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4. To Terry Island

            A steady stream of articles by Barbour appeared in The Crisis throughout 1872 and 1873, but they only obliquely indicate the strength of his following. In the April 2, 1872, issue of The Crisis, Barbour wrote:  “The virgins are waking up, and trimming their lamps by hundreds and by thousands, and still the cry goes on.[1] Some only accepted part of the message, but still pointed to 1873 as the Day of Judgment. He wrote: “There are many overwhelming evidences for 1873. Some of our brethren see one of these, the 1335 days, and are preaching it; others see more.”[2] Barbour moved to Boston, very much the center of non-Sabatarian Adventism. A contemporary publication, Bacon's Dictionary of Boston, demonstrates this. From it we discover why Boston appealed to Barbour:

            The existence of the Boston “Church of the Adventists”  dates back to 1843, when, in May of that year, Millerites built the “Tabernacle,” a large temporary building on Howard Street. In the 1870s there were two Advent Churches in Boston. The Advent Christian congregation was “the most noteworthy of these.” It was located 09 West Concord Street. Organized in the 1840s, it was the descendent congregation of the Lowell Street Advent Church which had replaced the temporary tabernacle. The Advent Christian Publication Society was incorporated in 1854. Its primary publication was The World's Crisis, a weekly. They also published The Young Pilgrim, a semi-monthly Sunday-school paper, The American Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, and the Blessed Hope Quarterly.

            Adventists a split over the question of Inherent Immortality in 1854. The “old Adventists” took the name “Evangelical Adventists.” Their congregation met on Shawmut Avenue near Williams Street. They published the Messiah’s Herald.” Though the Adventist “thriving period” was in the 1840s when Joshua V. Hines was pastor, Boston was in the 1870s still a center of Adventism. The World’s Crisis published Barbour’s articles and a significant number of Evangelical Adventists were swayed by his arguments. Boston was a logical choice from which to publish his new magazine, The Midnight Cry and Herald of the Morning.[3]

            There is one estimate of the movement’s strength, but its worth is questionable. An article entitled “End of the World” appearing in the November 4, 1873, issue of The Boston Globe quoted S. W. Bishop as saying: “We are satisfied that we are children of the Most High God ... . We have portions of our company in every State and section of the Union, and in the British provinces, in England, Ireland, Scotland and Norway. We think it providential that we are so scattered. We number 34,000 in all.” We think he meant not just those who believed Christ would return that year, but all Adventists. Even then, this is a wildly inflated number. It cannot be taken as a well-founded count of those looking forward to 1873. Still, Bishop’s words suggest a sizable portion of Second Adventists took the prediction seriously.

Even among those not disposed to set dates there was cautious interest. E. E. Reinke, one of the editors of Prophetic Times, wrote:

We are not wanting in a lively consciousness of the repeated chronological failures on the part of some students who have preceded us. ... Yet with all this full in view, we not only retain the conviction ... that we are living in a time pregnant with the most important issues, but also that the parousia of the Lord is not only near, but imminent; so imminent, that it not only might, but probably will, transpire shortly. ...

In the belief that the parousia ... will transpire shortly, we may be mistaken. We have no authority, nor any inclination to fix a definite time for the beginning of the day of the Lord. It may not begin in our lifetime, but our positive duty, and our privilege, to wait for it every day, will not be in the least thereby affected.[4]

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[1]               N. H. Barbour: The Seventy Weeks, The World’s Crisis and Second Advent Messenger, April 3, 1872.

[2]               ibid.

[3]               Bacon's Dictionary of Boston, 1886 edition, page 4.

[4]               E. E. Reinke: The Prophetic Outlook, The Prophetic Times, March/April 1872, page 34.