Life of Ahmad — Page 32
WORLD PREPARATIONS as 32 in 457 B. C. , and, therefore, would come to an end in 1843. Miller then urged his hearers to make ready for the final coming of Christ in that year for, according to Roman chronology, he declared, the year was 1844. There was great excitement. Many left their businesses and, in white muslin robes, on house-tops and hills, awaited the epiphany. Edward Irving (1792-1834), a divine of the Scottish Church and founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church, also believed in the near approach of the second advent. There was another movement that gathered strength at the time of the birth of the Promised Messiah as ; and, like the sounding of a trumpet in the heavens, it seems to have been a signal for the uplift of humanity. It was the movement for the emancipation of the slaves of the world. In 1831 Garrison started the Liberator in Boston, which proved to be the beginning of an agitation that eventually pervaded and filled every part of the country. The Anti-Slavery Society was organised in 1833, and the Slave Emancipation Act, freeing all slaves throughout the British empire, came into force in 1834. As a result of this, thousands of slaves were emancipated at once. It looks very much like the old custom of releasing prisoners and freeing slaves on the occasion of the birth of a royal son. A mighty prince indeed, whose birth occasioned so many and such great preparations on so gigantic and extensive a scale!