“5. It cannot come now, because there are so many learned and holy ministers and Christians, that if it should come now, it would take them by surprise. The Lord will not come without their knowing it.
“6. The world is yet in its infancy; the arts and sciences are just beginning to come to maturity, and fit the world to live, and it cannot be that the Lord will come now and destroy it all.
“7. Then again there is so much waste land to be occupied in the western country, land which has never yet been cultivated at all, that it is not at all reasonable that the Lord should destroy it all before it has been improved.
“8. But the great argument, the one which has proved the most effectual, has been, that this vision of Daniel viii has nothing to do with the coming of Christ, or setting up of God’s everlasting kingdom. It simply refers to Antiochus Epiphanes, and his persecution of the Jews, and desecration of the temple, some 160 odd years B. C. Thus we have the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, for which the Saviour taught his people to look, about two hundred years before the instruction was given.
“To the foregoing might be added a number more of the same class, professedly drawn from reason and Scripture, but none of them more formidable than those already recorded. Do you smile, gentle reader, at the idea of calling these arguments? Yet, you may be assured that each of them in turn has been urged by grave men, calling themselves doctors of divinity.
“But the most wonderful and overwhelming of all arguments which have ever been presented against the doctrine, is, ‘Mr. Miller has built some stone wall on his farm!!’ But, I forgot myself; I said the most wonderful; there is another quite its equal: ‘Mr. Miller refuses to sell his farm!!’ How, oh! how can Christ come, when Mr. Miller will not sell his farm?
“But this is not all; for the truth is, ‘Mr. Himes has published and scattered (a large part of them gratuitously) more than five millions of books and papers. He must be engaged in a speculation; and how can the Lord come? Oh! how can he come?’
“But to be serious; a word on this subject is due these men, and the cause whose advocates they have been. For those who have known William Miller, and have known his personal history, it is not needful we should write. But there are those who know him not; on their account it is, that this memento is here inserted.
“When Mr. Miller first commenced the advocacy of the Advent doctrine, he was engaged in agricultural pursuits. He had a farm of his own, was surrounded by an interesting family, and possessed all that could make life easy and agreeable. When the Lord called and thrust him out into this work, he was in the decline of life, without the advantages of an academical education, without experience as a public speaker, without ecclesiastical preferments, except as a valued and worthy lay member of the Baptist church; the prejudices of both the church and world were decidedly against all attempts to understand the prophetic scriptures, with many other discouraging circumstances. Yet, in the face of all discouragements, he went forth taking nothing; but as freely did he bestow on others the light which God had given, as he had received it.
“For a number of years after he began this work, he traveled extensively, lectured frequently, endured privation and scoffing, and paid all the expenses of his journeys from his own funds. At the same time he had a large family dependent on him for their subsistence, besides keeping open doors for all the Lord’s servants who should choose to come under his roof; where they were always sure to find a hearty welcome.