The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 305

full and final conquest shall be made.”—Ibid., vol. 17, p. 500. “This
is the day that all believers should long, and hope, and wait for, as
being the accomplishment of all the work of their redemption, and all
the desires and endeavors of their souls.” “Hasten, O Lord, this blessed
day!”—Ibid., vol. 17, pp. 182, 183. Such was the hope of the apostolic
church, of the “church in the wilderness,” and of the Reformers.
Prophecy not only foretells the manner and object of Christ’s
coming, but presents tokens by which men are to know when it is near.
Said Jesus: “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the
stars.” Luke 21:25. “The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not
give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in
heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming
in the clouds with great power and glory.” Mark 13:24-26. The revelator
thus describes the first of the signs to precede the second advent: “There
was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair,
and the moon became as blood.” Revelation 6:12.
These signs were witnessed before the opening of the nineteenth
century. In fulfillment of this prophecy there occurred, in the year
1755, the most terrible earthquake that has ever been recorded. Though
commonly known as the earthquake of Lisbon, it extended to the greater
part of Europe, Africa, and America. It was felt in Greenland, in the
West Indies, in the island of Madeira, in Norway and Sweden, Great
Britain and Ireland. It pervaded an extent of not less than four million
square miles. In Africa the shock was almost as severe as in Europe. A
great part of Algiers was destroyed; and a short distance from Morocco,
a village containing eight or ten thousand inhabitants was swallowed up.
A vast wave swept over the coast of Spain and Africa engulfing cities
and causing great destruction.
It was in Spain and Portugal that the shock manifested its extreme
violence. At Cadiz the inflowing wave was said to be sixty feet high.
Mountains, “some of the largest in Portugal, were impetuously shaken,
as it were, from their very

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