Professor Langley's "New Astronomy" (published in 1888) said:
"The great November shower, which is coming once more in this century, and which every reader may hope to see toward 1899, is of particular interest to us as the first whose movements were subject to analysis."
Chambers's Astronomy, published in 1889, said:
"The meteors of November 13 may be expected to reappear with great brilliancy in 1899."—-Volume I, p. 635.
But the November date passed in 1899, and the years have passed; and the wondrous scene of 1833 has not been repeated. Clerke's "History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century" says:
"We can no longer count upon the Leonids [as the meteorites of 1833 were called, because they seemed to fall from a point in the constellation of Leo]. Their glory, for scenic purposes, is departed."—Page 338.
The Lord's Signal to Watch
Thus the wisest astronomical predictions made shortly before 1899, based upon the apparently recurrent regularity of the phenomenon, failed; but the predictions of the sure word of prophecy, set down on the sacred record eighteen centuries before, were fulfilled to the letter.
At the close of the days of the predicted tribulation of the church, the signs began to appear—the sun was darkened, the moon withheld its light, and the stars of heaven fell.
The series began at the time specified, the signs came in the order given in Christ's prophecy. The record of history bears witness that the prophecy was fulfilled.