We return to Ellen White's vivid account of this crucial year with its rapidly transpiring events. She summarizes the happenings of a few months: 1BIO 50.1
Our hopes now centered on the coming of the Lord in 1844. This was also the time for the message of the second angel, who, flying through the midst of heaven, cried, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city.” Many left the churches in obedience to the message of the second angel. Near its close the Midnight Cry was given: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him”! 1BIO 50.2
Light was being given concerning this message in every part of the land, and the cry aroused thousands. It went from city to city, from village to village, and into the remote country regions. It reached the learned and talented, as well as the obscure and humble.—Ibid., 187. 1BIO 50.3
She wrote of this time as “the happiest year of my life. My heart was full of glad expectation; but I felt great pity and anxiety for those who were in discouragement and had no hope in Jesus.” 1BIO 50.4
It was during this period of expectation and waiting that, as noted in her statement quoted above, the message of the second angel began to sound. Another who passed through the experience reported, “We all rushed out of Babylon.”—JW to L. W. Hastings, August 26, 1848. It was later in this period that eyes turned to October 22, which, according to the Karaite reckoning, would be the exact time for the fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 8:14. It came about this way: 1BIO 50.5