Review of Prophetic Waymarks

Disappointment filled their souls. In a daze they sought their bearings. They earnestly reviewed the past. They resurveyed the prophetic waymarks. The date 457 B. C. stood supported by reverent scholarship in Ireland, Scotland, England, continental Europe, as well as in North Africa. They traced anew the conclusions of Wood, Mason, Way, Frere, Irving, Wolff, McNeil, White, Pym, Cuninghame, Drummond, Habershon, Miller, and the many others who had declared the seventy prophetic weeks were cut off from the 2300 years, and, commencing together, constituted the first 490 years of that period with Christ’s crucifixion in the midst of the seventieth week to seal the prophecy infallibly, and so to fix its termination.AGP 244.4

On the basis of the types and the typical Day of Atonement, the great prophetic period must end on October 22, as they hadAGP 244.5

calculated. But their Lord had not come. The future was a blank, and the present was a puzzle. Sneers and taunts, hostility and persecution, greeted them on every hand. It was a terrible disappointment, a dagger thrust into their hearts. The meaning of it all, and the emergence from their misunderstanding, must be held for consideration in another chapter.AGP 245.1

But there was another factor to be logically anticipated in the advent movement at this point, in view of the uniform experience of the past. With the great revival of neglected truth there had early come into the hearts of many a conviction that the apostolic gifts should appear with the renewal of the apostolic faith. Such persons prayed much about it, and wrote about it, but as yet they had no clear understanding of it.AGP 245.2