e the conscience than merely to excite the emotions.

In 1833 Miller received a license to preach, from the Baptist Church, of
which he was a member. A large number of the ministers of his denomination
also approved his work, and it was with their formal sanction that he
continued his labors. He traveled and preached unceasingly, though his
personal labors were confined principally to the New England and Middle
States. For several years his expenses were met wholly from his own
private purse, and he never afterward received enough to meet the expense
of travel to the places where he was invited. Thus his public labors, so
far from being a pecuniary benefit, were a heavy tax upon his property,
which gradually diminished during this period of his life. He was the
father of a large family, but as they were all frugal and industrious, his
farm sufficed for their maintenance as well as his own.

In 1833, two years after Miller began to present in public the evidences
of Christ's soon coming, the last of the signs appeared which were
promised by the Saviour as tokens of His second advent. Said Jesus, "The
stars shall fall from heaven"(553) And John in the Revelation declared, as
he beheld in vision the scenes that should herald the day of God, "The
stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her
untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind."(554) This prophecy
received a striking and impressive fulfilment in the great meteoric shower
of November 13, 1833. That was the most extensive and wonderful display of
falling stars which has ever been recorded; "the whole firmament, over all
the United States, being then, for hours, in fiery commotion! No celestial
phenomenon has ever occurred in this country, since its first settlement,
which was viewed with such intense admiration by one class in the
community, or with so much dread and alarm by another." "Its sublimity and
awful beauty still linger in many minds.... Never did rain fall much
thicker than the meteors fell toward the earth; east, west, north, and
south, it was the same. In a word, the whole heavens seemed in motion....
The display, as described in Professor Silliman's Journal, was seen all
over North America.... From two o'clock until broad daylight, the sky
being perfectly serene and cloudless, an incessant play of dazzlingly
brilliant luminosities was kept up in the whole heavens."(555)

"No language, indeed, can come up to the splendor of th