How Jesus didn't turn up 164 years ago today

We live in a time when a considerable number of people believe The End of Days to be imminent. But evidently ours is not the first era in which this belief was widespread.

The Millerites were a sect of 19th-century American baptists convinced that Jesus was set to turn up on this day in 1844. Hindsight, of course, is a great thing and the day became known as The Great Disappointment.

This from Wikipedia’s anniversaries for October 22:

The Great Disappointment

The sun rose on the morning of October 23 like any other day, and October 22, that day of great hope and promise was for the Millerites, the day of greatest disappointment. Henry Emmons, a Millerite, later wrote,

“I waited all Tuesday [October 22] and dear Jesus did not come;– I waited all the forenoon of Wednesday, and was well in body as I ever was, but after 12 o’clock I began to feel faint, and before dark I needed someone to help me up to my chamber, as my natural strength was leaving me very fast, and I lay prostrate for 2 days without any pain– sick with disappointment.”

Miller recorded his personal disappointment in his memoirs: “Were I to live my life over again, with the same evidence that I then had, to be honest with God and man, I should have to do as I have done. I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment.” Miller continued to wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ until his death in 1849. Read full article here…