Not only Mr. Miller, but all who were in his confidence, took a decided position against all fanatical extravagances. They never gave them any quarter; while those who regarded them with favor soon arrayed themselves against Mr. Miller and his adherents. Their fanaticism increased; and though opposed by Mr. Miller and his friends, the religious and secular press very generally, but unjustly, connected his name with it; he being no more responsible for it than Luther and Wesley were for similar manifestations in their day.

CHAPTER XVII.

EMOTIONS IN VIEW OF THE ADVENT NEAR — HOME OF MR. MILLER TOUR INTO WESTERN NEW YORK HIS PERSONAL APPEARADDRESS TO ALL DENOMINATIONS VISIT TO WASHING

ANCE
TON, ETC.

THE state of the cause at this time, and the state of mind produced by the belief of the Advent near, was very truthfully and impartially depicted by Rev. Alexander Campbell, President of Bethany College, Va., in the following article, copied from the "Millennial Harbinger."

"As time advances, the doctrine of the Second Advent in 1843 gains new interest, and grasps with a stronger hold the minds of all who assent to its strong probability. This is just what we expected and predicted since first we heard its annunciation. Excitement keeps pace with every new convert, and consequently has not yet reached its proper height. The ardently pious and strongly imaginative proclaimers of the world's immediate end, in their untiring efforts to propagate the opinion in such a community as this, cannot fail to influence thousands, and to inflame their zeal to the highest enthusiasm. What topic more sublime, more soul-subduing, more delightful to the Christian, than that of the Lord's glorious return to judge the world, to reward his friends and punish his enemies? Talk they of sublime themes! Methinks the most sublime of all that earth and time afford are the veriest commonplaces compared with this.

"Many sincere and conscientious spirits are already enrolled amongst its advocates, and some of them are not only sincere, but pure, and noble, and amiable Christians. These are the great apostles of the theory, to whose virtues and excellences the cause is mainly indebted for its comparative success. Its temples are festooned with Christian charity. Its altars are covered with the garlands and wreaths of piety and humanity. Its priests wear the coronal of elevated sanctity, and its votaries are from necessity all more learned in the symbols of prophecy than those who oppose them.

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Everything in society is now favorable to the rapid propagation of the new theory. The prevailing ignorance of the Bible, and especially of prophecy, on the part of many who declaim against 'Millerism,' and the unfortunate essays of learned men in their zeal for old opinions, so far transcending the oracles of reason and the canons of common sense, have contributed no little to advance into public favor the doctrine of the Second Advent near.' Amongst these essays may stand first that of Professor Stuart, whose high attainments in biblical learning I highly appreciate. That essay, already trumpeted by a thousand voices, republished in various forms by distinguished preachers and writers from Boston to Cincinnati,-by the Colvers, the Stows, and the Mahans of this land, has greatly aided 'THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES' and 'THE MIDNIGHT CRIES' of the new school of prophetic expositors.

"But more than any other individual cause have the profane scoffings, falsehoods, and caricatures of the religious and political press, in opposition to the doctrine of the 'Second Advent near,' contributed to confirming the minds of the initiated in the pleasing hope, and to the furnishing of their preachers with new signs of the times' in arguing the certainty of their opinions. If Noah, Daniel, and Job, had reäppeared in the person of friend Miller, and uttered the oracles of the Lord, they would have been derided, slandered, misrepresented, and denounced as disturbers of the peace of the world's giddy dance, and troublers of the modern Israel in her one hundred and one fractions of orthodox proscription, just as Mr. Miller and his party have been.

"Another reason of the assurance of the faith in the minds of those who are true believers of the doctrine, is the delightful state of mind into which they feel themselves inducted through the new theory. Every righteous man must feel an exquisite pleasure in the strongly anticipated immediate return of his Lord. What possible event could be hailed with such overwhelming joy as the end of this sindistracted and convulsed world, and the beginning of a new creation, in which, as Christians, all hope to participate? New heavens, illumined with an unsetting sun of ineffable glory, spangled with stars brighter far than our present sun; a new earth, surrounded with an immortal atmosphere, filled with unfading freshness, sweetness, and beauty, decorated with charms incomparably superior to those of Eden and its ancient Paradise, animated too with the presence of nature's eternal and immortal King and his celestial train, the eternal home of the saints, where 'sin and sorrow, pain and death, are felt and feared no more.' I say, who would not gladly exchange a sin-emaciated face, a shattered constitution, sown thick with the seeds of death, for a spiritual and immortal frame; a shipwrecked earth, filled with unquenchable fires, convulsed with interminable agonies, and covered with floods of water that have washed and drenched its deeply furrowed face with a thousand mountains and valleys, for a new earth never to be trodden by the profane foot of a solitary prodigal, nor marred by the unsanctified touch of a rebel hand, during the ceaseless ages of eternity!

"None on earth are more to be envied than those happy spirits who are wrought up, or have wrought themselves up, to the full persuasion that in one short year, a little less or more, and they shall most certainly realize all this. Methinks to such the year 1843 will pass along with dreams of felicity and sweet antepasts of blessedness, whose remembrance will, in years to come, be as the delightful oasis in a parched desert, as the vision of a Paul caught away into the celestial Paradise, into the purer climes of the third heavens. And all this, too, without even the parting pang which nature feels when 'shuffling off this mortal coil,' and bidding a long adieu to those we leave behind. For in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, perhaps during some prayer or song of praise, while in the midst of a mono

syllable, one half uttered in time, the other in eternity, the first accent from a mortal, the second from an immortal tongue, crystallized into a gem in less than time's shortest mark or minutest point,- we have passed the bourn of mortality, and are found dwelling not in houses of clay, founded in the dust, but in a house from heaven, spiritual, incorruptible, immortal, and glorious. And all this, too, I repeat, without the pain of parting from one we love. We cast not one longing, lingering look behind.' None are left we care anything about. Nature, flesh, and all earth's associations, are forever left without one single feeling that time or sense endear. What a mysterious, delightful, ineffable moment that in which mortality is swallowed up in life; in which we obtain beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; in which we part from sin, and sorrow, and woe, and find ourselves at home in the presence of the Lord, in the bosom of his love, surrounded with all the sons of light, with the riches and glory of the New Jerusalem temple, thronged with the great hierarchs and kings of all the dominions of Eternity! Who, of the Christian family, would not rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, that in a few months all this should transpire, and that without the least of all the agonies of death;-perhaps fall asleep some night, and awaken glorified in the presence of the Lord, hearing, with an immortal ear, the last echo of the grave-opening, bodyreänimating, soul-transforming sound of the archangel's trumpet!

"No doctrine, then, more cheering than that of 'the Second Advent near;' no opinion produces a more delightful state of mind."

In the interval between Mr. Miller's return from Boston to his home at Low Hampton and the recommencement of his public labors, he was visited by his dearly beloved friend, the late Elder Nathaniel Southard, who wrote as follows of

THE HOME OF WILLIAM MILLER.

"It was Saturday forenoon when we passed over the rough road, and stopped at a one-storied house, where a post-office

is kept. It is the residence of William S., oldest son of Bro. Miller, P. M., at the office, which, for distinction, is called Low Hampton. He was not at home; but one of his little daughters told us the residence of her grandfather was in sight on the hill. Without waiting for her to point it out, I easily recognized it from previous description — among the good-looking farm-houses in sight. It was not the largest or handsomest. The back part of it only, which is painted red, could be seen. It is two stories high. The northern front and ends are painted white. On the way we passed the small plain meeting-house of the Baptist church to which Bro. M. belongs.

"At the gate of his hospitable mansion we met a young man in a wagon, with crutches by his side, whose round open countenance showed him to be a son of William Miller. He gave us a cordial invitation to enter. Three visitors were already in the house, to whom myself, wife and child, being added, made a number which we feared would be burdensome. We soon found ourselves perfectly at home, though we had never before seen one of the family but its venerable head.

"The next day five other visitors arrived, one of whom was a lady from Iowa, and three from Vergennes. The day was very stormy. We went to the place of worship, and found a congregation consisting of fewer persons than we left at the house. The preacher, Bro. Increase Jones, gave a plain, practical sermon on the text, The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.' In the afternoon we opened the Scriptures, and tried to pursue the apostolic method in speaking of Jesus and the resurrection.

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"On our way from the meeting, after referring to the number of guests, we asked Robbins if they usually had as much

company.

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Pretty nigh,' said he; 'I wish I had kept count of the number of visitors for the last six months.'

"Did they come in such numbers when Bro. Miller was sick?' we inquired.

"It seemed to make but little difference,' he replied. "We just then passed by the open carriage gate into the spacious enclosure at the west end of the house.

It seemed to be the hardest task,' he proceeded, 'to