Untitled article by Wardle

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 29, 1867

Historical Department.

By Wardle

Prophecy is History in Advance.

A DARK DAY IN FRANCE.

ONE of the most striking events which have occurred in modern times, indicating the near approach of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, was the darkening of the sun over this continent, May 19th, 1780, with its following night of darkness, which has been demonstrated to have been entirely supernatural, or in other words, the sun became as dark as the shades of night, although the morning was clear and bright; and the night became as Egyptian darkness, by an act of the Divine Hand, as the moon was at the full, and therefore the darkness could not have been produced by an eclipse. God put his hand over the face of the sun, obscuring the light of day, and caused the moon to remain in darkness.

This event, we, as believers in the immediate coming of Christ, have taken to be one of the strongest signs given by the Lord, in answer to the question, “What shall be the sign of thy coming?” finding what we have thought to be its fulfillment recorded upon the pages of history, its darkness claiming the attention of the Legislature of Connecticut, and with the words of Colonel Davenport, of Stamford, attached, when the darkness impressed that body that the day of judgment was at hand, he like a wise man, “wished to be found in the way of his duty,”—so said President Dwight, in the Connecticut Historical Collections.

With a very limited exception, we, as Adventists, have taken the above event to be one of the foundation-stones of our hope of soon seeing our Redeemer in glory, and how sad have been our hearts, when we have heard and seen this position assailed, we fear not with the holiest of motives; but let this be as it may, it has done its work, it has shaken the faith of some, and like “hope deferred,” made many hearts sad.

It is true some have Origenized this sign, and by spiritualizing a literal answer to a literal question, have made of the sign,—“darkening of the sun,”—a moral, not a physical event. This seems to us a strange thing indeed, when we read the word, and witness with what care and nice precision Jesus measures out the answers to the questions: “When shall these things be?”—the destruction of the City and Temple,—“What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world,”—or age, for doubtless the disciples, into whose minds the Holy Ghost had put these questions, thought that when the City and Temple of Jewish worship were destroyed, the end of the age would come.

We are met, then, on the question of this literal sign, by two classes of objectors to the use we make of it: the one spiritualizes it, as we think, into nothingness; and the other says, it has not taken place, because that which we take for the fulfillment of the sign, was done in a corner, quite outside the field of prophetic territory, and therefore cannot be what Jesus meant in the declaration, “the sun shall be darkened,”—in other words God was not at liberty to hang the sign of Jesus’ Coming again, where in his wisdom it pleased him. Even if he did impress the minds of the inhabitants, that the day of judgment was near at hand, “it would not be the sign intended, because it did not occur in sight of the dwellers upon the old Roman, Grecian, Medo-Persian, or Babylonian territory.”

It is thought not to be sufficient that it did occur before the eyes of the Christians whose fathers and mothers fled from the old Roman territory, and from the spirit of the old persecutor; and I would ask, who were more fitting than they to receive the sign of the coming great Deliverer?

Where would you have God show the sign of his Son’s second coming? Surely not in the land of the Turk, where the Koran is the guide book of the Mussulman, and Mohammed is his prophet, instead of Jesus. Certainly not over the benighted lands of Persia or Greece. Would you have the sign hung out over the seat of the beast,—where the inhabitants are denied the Lamp of Life, and the priests darken counsel with words without knowledge? All of these were too much steeped in iniquity and lost in heathenism to be affected by the darkening of the sun at noon-day. If not in any or all of these localities, and we reject the one over the land which has been the refuge of his people in these last days, where but in that land, and before the eyes of those who in their doings were to mark the end of the days of “that tribulation?” France then, the land above all others, as a part of the old Roman territory, was the most fitting place where the sun should be darkened, because God had seen fit to link her destiny with the ending of the 1260 days of tribulation; God (Mark xiii, 24) says, “In those days, after that tribulation,” the sun shall be darkened, &c., and as the event which occurred in France in 1793 [1798, Ed. Review] terminated those 1260 days of tribulation, we might reasonably look for the darkening of the sun in France, and find it recorded in connection with these great events which terminated the power of the little horn of Daniel 7th chapter.

We find France, then, who has been and is still figuring so largely in the events of these last days,—she who is not outside of the prophetic territory,—has had that great physical sign, “the sun darkened, in those days, after that tribulation,” producing the same effect upon their minds (only to a greater degree, if we can judge from the record) that was produced upon the minds of the people in New England in 1780. But to the record, that it may speak for itself, and cheer the hearts of the waiting ones:—

Says the writer of the article on the French Revolution, in the Encyclopædia, First American edition, Philadelphia, 1798,—“We cannot here avoid mentioning a physical event, which assisted not a little in producing many of the convulsions attending the revolution, a general scarcity of grain, which occurred about that period. On Sunday the 13th, of July, 1788, about nine in the morning, without any eclipse, a dreadful darkness suddenly overspread several parts of France. It was the prelude of such a tempest as is unexampled in the temperate climates of Europe. Wind, rain, hail and thunder, seemed to contend in impetuosity; but the hail was the great instrument of ruin. Instead of the rich prospects of an early autumn, the face of nature in the space of an hour presented the dreary aspect of universal winter. The soil was converted into a morass, the standing corn beaten into the quagmire, the vines broken to pieces, the fruit-trees demolished, and unmelted hail lying in heaps like rocks of solid ice. Even the robust forest trees were unable to withstand the fury of the tempest. The hail was composed of enormous, solid, and angular pieces of ice, some of them weighing from eight to ten ounces. The country people, beaten down in the fields on their way to church, amidst this concussion of the elements, concluded that the last day was arrived; and scarcely attempting to extricate themselves, lay despairing and half suffocated amidst the water and the mud, expecting the immediate dissolution of all things. The storm was irregular in its devastation. While several rich districts were laid entirely waste, some intermediate portions of country were comparatively little injured. One of sixty square leagues had not a single ear of corn or a fruit tree of any kind left. Of the sixty-six parishes in the district of Pontoise, forty-three were entirely desolated, and of the remaining twenty-three, some lost two-thirds and others half their harvest. The Isle of France, being the district in which Paris is situated, and the Orleannois, appear to have suffered chiefly. The damage there, upon a moderate estimate, amounted to 80,000,000 of livres, or between three and four millions sterling. Such a calamity must at any period have been felt; but occurring on the eve of a great political revolution, and amidst a general scarcity throughout Europe, it was peculiarly unfortunate, and gave more embarrassment to the government than perhaps any other event whatever. Numbers of families found it necessary to contract their mode of living for a time, and to dismiss their servants, who were thus left destitute of bread. Added to the public discontent and political dissensions, it produced such an effect upon the people in general, that the nation seemed to have changed its character; and instead of that levity by which it had ever been distinguished, a settled gloom now seemed fixed on every countenance.”

The above historical account, which I have copied, verbatim, seems to grasp and embrace all that is intended by the language as recorded by the Evangelists. Matthew says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened;” Mark says, “In those days after that tribulation the sun shall be darkened;” whilst Luke, alluding to the very same event as a sign of the Saviour’s coming, gives a wider range to the effects that would be produced at, or near the time of the darkening of the sun, saying “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”—Luke xxi, 25, 26. Thus has God’s word in several ways linked the darkness of the sun with the ending of the period of tribulation. *

I fear that we as believers in the speedy coming of our Lord do not cling to the signs given by the Lord to mark his return, hence many do not lift up their heads, and so fail to know that their redemption draweth nigh. Better believe a little too much in the right direction, and be led to holy living than fail of the grace of God and become cast away.—Wardle in Advent Herald.