“You remember how elder Himes used to insist on my going with him from city to city, and from state to state, because of the people's anxiety to hear me preach about the coming of Christ in 1843 and '44.”
“Yes, father, I remember it well—for when I was with you it seemed as though the people were hardly willing to let us come home and rest a little while.”
“I know it, my son, and I used to think that God never would have sustained me in such continued and incessant labors as I was then called to perform, if it were not his cause. Why, when I saw the wonderful effect that it produced on backsliders and sinners, in bringing them to God, and the glow of joy that lit up in the countenances of God's honest, believing children, and how they hung upon every word; and then the contrary effect, when some of their learned ministers raised their objections—I said I know this is God's cause, and as it rolled on through that cry at midnight, down to its closing scene, you all remember with what joy and glory I was filled, and how I publicly declared my faith, and stated that ‘I might be called a Fanatic, but, I said, call me what you please, Christ will come,’ &c. Well, these singular people are some of the very ones that used to hang on my words and others, who preached to them of this doctrine. And during this cry at midnight they made a sacrifice of all they had—(some of them were almost as well off as we are, and some were poor,)—but they offered what they had, and that was all that was required.”
“Grandfather, what makes them poor now that had something then? You know the Saviour didn't come then, as you said he would, and that is more than three years ago.”
“Well, they thought it would be contrary to scripture to take back their sacrifice, and so many of them have made no improvements on their farms, nor their buildings,—no, they have not even made stone walls! Some of them sold what they had, and have been trying to help the poorer ones, because they said they still believed that Christ was coming, and they would not need it. For instance, they believe what Luke has recorded in his xii: 33—‘Sell your goods and give alms; lay not up treasure on the earth,’—they think this must be understood literally! and they have gone off into many strange notions, believing the door is shut, &c. &c.”
“Well, how do they appear, father?”
“They do not seem to be, in the least, alarmed at poverty; they are expecting soon to be delivered and made heirs with Jesus, to an incorruptible inheritance that will abide forever. I could get along with many points in their faith, and believe them honest, if they did not make them tests for us; and because we do not believe in the great work that was wrought in the past, and the present truths that they advocate, they have no charity for us. They say we have backslidden and gone into a cold lukewarm Laodocean state of the church.”
“Well, father, I believe there is a great deal of truth in their statements, for there certainly is a wonderful difference in our camp and conference meetings, to what there used to be, for if any one shouts glory to God, now, as they used to in '43 and '44, it seems as if the whole meeting was agitated, until it is ascertained that it is one of the deluded ones, it seems as though they hardly dare say amen, either because they do not believe what you say, or for fear they shall be called fanatics. You know how they tried you and how hard you talked to them about it in the conference in Boston, last spring. You thought it was because they had no religion. And then the camp meeting too, at Lake Champlain; I suppose the most of them thought that you were going to prove that the door was shut, and that the past was true; and a good many of them might still have thought so, if elder Marsh had not taken it up and called forth your explanation, in his paper of Sept 28th. For my part, I don't really understand all these things—that as soon as you begin to advocate the past truths in any of our meetings, these editors [pg 066] are either writing or visiting you to explain it more fully in their papers, and then neither party seems to be satisfied. If I were you, I would take a strait-forward course, and try to please God, if I could not any one else.”
“Well, my son, you know that these two editors have stood by me ever since 1842, and as for elder Himes, he has stood by me and been my warm and fast friend all these last seven years of joy and trials, and I cannot separate from him. No, I have told him that I would sustain him and his paper if I had to carry down our ‘potatoes to Boston,’ to raise the means. You see I must stand by him, and he and brother Marsh will defend and justify my course and views of bible doctrine; and defend my character from the aspersions of my enemies, and gladly publish any thing I have to say against the Door Shutters, &c.”
“Yes, yes—I know all that, father, but some how or other, these things do not look right. You began with a strait-forward bible course, and it cut like a sword with two edges, and that is the reason why these door shutters, &c., as you call them, believed your testimony, and they think there is just as much edge to the sword now as there ever was. However, you have studied the bible much more than I have, therefore I shall not dispute you, but I cannot see that this people, whom you have been to visit, are so much out of the way for venturing to go forward, after your clear directions to them, soon after the cry at midnight.”