[80] 1 Pet. 1:4, 5. [81] 2 Tim. 4:8. [82] Ps. 17:15. [83] Matt. 25:34. [84] Luke 20:36. [85] The great sin of this time evidently was the disposition of the leading men in the cause to draw back from the clear position, powerful work, and deep experience, of the time movement. They were disappointed and greatly embarrassed. And, instead of patiently waiting for God to open to their minds the great sanctuary question in his own good time, they impatiently and rashly cast away their confidence in the work of God, and abandoned themselves to the fearful work described in the following prophetic exhortation of Paul: “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10:35-39. The application of this exhortation is so very natural and forcible that it will hardly be called in question. It was a fearful time. Satan was in a most powerful manner attaching the fancies and extravagances of fanaticism to the only true and correct position. This made the gulf between the two parties still wider. Both in their extreme positions hurt each other. The course of those who were drawing back filled the other with terror, while their extremes in turn confirmed the more prudent that to draw back was the only safe position. In such a position, with God’s frown upon them, he could not bless their associated efforts at the Albany Conference to rise above existing elements of confusion, and shake off the reproach that was being brought upon the second advent cause. Associated action, upon proper ground, has been right in all periods of the Christian church; but that work at the Albany Conference proved itself not of God, in that it has, in the main, come to nought. The present condition of the surviving leaders in that compact to facilitate a grand march into Egypt, and who drew Mr. Miller in a degree into their confederacy, is indeed deplorable. But that faithful man of God, with the weight of years, and the feebleness of the terrible strain of labors upon him, could not be induced to deny the hand of God in the advent movement, to which he had confidingly devoted all. J. W.