Great Disappointment - William Miller

William Miller

Between 1831 and 1844, on the basis of his study of the Bible, and particularly the prophecy of Daniel 8:14—"Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed"—William Miller, a Baptist preacher, predicted and preached the imminent return of Jesus Christ to the earth. He first assumed that the "cleansing of the sanctuary" represented purification of the earth by fire at Christ's Second Coming. Then, using an interpretive principle known as the day-year principle, Miller, along with others, interpreted a prophetic "day" to read not as a 24-hour period, but rather as a calendar year. Further, Miller became convinced that the 2,300-day period started in 457 B.C. with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes I of Persia. Simple calculation then revealed that this period would end—and hence Christ's return occur—in 1843.

Despite the urging of his supporters, Miller never personally announced an exact date for the expected Second Advent. However, in response to their urgings, he did narrow the time period to sometime in the Jewish year 5604, stating: "My principles in brief, are, that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same, with all the saints, sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844." March 21, 1844 passed without incident, but the majority of Millerites maintained their faith.

Further discussion and study resulted in the brief adoption of a new date—April 18, 1844—one based on the Karaite Jewish calendar (as opposed to the Rabbinic calendar). Like the previous date, April 18 passed without Christ's return. In the Advent Herald of April 24, Joshua Himes wrote that all the "expected and published time" had passed and admitted that they had been "mistaken in the precise time of the termination of the prophetic period", while Josiah Litch surmised that they were probably "only in error relative to the event which marked its close." Miller also responded publicly, addressing a letter "To Second Advent Believers" and writing, "I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment; yet I still believe that the day of the Lord is near, even at the door."

In August 1844 at a camp meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire, Samuel S. Snow presented his own interpretation, which became known as the "seventh-month message" or the "true midnight cry". In a complex discussion based on scriptural typology, Snow presented his conclusion (still based on the 2300-day prophecy in Daniel 8:14) that Christ would return on "the tenth day of the seventh month of the present year, 1844." Again using the calendar of the Karaite Jews, this date was determined to be October 22, 1844. This "seventh-month message" "spread with a rapidity unparalleled in the Millerites experience" amongst the general population.