New England's Dark Day - Religious Interpretations

Religious Interpretations

Since communications technology of the day was primitive, most people found the darkness to be baffling and inexplicable. Many applied religious interpretations to the event.

In Connecticut, a member of the legislature, Abraham Davenport, became most famous for his response to his colleagues' fears that it was the Day of Judgment:

Davenport's courage was commemorated in the poem "Abraham Davenport" by John Greenleaf Whittier.

Today, some Christians, especially those among Seventh-day Adventists citing extracts of Biblically sequential events, "... the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky..." (Matthew 24:29 (WEB) are signs preceding the return of Christ) and interpretations of the event as cited by Ellen G. White, believe that the Dark Day was a fulfillment of Biblical and end-times prophecy. Also see Revelation 6:12–13 "... and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind." One prominent Seventh-Day Adventist, Arthur Maxwell, even mentions this event in his The Bible Story series (Vol. 10). Some Progressive Adventist scholars do not interpret this as a sign of Jesus' soon return. Traditional Historic and Conservative Adventists, who hold Ellen White's writings in higher regard, still consider this date as one of the fulfillments of biblical prophecy.