This was but one of the many remarkable manifestations. The meeting ended on Tuesday evening, and on the whole with victory on God's side, but it had been a trying time indeed. Brother Warner devoted a whole page of the Trumpet to the report of this Assembly. We quote the beginning of the report:
We have never been called upon to portray any meeting that so transcends our powers of description. We can now better understand the language of John when he said that "if all the works of Christ had been written, I suppose the world could not contain the books." A full account of the meeting would make quite a volume. For some time we felt that the meeting would be one of unusual interest. As we received intelligence of the saints' coming from time to time, the Spirit of God was poured upon our soul, insomuch that we could not restrain the praises of God as we walked the streets. And their coming was as the heavens bowed to earth. Our little habitation was thronged most of the day on Friday, and in the evening we all went to the Conlay Bethel, where the meeting began. Since the first assembly in Michigan, where Satan was also loosed and a terrible conflict ensued, resulting in his being cast out, all the meetings of the sanctified and free saints of God that we have attended have been blessed with great unity and peace; and as there were such a host coming to this assembly, all of which we knew were of one mind and one heart in the truth and Spirit of Christ, and most of whom had never met before, we looked for a meeting that would be a sample of the reign of heaven. How apt we are to forget that we are still in the field of battle, and that Satan is now loosed for a little season, having great wrath because he knows his time is short! In the very first meeting we felt that Satan had also gathered his angels together where the sons of God came to worship the God of the Bible (Job. 1:6).
Certain of the brethren and sisters had been previously shown by visions some of the things that occurred at this meeting. The Lord was on the side of his saints and vindicated the righteousness of his cause by manifesting himself in their meetings as well as to their spiritual consciousness. Outwardly, of course, the meeting bore an aspect of confusion; but Brother Warner learned to see the good in everything. Referring, at a later date, to this assembly, he said:
This providential bringing together of the children of light and the powers of darkness has proved a great blessing to the saints in that it has clearly brought to light which side men occupy.
The Bucyrus assembly was but one engagement with the forces that at this time had gathered to oppose and overthrow the reformation work which Brother Warner and the Trumpet had begun. Other instruments were to figure in the struggle, and another terrific battle was soon to follow. There were two prominent holiness teachers who were not in sympathy with Brother Warner's position regarding sects. They opposed the coming out from denominationalism. R. S. Stockwell was a young minister who had helped in the meetings and who had been loved and respected by both Brother Warner and Sister Warner, but had become exalted in himself and deceived, and had sprung a very pernicious doctrine, the doctrine of marital celibacy. He held that the sex relation was carnal; that when a person was fully cleansed, the love for a husband or wife was no more than the love for any one else; especially, that if a husband and wife were not in harmony it would be wrong for them to maintain the conjugal relation or be to each other anything more than to any one else; and that they would have more love for others with whom they were in harmony than for their own companion, etc. The attainment along this line was an advanced experience, a sort of third work of grace.
Sister Warner was a splendid woman and had been a faithful companion to her husband. She had borne her part well in the arduous duties of their evangelical career. But there had come in some disorder that had begun to affect their fellowship. Brother Warner mentions it thus in his "Meditations."
First there appeared mysteriously withal,
Some leprous spots on our domestic wall.
The plague soon marred our holy fellowship,
Then ate like moth the threads of love that knit