A Warning in Thunder Tones: Portents of Doomsday

William Miller

Since 1947 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has kept track of a Doomsday Clock, which measures our distance from world-ending catastrophe. Originally the source of the apocalypse was nuclear war. Lately climate disaster has been added. Over the years, the clock has varied from a quarter hour to only a few minutes before midnight. Today, we face “unprecedented danger.” We’re an alarming ninety seconds shy of the end.

The first great promoter of the end of the world in modern times was a mild-mannered farmer from upstate New York named William Miller. Something of a spiritual seeker, Miller pondered questions like: “Eternity, what was it? And death, why was it?”

He sought the answer in a fevered, two-years study of the Bible. In the process, he began to see meaning in the numbers mentioned in the holy book. Days meant years. Multiply 49 times 50 to get 2450. Josiah's reign ended in 607 B.C. “Take 607 from 2450,” Miller instructed, “it leaves A. D. 1843; when the Jubilee of Jubilees will come.” He made this discovery in 1818. Mankind had twenty-five years before the end—the doomsday clock was ticking.

Miller’s calculations

The blood-dimmed tide that was approaching promised both glory and tribulation. Christ would return on high; the natural world would come to an end. Those who were saved would fly up to meet the Lord. The rest would endure the destruction of the Earth by fire—a prelude to their eternal confinement in hell. Miller told a few close friends and some ministers about his remarkable discovery. “To my astonishment,” he said. “ I found very few who listened with any interest.”

During the 1830s, his sense of urgency grew. The end was barely a dozen years away. He heeded an inner voice that whispered to him: “Go and tell it to the world!” He began to preach the apocalypse.

At first his efforts attracted few followers. Then Miller met a thirty-four-year-old preacher named Joshua Himes, who was consumed by the truth of Miller’s reasoning. “No time should be lost,” Himes said, “in giving the church and the world warning, in thunder tones.”

Himes, a master of publicity, recruited prominent preachers to help spread the word. He organized conferences where followers — now called Adventists — could share experiences. Every unusual event — a comet, a flood — was a portent of doom.

The relatively new Erie Canal provided a convenient means of travel. Miller acquired a circus tent as large as a five-story building and took his show to Rochester and Buffalo. Time was growing short. Thousands, then tens of thousands of anxious believers embraced Miller’s message.

Miller had begun by saying the curtain would fall “about 1843.” That year passed — the world continued. Rather than admit error, Miller and Himes declared 1844 to be a “tarrying time.” God was giving those who had yet to repent one last chance. Finally, Adventists settled on October 22, 1844, as the day of reckoning. Naming a specific day sent believers into a frenzy of anxiety and anticipation.

End-time fever became epidemic. Writing to friends, Adventists said their final goodbyes. Some gave away their property and left crops unharvested. A shop owner walked away, leaving a note for customers to help themselves. While thousands heeded the “midnight call,” thousands more ridiculed and harassed the devotees they saw as dangerous fanatics.

The sun went down — for the last time, the Millerites thought — on October 22. The faithful met together to pray and wait. On that last evening, some dressed in “ascension robes” in which they planned to fly up to meet the Lord. Midnight passed. Morning came. The sun rose again.

“Still in the cold world!” a Millerite lecturer sighed after what was called the Great Disappointment. Miller had run out of predictions and excuses. Scoffers now turned on Adventists with a vengeance. In Rochester, in the upstate towns where the millennial fire had burned so bright, mobs wrecked and burned Adventist meeting places, threw stones at the discouraged believers.

William Miller died forgotten five years later. A teenage Millerite from Maine named Ellen White continued to preach a version the Adventist beliefs. In 1863, her followers formed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The sect has kept Miller’s legacy alive, and today claims 21 million members.

In the years since 1844, countless others have predicted the end of the world. All have been wrong — so far . . .

On Wednesday, July 10, I will be giving a virtual talk about Miller and some even stranger events along the Erie Canal corridor. You can sign up for it at the Erie Canal Museum HERE.

Check out my book, Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold & Murder on the Erie Canal HERE.