelier, Vermont, shows on November 17, 1838, how the agitation produced by the nature of his prophecy was taking hold of the imagination of the public.

"There was great excitement on the subject in this place," he states. "Last night we had a solemn and interesting meeting. There was a great breaking down and much weeping. Some souls have been born again. I can hardly get away from these people. They want me to stay another week. . . . Montpelier is quite a considerable village, and contains some very intelligent people who appear to listen with much interest. This afternoon I meet the citizens, and am to give them an opportunity to ask questions and state objections. ...May God help me to give His truth! I know my own weakness, and I know that I have neither body nor mind to do what the Lord is doing by me. It is the Lord's doings and marvelous in our eyes. The world does not know how weak I am. They think much more of the old man than I think of him."

Again he writes to him in January, 1839:

"There has been a reformation in every place I have lectured in since I left home and the work is progressing in every place rapidly. The meeting-houses are crowded to overflowing. Much excitement prevails amongst the people. Many say they believe; some scoff; others are sober and thinking."

There is a quaint description of William Miller as he appeared at this period which is worth mentioning. Elder T. Cole, pastor of the Baptist Church at Lowell, had been hearing of the great revivals that resulted from Prophet Miller's lectures as he traveled through the State of Vermont, and he, as well as the people of Lowell, was exceedingly curious to see him, and to find out what he had to say on the subject of his prophecy. Accordingly he wrote a letter to him urging him to come to Massachusetts and to stop at Lowell and explain his doctrine from the pulpit of the Baptist Church. Evidently Elder Cole had formed a very definite picture of him in his mind and looked forward to seeing a commanding figure, such as could sway the emotions of a crowd through the force of his personality. Now William Miller was in reality a perfectly simple and unpretentious sort of man, in many ways very ingenuous, and probably never gave as much as a thought to his personal appearance. He was very plain and ordinary in his dress, being attired more as a farmer would be than as a preacher. Elder Cole seems to have expected him to look "like some distinguished doctor of divinity," according to Miller's biographer, and though he had heard that he always wore a camlet cloak and a shaggy white beaver hat, he apparently assumed they would be made according to the fashion of the times.

When the day came for him to arrive at Lowell, the Elder went to the station to meet him. He carefully inspected each person that alighted from the train, but he saw no one that answered to his mental picture of Prophet Miller. Soon he saw an old man, shaking with palsy, with a white hat and camlet cloak alight from the cars. Fearing that this might prove to be the man, and, if so, regretting that he had invited him to lecture in his church, he stepped up and whispered in his ear, "Is your name Miller?" Mr. M. nodded in assent. "Well,” said Elder Cole very much disturbed "follow me.”

"He led the way, walking ahead, and Mr. M. keeping as near as he could till he reached his house. He was much chagrined that he had written for a man of Mr. M.’s appearance, who, he concluded, could know nothing respecting the Bible, but would confine his discourse to visions and fancies of his own. After tea he told Mr. M. he supposed it was about time to attend church, and again led the way, Mr. M. bringing up the rear. When they entered the church he showed him to the desk and he himself sat with the congregation. “Fifteen minutes after the text had been given out, Elder Cole was wholly disarmed. On that occasion William Miller spoke quietly and impressively, and the arguments he put forth seemed so convincing that he was urged to stay and lecture at greater length to the people. This ended in 'a glorious revival' and Elder Cole embraced his views in full, continuing for six years a devoted advocate of them." [Sylvester Bliss, Life of William Miller.]

From Lowell he went to Groton and from there to Lynn, and a memorandum in his diary states that from October 1, 1834, to June 9, 1839, he delivered eight hundred lectures.

The editor of the "Lynn Record" wrote an article which appeared in that paper immediately after William Miller had lectured in that place. It was named "Miller and his Prophecies,” and it also gives a description of him which is interesting. It reads as follows:

"We took a prejudice against the good man when he first came among us, on account of what we supposed a glaring error in interpreting the Scripture prophecies so that the world would come to an end in 1843. We are still inclined to believe this an error or miscalculation. At the same time we have overcome our prejudice against him by attending his lectures, and learning more of the excellent character of this man, and of the great good he has done, and is doing. Mr. Miller is a plain farmer, and pretends to nothing except that he has made the Scripture prophecies an intense study for many years, understands some of these differently from most people, and wishes for the good of others to spread his views before the public. No one can hear him five minutes without being convinced of his sincerity, and instructed by his reasoning and information. All acknowledge his lectures to be replete with useful and interesting matter. His knowledge of the Scriptures is very extensive and minute - that of the prophecies especially, surprisingly familiar. We have reason to believe that the preaching or lecturing of Mr. Miller has been productive of great and extensive good. Revivals have been following in his train. He has been heard with attention wherever he has been.

“There is nothing very peculiar in the manner and appearance of Mr. Miller. His gestures are easy and expressive, and his personal appearance every way decorous. His Scripture explanations and illustrations are strikingly simple, natural, and forcible, and the great eagerness of the people to hear him has been manifest wherever he has preached."

Evidently the editor of the "Lynn Record" felt differently from Elder Cole in regard to the camlet cloak and white beaver hat! But the personal appearance of William Miller, rough and old-fashioned or otherwise, seems to have made no difference, for wherever he went the crowd gathered to listen to him. He wrote to his son after lecturing at Stoughton and then going on to Canton to this effect: "Lectured three times on the last day to a house jammed full!" - and so it was at one place after another.

Then came a change - Prophet Miller was no longer to be a roaming country preacher. Destiny had something else in store for him. He was suddenly to find himself facing the sophisticated crowds of big cities - to be challenged by the pulpit and press regarding his belief, to be surrounded by followers and detractors, friends and enemies, believers and scoffers.

This great change began the twelfth day of November, 1840, when he chanced to meet the Reverend Joshua V. Himes, a man of indomitable energy, who took Prophet Miller out from the simple, peaceful, rural districts and placed him in the lime-light of city thoroughfares, there to sound his note of warning above the din of countless noises and the clamor of innumerable voices.

It will be seen how this change was like sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind as regards the simple-minded old prophet, who was fast aging under the stress of the situation he had created, and that now threatened to overwhelm him.

It happened this way: The Reverend Joshua V. Himes was pastor of the Chardon Street Baptist Chapel in Boston. It had been said that he had been a Unitarian minister before he became a Baptist. However that may be, he was a very complex character, and whether it was a fortunate or unfortunate day for William Miller when the two met is hard to say. But at least it may be said that it was fortunate for succeeding generations – for had it not been for the influence he exerted over him and the publicity he gave him and his prophecy, William Miller in all probability would have remained in the rural districts; the big centres of activity would have known him only by rumor, and one of the strangest episodes in the religious history of our country would have passed by more or less unnoticed and unrecorded.

It was on this day, November 12, 1840, that Mr. Himes invited William Miller to come to Boston and lecture in the Chardon Street Chapel, and the invitation was accepted.

From the 8th to the 16th of December, Miller lectured there for the first time – Mr. Himes taking care to advertise his coming very freely. It was a good deal of a tax upon the farmer- prophet’s self-possession to face the critical audiences that now sat in front of him. Throughout the country districts he had looked down from the lecture platform at faces upon which were engraved wonder, fear, and credulity; but now, as he watched the expressions of those before him, he realized that all his powers of imagery, persuasion, and lucid explanation must be brought to bear upon hostile sentiments which he was fully aware were percolating through the city people who were now his listeners.

On December 12th he wrote to his son: “I am now in this place lecturing twice a day to large audiences – many, very many, go away unable to gain admittance. Many, I am informed, are under serious convictions. I hope God will work in this city.”

Mr. Himes had invited Mr. Miller to stay at his house while delivering these lectures, and he was one of his most eager listeners. It gave him an opportunity to hold many intimate conversations alone with this man who believed with such certainty that the Day of Doom was at hand, and though of a quiet and sedate exterior, Mr. Himes nursed within his breast a love of emotional crowds and religious excitement – of revivals and camp-meetings full of exhilarating shouts of “Glory! Glory!” interspersed with frequent “Hallelujahs!” He was not one to thrive on monotony in any sense of the word. Action and authority and stirring up the public were as breath to his nostrils. A belief in eternal damnation and hell fires, and in the wrath of an avenging Creator, appealed to him. He always longed to see the “sinner’s bench” and the “anxious sets” full to overflowing, but he wanted the reins of control to be in his own hands.

When he heard William Miller’s lectures. They filled for him a long-felt want; he was profoundly impressed by them, and at once accepted many of his interpretations of the Scriptural prophecies as correct, though in the depths of his mind he was not wholly convinced that the world would be destroyed in 1843. But that made no difference – he saw a great opportunity to stir sluggard Christians into a ferment of religious enthusiasm – he believed in awaking fear in the hearts of sinners, and thus bringing them to repentance. He believed also that the end justified the means, and undoubtedly believed himself to be in the right when he fanned the flames of hysterical agitation which William Miller’s prophecy had ignited, and spread his doctrine far and wide. He was undoubtedly under the spell of the times, but in character he was a strange mixture of calculation and emotion – of astuteness and lack of foresight. He followed the injunction to let the future take care of itself too literally.

“When Mr. Miller had closed his lectures,” he wrote, “I found myself in a new position. I could not believe or preach as I had done. Light on this subject was blazing on my conscience night and day. A long conversation with Mr. Miller then took place on our duties and responsibilities.” Then came the following conversation:

“I said to Brother Miller, ‘Do you really believe this doctrine?’
“He replied, ‘Certainly I do, or I would not preach it.’
“’What are you doing to spread or diffuse it through the world?’
“’I have done and am still doing all I can.’
“’Well, the whole thing is kept in a corner yet. There is but little knowledge on the subject, after all you have done. If Christ is to come in a few years, as you believe, no time should be lost in giving the church and world warning in thunder-tones, to arouse to prepare.’
“’I know, I know it, Brother Himes,’ he said, ‘but what can an old farmer do? I was never used to public speaking; I stand alone, and though I have labored much, and seen many converted to God and the truth, yet no one as yet seems to enter into the object and spirit of my mission, so as to render me much aid. They like to have me preach and build up their churches; and there it ends with most of the ministers as yet. I have been looking for help – I want help.’
“It was at this time I laid myself, family, society, reputation, all, upon the alter of God to help him to the extent of my power, to the end. I then inquired of him what parts of the country he had visited, and whether he had visited any of our principal cities.
“He informed me of his labors, etc. ‘But why,’ I said, ‘have you not been into the large cities?’
“He replied that his rule was to visit those places where invited, and that he had not been invited into any of the large cities.
“’Well,’ I said, ‘will you go with me where doors are opened?’
“’Yes – I am ready to go anywhere, and labor to the extent of my ability to the end.’
“Then I told him he might prepare for the campaign; for doors should be opened in every city in the Union, and the warning should go to the ends of the earth.
“Here I began to help Father Miller.”

This was the starting-point of the new era in William Miller’s career as a prophet and a preacher. Imbued with fresh enthusiasm, he infused into his lectures a more compelling appeal than ever before to those rudderless souls that become magnetized under the spell of a powerfully directed delusion. As a demonstration of this, after a course of lectures which he delivered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in January, 1840, the Baptist minister, Elder David Millard, wrote in the "Christian Herald" regarding it: " During the nine days he remained, crowds flocked to hear him. Such an intense feeling as now pervaded our congregation we never witnessed before in any place. Such an awful spirit of solemnity seemed to settle down on the place that hard must be the sinner's heart that could withstand it. Yet, during the whole, not an appearance of confusion occurred; all was order and solemnity. Generally as souls found deliverance they were ready to proclaim it, and exhort their friends in moving language to come to the fountain of Life. Probably about one hundred and fifty souls have been converted in our meetings, ... the blessed work soon spread into every congregation in town favorable to revivals. It would be difficult at present to ascertain the exact number of conversions in town - probably from five to seven hundred. For weeks together the ringing of bells for daily meetings rendered our town like a continual Sabbath. Indeed, such a season of revival was never witnessed before in Portsmouth by the oldest inhabitant. Never while we linger on the shores of mortality do we expect to enjoy more of heaven than we have in some of our late meetings and our baptism occasions. At the waterside thousands would gather to witness this solemn institution in Zion, and many would return from the place weeping." [Sylvester Bliss, Life of William Miller.]

The news of the revival at Portsmouth spread like wildfire and set all the towns agog. The Baptist churches were especially insistent that Prophet Miller should favor them by arousing their dormant congregations, but other denominations invited him also, and calls came to him from every direction. The little hill-town of Westford, near Groton, Massachusetts, secured him next, but there he was destined to receive a severe rebuff. Those who had invited him to come planned to have the lectures given in the Congregational Church, that being able to seat more persons than any other place available, but when the time came the minister refused to allow the church to be used for that purpose, which caused a tremendous excitement in the place and much protest, but he held his ground and the lectures were delivered elsewhere. This was the first rebuff of the kind that was given to Mil