_Dear Sir_,—The time was, when all second advent believers were dear to
you, and they called you father and brother Miller. Alas, how changed the
scene is now! Jesus says “whosoever shall do the will of my Father which
is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.” They can’t
believe that you are doing the will of God, as you once was, though they
cannot help loving and venerating your name for the great light which you
have given—because you are wounding their feelings by calling them
Fanatics, Door-Shutters, and almost any thing but honest people, to
destroy all their reputation and christian fellowship, and make them feel
if possible, that they are worse than the heathen. In this way you have
weaned their affection from you, and when you give them an exposition of
God’s word now, they doubt: say they, he first gave us the light, and we
rallied to his standard, because it agreed with the scriptures—but when we
were come to the most trying and toilsome part of our journey then he
forsook us and joined in with the shepherds and those of like faith, to
berate us. But we soon learnt from the prophets that there would be a
people in the last days, answering this description, that God had promised
to save, called _Outcasts_!—Jer. xxx: 17; Psl. cxlvii: 2. Now you are
encouraging these same deniers of our faith to be _peaceable_; for—say
you—we shall soon get into the kingdom of God. Methinks if we should all
meet there under existing circumstances, there would be a great deal of
confessing before we could be reconciled to listen to each other’s joys.
But it will not be so; if you and your brethren, and the _outcasts_ too,
are saved, then I predict that we shall have to stay here until a perfect
reconciliation takes place. When that will be, I cannot tell, for in my
judgment the gulf between us has been widening for the last three years.
Now, I prefer to remain on that side of it with the _Outcasts_, for they
have the promise that they shall be gathered. When we made our sacrifice
during a cry at midnight, we considered and were fully persuaded that we
were doing our last work, and surely that would _be done the best of any
work_. Then of course we had no right whatever to take back the sacrifices
we then made, and rob God. We were fully aware that our disappointments
would not change our course, for if we were ever saved it must be by our
onward course. But those with whom you were associated sounded the
retreat, and all that did not follow in their train have been subject to
your unsparing epithets.
If you knew as much about this afflicted and torn people, (whom you have
been the instrument in leading out into the Philadelphia state of the
church, and then leaving and driving them from you,) as I do, you would
shudder to appear before Him who has promised to be a Father to them and
keep them. The principal cause of many offences which they committed were
from bad teachers and teaching. You have a sample here in this work. (We
have no wish, _neither do we uphold_ any one who does not follow the
teachings of the sure word.) I think you have listened too much to them.
If I could just take you with me to some of the stopping places of these
people, and show you their scanty wood piles at this inclement season of
the year, and then to the barrels which once held their beef, pork and
flour, together with the scanty subsistence they now have, and with no
earthly prospect of another supply, only as their trust is in the living
God, in whom they had committed their all, because of their honest
sacrifice and anxious waiting for their coming Lord; turned out of their
former employment and reproached for keeping God’s holy Sabbath day;
whipped by cruel, unmerciful men for shouting the praises of their God and
king, and still persevering in their faith, &c. And then, for a contrast,
to step on board the cars and be rolled away to your own comfortable and
commodious house, with well stocked barn and granaries, beef and pork
barrels—the produce of your own valuable farm—with all things that heart
could wish for, and set down by your comfortable fire with your family,
(all believers with you in the coming of Jesus,) and recount to them the
strange scenes you had witnessed among an afflicted people, who once
listened with anxiety and delight to every word you had to say about the
second coming of Jesus, and they were so delighted with this, to them,
joyful news, that they wanted to hear about it all the time. We may
imagine your conversation to proceed somewhat in the following strain:
“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 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.”
But it may be said that these are what are termed the “No-work Folks.” No
sir, they do not belong to that class, although their views are, in most
all other respects, similar. You have been told—or, I have—by one of your
traveling lecturers, that there were but twenty-five of them, all told. He
said they were proclaiming that they were all that would be saved at the
second advent. We have no such view. We believe, what I shall attempt to
prove by-and-by, that there will be 144,000 saved at the coming of Jesus.
Furthermore, we believe that the same commandment which teaches us to keep
the seventh-day Sabbath, also teaches that we may labor the other six days
for just as much as we comfortably need; more than that would counteract
the direction of Jesus, viz. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on the
earth,” &c. This is all right, for our faith teaches us we do not need it.
If we hoard up what we have got, it certainly is not selling and giving
alms. My opinion is, that this is now to be made clear, and that God’s
people will be absolutely afraid to be found with a surplus treasure here,
when Christ comes. As the keeping of the fourth commandment, in its true
scriptural sense, carries us to the gates of the city, so our laboring
honestly for what we immediately want, also carries us to that point. But
we have no controversy with those who honestly and sincerely live to God
without laboring; though they tell us that they have no charity for us,
still we believe if they honestly live out their faith God will not
condemn them for not working six days.
Your explanation respecting the time that Christ might, or has, began to
reign, to prove that you had no connection or fellowship with “_door
shutters_” or their views, is the most enigmatical of all your ideas,
since 1845. I refer to your letter in the Advent Harbinger of Sept. 28th.
It is endorsed by the editor, and also by the Advent Herald, in justifying
the ground you took—and grew out of a report that elder S. Hall of Bangor,
made from your conversation and preaching at the Champlain camp meeting. I
reported what I heard, and it was therefore stated that I was present.
This you could have contradicted, but the editor has since acknowledged
his mis-statement. S. Hall is an entire stranger to me. I have written him
two letters on the subject, without reply. But it is your own written
statement that so puzzles me. You give from 1815 to 1847, thirty-two
years, for Michael in Dan. xii: 1, to stand up to reign, and you further
say it might have been at the end of the 2300 days. This is the first
intimation I have had, since you took your stand against us, that you
believed the days ended; but the forty-five years latitude for Christ to
begin to reign, and your anathemas at those who believe the door is shut,
is as incomprehensible to me as Swedenbourgenism—J. Marsh’s explained
exposition of Nov. 9th, to the contrary notwithstanding. As I have already
given my views about the time when Christ began to reign, in _Way Marks_,
page 35 and onward, I may not say much here. Have the 2300 days really
ended then, and nothing to _mark_ their end? This was the burthen of your
cry. It was also the prophets, and one of them said it should speak and
not lie. Then, of course, it would not come silently; but the wise would
understand when it did end. You reply, I suppose, according to the 11th
chapter of Revelations, from which you was speaking, that the seventh
trumpet had began to sound; but was there nothing else connected with the
ending of the 2300 days? Yes—the third wo, because that belongs to the
seventh trumpet; see viii: 13. Now the 10th chapter, 7th verse, shows us
that when this seventh trumpet begins to sound, the Mystery of God should
be finished. Oh, you say, that’s the old story of 1845. Yes sir, and more
than seventeen hundred years beyond that. Here is your trouble; but the
most of your hearers, though they may listen with delight to you, yet they
preach that the seventh trumpet does not sound until Christ comes to raise
the dead. You ought to correct them here, for they are certainly in the
dark; Christ is not the seventh messenger.
Besides, if Christ has began to reign as you say, over the nations, he
has, according to your showing in Daniel xii: 1, changed his position. If
so, how can he be in the mediatorial seat? His leaving that finishes the
Mystery, and that forever _shuts the door_, unless you or some one else
can prove that he leaves this work over the nations, and goes back again
to finish what he left undone. Now, who is the fanatic here? You cannot
make all this work in harmony—it is impossible; besides, you call us
spiritualizers, because of our view of the Bridegroom. If we are, pray
what are you? and how did you find out that Christ had changed his
position, even twenty years ago? or when the 2300 days ended, somewhere
since 1843? It really appears to me, that if _we_ had put forth such a
view, that we should have been pronounced crazy! and yet your two editors
will patch it all up, and throw all the stigma upon us, forsooth, because
they think we shall claim you as an _Outcast_! Their fears are
unnecessary—we have no claim to such views; they would only disturb our
ranks. We believe that the seventh trumpet began to sound on the first day
of the seventh month. Then the Mystery was finished, and the third wo
came. The virgins in the parable, were divided—some went after oil. On the
tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement. At this point in
1841, in the order of the fulfillment of the types in Leviticus and New
Testament testimony, (which we have referred to in the _Way Marks_) Jesus
received his Bride and the kingdoms of this world, and entered the Holy of
Holies as our Great High Priest, and commenced the cleansing of the
Sanctuary. Why? Because here the 2300 days ended:—_The appointed time._ At
this point too, commenced the trial of God’s people. Surely you never can
forget this, until the trial ends; and that cannot end in accordance with
the type, until our Great High Priest and King has finished the cleansing
of the Sanctuary, the New Jerusalem, and it is made holy; see Joel iii:
17. Now follow the type and Bible testimony, and it is positively clear
that Jesus changes his position from the daily ministration to the most
holy place, just as certainly as Aaron did. Here then, in short, is where
we prove the Bridegroom come to the Marriage, and the door shut, in the
parable of Matt. xxv, and in the types. If it does not prove this in our
past history, and that we are now waiting for our coming king, then these
types are superfluous. We do not believe that Michael stands up, as you
have stated, until he has accomplished what is above stated. We cannot
possibly see how he can begin to reign over the nations as king, while he
is in the most holy place, cleansing the Sanctuary, and the saints being
perfected for the blessing when he lays aside his priestly robes and takes
the sickle, as in Rev. xiv: 14; and God speaks, as in Joel iii: 16. If
what you have stated, had been even approbated in Oct. 1844, it would have
thrown the whole harmony of the scriptures, in our past history, into
confusion. As I have said, I will here repeat it, that unless you follow
the Bible rule as I have stated here and in the _Way Marks_, you never can
harmonize the scriptures with the _past_ nor _present_; and I think I
shall make it plainer still, before I lay down my pen.
One thing more: Much derision is made about those of our company that have
joined the Shakers. I say it is a shame to them first, to have preached in
clearly and distinctly the speedy coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
_personally_ to gather his saints—and then to go and join the Shakers in
their faith, that he (Jesus) came spiritually in their Mother, Ann Lee,
more than seventy years ago. This, without doubt in my mind, is owing to
their previous teaching and belief in a doctrine called the _trinity_. How
can you find fault with their faith while you are teaching the very
essence of that never—no never to be understood, doctrine? For their
comfort and faith, and of course your own, you say “_Christ is God, and
God is love._” As you have given no explanation, we take it to come from
you as a literal exposition of the word; and although the editor of the
Herald, of Dec 4th, endeavors to justify you in your published view of the
Unity in 1842, and thinks he has made it clear that you have not changed
your views on this subject, just as he is in the habit of doing without
your knowledge, but still you have not confirmed it, and your having
changed your views once at least since 1844, leaves us in doubt about the
editor’s remarks. We ask, then, where you find this passage, and if ever
love was seen; and if that is what we are looking for from heaven, to come
the second time? If so, how will it look, and where is the scripture that
describes it? It seems to me that the shakers have a better claim to you
than we have.
We believe that Peter and his master settled this question beyond
controversy, Matt. xvi: 13-19; and I cannot see why Daniel and John has
not fully confirmed that Christ is the Son, and, not God the Father. How
could Daniel explain his vision of the 7th chapter, if “Christ was God.”
Here he sees one “like the Son (and it cannot be proved that it was any
other person) of man, and there was given him Dominion, and Glory, and a
kingdom;” by the ancient of days. Then John describes one seated on a
throne with a book in his right hand, and he distinctly saw Jesus come up
to the throne and take the book out of the hand of him that sat thereon.
Now if it is possible to make these two entirely different transactions
appear in one person, then I could believe your text if I could believe
that God died and was buried instead of Jesus, and that Paul was mistaken
when he said. “Now the God of peace that _brought again_ from the _dead
our Lord Jesus_ that great shepherd of the sheep” &c., and that Jesus also
did not mean what he said when he asserted that he came from God, and was
going to God, &c. &c.; and much more, if necessary, to prove the utter
absurdity of such a faith. Without going any further, we say that one of
two things is certainly clear, that the doctrine of the second advent,
which you, and your adherents promulgated down to Oct. 1844, was
positively wrong, if you _now_ are right. We believe it was right and
approved of God and therefore we fully believe that we are in the right
road still, but we have nothing to boast of; our track has been made dark
by your opposition, but still we have travelled on, believing that light
is sown for the righteous, and we have realized it; to God be all the
praise. If you and your adherents could have turned us into your course,
you would. We rejoice that we are in the furnace. Our deluded course, as
it is termed, arises from three things that we practice: First, we are
called Judaizers, because we keep the Sabbath according to the
commandment; our reasons for it, are with you. We say further that God set
us the example, as he has the whole world. Jesus and the apostles
followed, and so do we. Second, because we wash one another’s feet, here
we have the plain and positive teaching and example of Jesus: “If I, then,
the master and the teacher, have washed your feet.—Happy are ye who know
these things provided ye PRACTICE them.”—[Camp. trans.]—John xiii. Third,
that we practice kissing.—Here we have the teaching, of the great apostle
to the Gentiles, to churches and households and every individual believer
in Christ Jesus; see Rom. xvi: 3, 6, 12-16; 1st Thes. v: 26, “Greet all
the brethren with a holy kiss;” Phil. iv: 21. “Salute every saint in
Christ Jesus.” Now I do not say but here is dangerous ground, and no doubt
many have fallen, because they could not stand the test, as Paul’s
brethren could not the communion; but did Paul advise them to give it up
because some had lost their lives for it? No! Well, then, the rule is the
same with us, not to yield because some have spiritually died. It is a
test of our fellowship for one another, and we may just as well be ashamed
of the teachings of the bible as to be ashamed or afraid to practice what
is clearly taught. Our course is onward; we leave you say what you please
of us. We very clearly see if we persevere in this course, that it will
lead us to immortality.
-------------------------------------
P. S. Some days after writing the above, an acquaintance of mine loaned me
the Advent Herald of Jan. 8th, 1848, to read the remarkable dream, which
you had in November last. I am glad that the Lord comforted you by giving
you this dream. Since I have read it, I do feel a hope that the Lord will
yet save you from the delusive snare into which your pretended friends
seemed to have drawn you. Joel’s prophecy, quoted by Peter, at the
Pentecost, respecting dreams and visions of the last days, are not, in my
view, fulfilled; nor cannot be, unless it can be proved that the _last_
days are past. I fully believe that God warns and instructs his children
in various ways, when deep sleep is fallen upon them. There certainly are
some very remarkable cases on record in the Bible, and I as much believe
them, as other portions of his word.
It seemed to me that I could see some of the outlines of this dream; for
instance, the “curiously wrought casket, filled with all sorts and sizes
of jewels, diamonds, precious stones, and gold and silver coin of every
dimension and value, beautifully arranged in their several places in the
casket.” These, I think, clearly represent the special treasure, the
jewels of the Lord of hosts, that are now being made up in this day of
trial, as saith Malachi; brought out and made manifest by the second
advent doctrine, which you began to give to the world some few years ago.
Many of them, at that time, bound down by the sectarian creeds and
formulas in Babylon, were aroused and won away by the soul-stirring
doctrine of the coming of Christ, in 1843 and ’44. No wonder that your
friends, who then gathered around you, shouted for joy when they began
critically and earnestly to examine the curiously wrought casket, (the
word of God,) and to see, the more they examined and expounded, the more
the diamonds and jewels increased in splendor, brilliancy and numbers,
(converts from the churches and the world,) and scattering all over the
land, (the centre table,) and in a few years throughout the world, every
nation, kindred, tongue and people, (all over the floor and furniture.) By
this time the flying messengers in Rev. xiv, began to draw these jewels
out into a clear place by themselves, (the Philadelphia state of the
church,) saying, behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him! As
soon as the disapointment came in Oct. 1844, then your counterfeit coin
and immense quantities of spurious jewels (hypocrites and unbelievers)
were seen as you saw, scattered among the genuine. Here you felt the great
responsibility of the doctrine you had been propogating, and proclaimed
that our work for the world was done, and you was grieved to see that so
few of the great multitude which had appeared delighted with your
doctrine, really believed it. Hence you became “vexed in your very soul,
and began to use physical force to _push them out_.” Here, I think is
where you changed your views and course, in the spring of 1845, and united
with those that have been increasing three to one, as you saw, bringing in
dirt, and sand, and shavings and all manner of rubbish and covered up both
the genuine and false jewels and diamonds, &c. These I think represent the
false doctrine, since 1844, mixed up with almost every thing, and from
every where, calling the honest and confiding children of God almost any
thing but their true names; thus covering them up with, as you saw, dirt,
sand, shavings, and rubbish of all kinds; at the same time so covering up
also the spurious coin, (false teachers) that nothing of them, or of that
beauty and glory that was so apparent a little while since, can now as it
were, be seen, breaking in pieces your casket (the word of God) and
trampling it also under foot. Just look at the Sabbath controversy, for
one item, and the daubing with untempered mortar, this all absorbing
subject of Christ coming to Judgment, and compare it with Ezek. xxxiv
chapter, particularly the 21, 22 and 31st verses, and surely it will be
admitted that “the Dream is certain and the interpretation thereof sure.”
And whereas thou sawest a man enter the room with a dirt brush and open
the windows to cleanse it of its filthiness at which time all the people
passed out. The spurious coins also arose and passed out of the windows.
The room was then cleansed of all its rubbish. All the genuine diamonds,
precious coin and jewels, even to those not larger than the point of a
pin, were collected, and beautifully arranged in another casket, which,
when the man called you to look into, caused you to shout with very joy.
“Know therefore and understand;” that in _this day_ of atonement, while
our Great High Priest is cleansing the sanctuary, (blotting out his
people’s sins,) preparing his jewels (Mal. iii: 17) of all sizes to enter
the splendid and most glorious mansions in the New Jerusalem, which he
promised them, John xiv. And whereas thou wast not shown in thy dream, how
the first casket was prepared, that being unnecessary, as thine own
experience for the last few years would clearly come into thy mind, which,
when compared with our history, brought to view in the xiv chapter of Rev.
particularly 6-11 verses, would show thee how it was done. And the oneness
of the angel or messenger in performing this first work, will help thee to
understand, how the man (or messenger) which thou sawest enter the room
will also be distinctly seen; since our great disappointment in Oct. 1844,
operating under the divine guidance of the word and spirit, as far as can
be seen through the gross darkness and infidelity that is becoming more
and more manifest; through all of their instrumentalities, such as prayer,
exhortation, visiting, comforting, writing, especially epistolary
correspondence, and all other proper means to ascertain the whereabouts,
and the number of the scattered sheep of the house of Israel: even the
most lonely and most despised.
Wait patiently therefore and watch, remembering what God has taught in
these last few years respecting the clear fulfillment of his word in our
experience, and the perfect harmony we are now _made_ to see in _place_,
_manner_ and _time_, for every point. As he had distinctly taught us, viz.
“Which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.” “A time for all things.”
“Every thing on his day.” “Not one jot or tittle of the law to fail,” even
_the thoughts of God towards us to be perfectly considered in the latter_
(or last) _days_.—Jer. xxiii: 20. As therefore it required the space of a
few years to arrange and develope the first casket, so then here likewise
must be _order_ and _time_ to cleanse, prepare, and properly arrange, the
second casket, by the same kind of instruments.
And whereas thou didst cry to him to forbear for fear he would injure the
precious jewels, and he replied fear not, I will take care of them; that
is, those that are “keeping the commandments of God and the faith of
Jesus,” will not injure the jewels (their brethren) for they will act in
harmonious concert, under the new commandments of their officiating great
high priest and king.
Your cry to forbear, looks ominous of further resistance and as for any of
your assistance in collecting, cleansing and arranging the jewels of the
Lord of hosts (the last casket,) it looks still more dubious, as it seems
you kept your eyes closed (in a quiet state,) until the jewels were all
arranged. This is the reason why you did not see the pains that the man
(or messenger) took in arranging them.
This I fear, that you will not open your eyes to see this important work
until the sealing time, and God speaks himself; but I cannot but still
hope that your “shout for very joy,” will be one of triumph and
redemption.
Several nights before I saw your dream, I had finished writing your
letter, I presented the subject of my work before the Lord again, for
wisdom to direct me in all that I had, or may write for the benefit of his
children, and the vindication of his word. And that I may do so, I asked
for a dream, vision, or any way that was consistent with his will to
instruct me. The next thing, as near as I can now recollect, was the
following
Dream.
A great tumult behind me, with corresponding commotion in the
heavens, so fully confirmed me that the Lord Jesus was coming,
that I began to sing and rejoice; very soon the people began to
assemble around me. They wanted to hear my opinion about the
coming of the Lord. I felt no spirit of communication; my work
seemed to be done, except to answer a few questions put to me by
one or two out of a great number of backslidden adventists that
seemed to be engaged in almost _any_ thing but the work of God.
This scene soon changed, and I was in meeting with a large
assembly of worshippers. The speaker arose and pointed to a man
that he said was under _conviction_; he seemed very anxious that I
should see him. The congregation seemed to have a oneness with the
speaker looking at him and myself. I looked, and although the
man’s head was resting on the railing of the seat, I perceived
that it was an old neighbor of mine, who had lived and _died_ a
Universalist, several years ago. The preacher’s theme, and whole
labor, was, look! behold! this man is under _conviction_! I
thought if they knew the man as well as I did, their wonder would
soon cease. No other effect was produced, by this effort, other
than to remind me of the extra exertions that had been made by the
leading professed adventists since the spring of 1845, to prove
that God was converting souls under their labors. Here the scene
changed again, the house was cleared, and the seats laid away. The
room now appeared very large, with a high stage at one end, on
which I was standing with an instrument like a mallet in my hand,
knocking off the top of a large box. A few spectators on one side,
and a large fleshy man, the owner of the box, on the other,
apparently very unwilling for me to open it. But it seemed a clear
duty that I was fully authorized to examine all contraband goods,
and therefore there was no resistance. As the top of the box flew
off, this man eagerly seized two or three bottles apparently
filled with water and hugged them close to him, silently waiting
the result of the examination. The box was about one-third full of
what appeared to be wooden feet and legs—it seemed as though they
were painted idols. Among them was a very large glazed wide rimmed
hat, with the hatters block fitted into it. I looked up to the man
and exclaimed! what in the world did you smuggle this hat with a
block of wood in it, in here for. The man still grasping the
bottles, (I have thought emblematical of the water of life,)
darted away to the east end of the room, and entered what appeared
to me a closet door painted light blue, from which I could
discover no light. Now, dear sir, as I have candidly, and
prayerfully attempted to interpret your dream, will you write the
interpretation of mine, and receive my love and earnest desire for
your perfect reconciliation with God, and all his precious jewels
in the last casket.