words
of Christ, the sun was to be darkened. On the 19th of May, 1780, this
prophecy was fulfilled.

"Almost if not altogether alone, as the most mysterious and as yet
unexplained phenomenon of its kind, ... stands the dark day of May 19,
1780,--a most unaccountable darkening of the whole visible heavens and
atmosphere in New England."(484)

An eye-witness living in Massachusetts describes the event as follows:

"In the morning the sun rose clear, but was soon overcast. The clouds
became lowery, and from them, black and ominous, as they soon appeared,
lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and a little rain fell. Toward nine
o'clock, the clouds became thinner, and assumed a brassy or coppery
appearance, and earth, rocks, trees, buildings, water, and persons were
changed by this strange, unearthly light. A few minutes later, a heavy
black cloud spread over the entire sky except a narrow rim at the horizon,
and it was as dark as it usually is at nine o'clock on a summer
evening....

"Fear, anxiety, and awe gradually filled the minds of the people. Women
stood at the door, looking out upon the dark landscape; men returned from
their labor in the fields; the carpenter left his tools, the blacksmith
his forge, the tradesman his counter. Schools were dismissed, and
tremblingly the children fled homeward. Travelers put up at the nearest
farmhouse. 'What is coming?' queried every lip and heart. It seemed as if
a hurricane was about to dash across the land, or as if it was the day of
the consummation of all things.

"Candles were used; and hearth-fires shone as brightly as on a moonless
evening in autumn.... Fowls retired to their roosts and went to sleep,
cattle gathered at the pasture-bars and lowed, frogs peeped, birds sang
their evening songs, and bats flew about. But the human knew that night
had not come....

"Dr. Nathanael Whittaker, pastor of the Tabernacle church in Salem, held
religious services in the meeting-house, and preached a sermon in which he
maintained that the darkness was supernatural. Congregations came together
in many other places. The texts for the extemporaneous sermons were
invariably those that seemed to indicate that the darkness was consonant
with scriptural prophecy.... The darkness was most dense shortly after
eleven o'clock."(485) "In most parts of the country it was so great in the
daytime, that the people could not tell the hour by either watch or clock,
nor dine, nor manage their domestic b