The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

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X. Breaks Into Daily Press Reports

In the daily Nottingham Review, between May 3 and June 21, 1844, a unique series of six three-column news reports appeared, of addresses by Charles Dealtry and Edmund Micklewood, which greatly stirred Nottingham. The reporter mentions large audiences assembling four times a week. Crowds of from sixteen hundred to three thousand, sometimes with hundreds turned away, were not uncommon. Three hundred were baptized as a result. The topics included the fallacy of the restoration of the Jews, the Two Witnesses, the seals and the trumpets, the 2500 days, and the fall of the Roman Empire. 38 The editor ends the report with this commendatory word: PFF4 715.2

“We make no apology for reporting at length the doctrines on the prophecies in Holy Writ, delivered at Barker-gate Chapel by ‘two evangelists’, [elsewhere named]. Crowded audiences sufficiently attest their interest, and it is long since any lectures on similar subjects commanded so much public attention in Nottingham.” 39 A dozen articles in the Christian Messenger and Reformer of London, during 1841-1844, discuss the Millerite positions pro and con, quoting from various non-Millerite American expositors, including Alexander Campbell, and setting forth the leading Millerite positions with fair accuracy. One British writer states significantly: “We shall all, under Christ, be indebted to Mr. Miller, even if the Lord shall not come in 1843”—that is, for calling a halt to Whitbyan postmillennialism, and refers to Himes as a “Napoleon”. of the religious press. 40 Let us trace the prophetic teaching of one British Millerite, as typical of the rest. PFF4 716.1