Free Expression-Stories of Peoples
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The Midnight Cry
After all, there are now almost 19 million Seventh-Day Adventists and 8 million Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both groups came from just a handful of stubborn Millerites after the majority of the movement had decamped in disgust. The Millerites were a protestant group that had gone from zero to 100,000 members in a decade. They were named for William Miller, a farmer and Bible enthusiast from that fabulous generator of new faiths, the "burned-over district" of New York. Miller, like many Americans around the time of the Revolution, had spent his early life as deist, believing in a remote God who had little to do with human beings. But following a "foxhole conversion" during the War of 1812, in which he had survived while men all around him died, Miller began to study the Bible, looking for signs and portents. Starting in 1832, Miller published a series of letters in a local Baptist paper. In these letters, Miller first laid out his unique theories about prophetic statements found in the Old Testament book of Daniel. In particular, Miller latched on this verse.
