Weeping Until Dawn: October 22, 1844 the Great Disappointment of William Miller and America's First End Time Prophecy

 Rural New York farmer and part-time Baptist preacher William Miller announced in October of 1831 that the end of the world was near.

And he gave a specific date for when the world would end with the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This Second Advent, as he termed it, would occur on October 22, 1844.

Miller based his claims, so he asserted, on careful study of the Bible, specifically the Old Testament.  He used one passage in particular Daniel 8:14, “And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” KJV

In Miller’s Biblical interpretation the “sanctuary” represented the planet earth, while the number 2,300 referenced in the Book of Daniel as days was meant to symbolically represent years instead.

As justification for this personal interpretation of scripture Miller pointed to two passages from the Old Testament, Ezekiel 4:6 which states, “And when thou hast accomplished them lie again on thy right side and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the House of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.” KJV  and to Numbers 14:34 which reads, “After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.”  KJV

Miller, who himself asserted that, “All scripture is necessary and no part should be bypassed,” believed that these two Old Testament passages were clear and irrefutable proof that God, when referring to days in the Bible, had  clearly meant to say years instead.

Finally, he tied everything together by referencing 2 Peter 3:7 in the New Testament: “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” KJV

Needless to say, Miller was able to prove all of this with a detailed mathematical interpretation of world history that enabled him to predict that the Second Advent, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the end of the world, would occur on October 22, 1844.

Miller’s predictions came at a time when America was experiencing something called the Second Great Awakening.  The Second Great Awakening was a time when 19th century America turned back to the Puritanical, evangelical and Bible based beliefs upon which the New England colonies had originally been founded nearly two-hundred years before in the 17th century.

The Second Great Awakening was a period in American history filled with traveling preachers, spiritual revivals, and new grassroots Christian movements.  It was also a time when many Christian theologians began to attempt to interpret and understand the nature of Biblical prophecy.

However, when William Miller made his announcement in 1831 that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844 it was somewhat revolutionary even for the times of the Second Great Awakening.

No one, at least not recently in the United States, had ever predicted with such certainty and conviction the second coming of Christ as had William Miller.

At the time, in the 1830’s and 1840’s tens of thousands of fervent believers left their more established churches to follow William Miller and await his predicted end of the world on October 22, 1844.  It was said that by the year 1844, Miller and his apocalyptic movement, had as many as 100,000 followers scattered all across the United States with the majority of believers concentrated in the mid-Atlantic and northeast states.

It didn’t take long for the 19th century press to somewhat derisively label them as “Millerites”.

Broadside newspaper from 1844

At dawn October 22, 1844 the prophesied date of Christ’s return had arrived.  Tens of thousands of Millerites gathered in fields, on hillsides and in town squares across the nation to await Jesus’ return.

Many wore white robes, so-called “ascension robes” signs of purity and belief, as they awaited the Lord’s return.

They waited, mostly in silent prayer, until the sun went down.  As it grew dark, the crowds grew restless and some began to mutter aloud.  As midnight approached, a few out of sheer disappointment, simply walked away.  Finally, it was midnight October 23, 1844 and Christ had not returned.

The press and public, who had so derisively called the some hundred thousand adherents to William Miller’s prophecy “Millerites” wasted no time in dubbing October 22, 1844 as “The Great Disappointment.”

One Millerite was quoted as saying in a book by historian of religion Paul Boyer called Time Shall Be No More that, “Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted…and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before.” (Boyer 81)

Another simply said, “We wept, and wept, and wept till the day dawned.”

After the Great Disappointment, Millerite Henry Emmons wrote in his journal, “I waited all Tuesday (October 22) and dear Jesus did not come…after 12 o’clock I began to feel faint and needed someone to help me up to my chamber.  I lay prostrate for two days, not with any pain, but sick with disappointment.”

Millerites awaiting the end of the world October 22, 1844

Backlash and ridicule from the general public towards the Millerites was, tragically, swift, cruel and even sometimes violent.

A Millerite church in Ithaca, New York, near the home of William Miller himself was burned to the ground on the day after The Great Disappointment.

Dozens of Millerite churches across the country were wantonly vandalized and in Illinois a mob of enraged Christians attacked a Millerite congregation with knives and clubs injuring dozens as they prayed.

Everywhere they went Millerites were jeeringly taunted with sneers of, “So, have you not gone up yet?”  And some even mockingly went about the streets in white robes in the days and weeks after the Great Disappointment to taunt disillusioned Millerites.

In the end most Millerites were able to overcome their disappointment and simply return to the more traditional churches from which they had come.  A few still clung to Miller’s prophecy and simply stated, in one way or another, that his interpretations had been largely correct but merely off as to dates and timing.  In fact, modern Seventh Day Adventists, in many ways trace their beliefs and doctrines back to the movement first begun by William Miller back in the 1830’s.

Psychologists and religious scholars today point to The Great Disappointment of 1844 as a shining example of the psychological, and sometimes societal phenomenon, of cognitive dissonance.

Roughly speaking, cognitive dissonance is the belief in, or perception of, contradictory information and the consequent mental and psychological toll that it takes on a person.  In essence, it is believed by psychologists that individuals strive for internal mental consistency in their beliefs and ideas, but that when a person is exposed to too many new or contradictory ideas, they will very often reduce their belief systems to a state of cognitive dissonance.

This theory of cognitive dissonance in relation to the Millerites goes that coming as it did at a time of spiritual ferment in the United States during the Second Great Awakening, when society was on the cusp of the industrial revolution and modernization, many devout Christians easily latched onto the prophetic predictions of William Miller and fell into a state of cognitive dissonance.  They easily believed in the imminent second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ despite the fact that aside from Miller’s own prediction there was no other real scriptural or outside proof to justify their beliefs. 

In American Christianity there exists, to this day, a deep prophetic streak with many still attempting to use Biblical interpretation as a means to predict the exact date and even time when the Lord Jesus will return to bring His believers to rapture.  Probably, the most famous recent example of this are the false prophecies of evangelist and Christian radio personality Harold Camping who fervently claimed that through his own close study and interpretation of the Bible that the end times would come in 2012.

Harold Camping

For his own part, Baptist preacher William Miller, would change his own Biblical interpretation and prophecy time and time again.  He would die at the age of sixty-seven in 1849 at his home in Low Hampton, New York, still convinced that the end of the world was imminent.  Today, Miller’s home is a National Historic Landmark and the site of a museum dedicated to the history of the Millerite movement.

It seems as if many would do well to take heed and listen to the words of Saint Paul who said in scripture of the Lord’s return, “But of the times and the seasons, brethren ye have no need that I write unto you.  For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 KJV)