The Dark Day of 1780 by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 5, 1877

The Dark Day of 1780.

By Uriah Smith

In another column will be found a very interesting description of this most remarkable phenomenon. The work from which it is taken is of such a character that all that is set forth in the article is entitled to the greatest consideration.

One noticeable feature of the general descriptions of this event is the efforts to explain it, and the signal failure of all such efforts. If the darkness arose from ordinary causes like the development and condensation of vapor, peculiar clouds, vast quantities of ligneous or volcanic smoke, etc., we ask why such a combination of circumstances happened to occur at just that time, but never before to such an extent, and never since. Some claim that there have been multitudes of dark days, and therefore no phenomenon of this kind can be a sign of the end. But the writer of this article notices only two other events of this nature, probably because he finds only these two that he considers worthy of notice in connection with the memorable occurrence of May 19, 1780; and it will be noticed that these fall within that specified period where they also may perhaps be signs. Thus Mark, recording the prophecy, says, “In those days after that tribulation.” The days are the 1260 years of papal continuance, and the tribulation, the papal persecution upon the church of Christ. The “tribulation” was restrained by the great Reformation, but the “days” extended to 1798. Somewhere therefore between the middle of the 16th century and 1798 we are to look for this sign. And all three of the occurrences of this nature mentioned by this writer fall within this time. Why may they not all be signs? If God should choose to warn the people of one locality at one time, and repeat the lesson to those of another at another time, within the limits when these things were to appear, would they not be equally significant to their respective beholders? These others are declared to be just as mysterious, but not so extensive, as the darkness of May 19, 1780; and putting them all together, we have this striking sign exhibited over no small portion of the earth’s surface. U. S.