William Miller

Black Wednesday

October 23, 1844

This was to have been the first day in heaven. Instead, the Advent believers found themselves still chained to earth, reeling in shock and grief – the laughingstock of a jeering world.

The bible, they were utterly certain, had said Jesus would return on October 22. He hadn’t.

“Has the Bible proved a failure?” asked Hiram Edson, voicing the giant question haunting the wounded flock. “Is there no God, no heaven, no golden home city, no paradise? Is this all a cunningly devised fable?” In this landmark volume, author-historian George R. Knight recounts the history of that shattering disappointment and explores the vital dynamic that thrust the Millerites into the flow of history.

Sixteen decades after the Great Disappointment, Jesus still has not come. Dr. Knight concludes this carefully researched volume by addressing the question, And what of the certainty? What of the nothing-held-back commitment and the joyous expectancy of those early Adventists? Can the fire that first ignited this movement be recaptured? Are the message and mission still valid?