Stars Fall From Heaven

"And the stars shall fall from heaven." Matthew 24:29.

The great star shower took place on the night of November 13, 1833. It was so bright that a newspaper could be read on the street. One writer says, "For nearly four hours the sky was literally ablaze."* Men thought the end of the world had come. Look into this. It is most fascinating, and a sign of Christ's coming.

*Peter A. Millman, "The Falling of the Stars," The Telescope, 7 (May-June, 1940) 57.

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Stars Fall From Heaven

In 1833, 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." Matt. 24:29. And John in the Revelation declared, as he beheld in vision the scenes that 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." Rev. 6:13. This prophecy received a striking and impressive fulfillment 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 such 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."

"No language indeed can come up to the splendor of that magnificent display; no one who did not witness it can form an adequate conception of its glory. It seemed as if the whole starry heavens had congregated at one point near the zenith, and were simultaneously shooting forth, with the velocity of lightning, to every part of the horizon; and yet they were not exhausted--thousands swiftly followed in the track of thousands, as if created for the occasion." "A more correct picture of a fig-tree casting its figs when blown by a mighty wind, it is not possible to behold."

On the day following its appearance, Henry Dana Ward wrote thus of the wonderful phenomenon: "No philosopher or scholar has told or recorded an event, I suppose, like that of yesterday morning. A prophet eighteen hundred years ago foretold it exactly, if we will be at the trouble of understanding stars falling to mean falling stars, in the only sense in which it is possible to be literally true."

Thus was displayed the last of those signs of his coming, concerning which Jesus bade his disciples, "When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." Matt. 24:33. After these signs, John beheld, as the great event next impending, the heavens departing as a scroll, while the earth quaked, mountains and islands removed out of their places, and the wicked in terror sought to flee from the presence of the Son of man.

Many who witnessed the falling of the stars, looked upon it as a herald of the coming Judgment,--"an awful type, a sure forerunner, a merciful sign, of that great and dreadful day." Thus the attention of the people was directed to the fulfillment of prophecy, and many were led to give heed to the warning of the second advent.