1885 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

few seconds an arc of 30 or 40 degrees. Theseleft behind luminous trains, which remainedin view several minutes, andsometimes half an hour or more. Oneof them, seen in North Carolina, appearedof larger size and greater brilliancythan the moon. Some of theluminous bodies were of irregular form,and remained stationary for a considerabletime, emitting streams of light. AtNiagara the exhibition was especiallybrilliant, and probably no spectacle soterribly grand and sublime was ever beforebeheld by man as that of the firmamentdescending in fiery torrents overthe dark and roaring cataract. It wasobserved that the lines of all the meteors,if traced back, converged in one quarterof the heavens, which was Leonis Majoris;and this point accompanied thestars in their apparent motion westward,instead of moving with the earth towardthe East. The source whence themeteors came was thus shown to be independentof the earth's relation, andexterior to our atmosphere."Following this, we have had violentshakings of the heavens, or wind storms,the cyclones, etc., of our own day, whichanswer well to the statement, "Thepowers of the heavens shall be shaken."But though we recognize in the eventsmentioned a literal fulfillment of Jesus'words, it is far from our opinion thatthis was their complete and only fulfillment,R712 : page 3or even the most important one.Though the literal meaning is real, andprominently marked, yet none the lessreal and marked is the meaning conveyedthrough these words as symbols.The darkening of the sun (symbolic) isthe obscuring of the great central lightof the gospel, which, even in the darkages, never ceased to shine--and that