Sketches of the Christian life and public labors of William Miller : $b Gathered from his memoir by the late Sylvester Bliss, and from other sources — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Sketches of the Christian life and public labors of William Miller : $b Gathered from his memoir by the late Sylvester Bliss, and from other sources
John Stuart Mill · en
“‘The preachers were twelve or fifteen. Mr. Miller gave
the only regular course of lectures—the others speaking
occasionally. Many of the people, without doubt, assembled
from motives of curiosity merely; but the great body of them,
from their solemn looks and close attention to the subject,
were evidently actuated by higher and more important motives.
Each tent was under the supervision of a tent-master, who was
responsible for the good order within the same, where religious
exercises were kept up at the intermissions between the public
exercises and meals, and where lights were kept burning through
the night....
“‘Some fault was found, or dissatisfaction felt, with that
part of the regulations which precluded all controversy, _i.
e._, which prevented people of opposite theological sentiments
from occupying the time or distracting the attention of the
audience, which would otherwise have introduced confusion and
defeated the object of the meeting. Nothing could be more
reasonable than this regulation, and no peace-loving person
would make any objection.... The meeting broke up with harmony
and good feeling.’
“A few years later, a distinguished American writer and poet, J. G.
Whittier, who was present at this meeting, made the following reference
to it:—
“‘Three or four years ago, on my way eastward, I spent an
hour or two at a camp-ground of the Second Advent in East
Kingston. The spot was well chosen. A tall growth of pine and
hemlock threw its melancholy shadow over the multitude, who
were arranged upon rough seats of boards and logs. Several
hundred—perhaps a thousand—people were present, and more were
rapidly coming. Drawn about in a circle, forming a background
of snowy whiteness to the dark masses of men and foliage, were
the white tents, and back of them the provision stalls and cook
shops. When I reached the ground, a hymn, the words of which I
could not distinguish, was pealing through the dim aisles of
the forest. I know nothing of music, having neither ear nor
taste for it; but I could readily see that it had its effect
upon the multitude before me, kindling to higher intensity
their already excited enthusiasm. The preachers were placed in
a rude pulpit of rough boards, carpeted only by the dead forest
leaves and flowers, and tasselled, not with silk and velvet,
but with the green boughs of the somber hemlocks around it.
One of them followed the music in an earnest exhortation on
the duty of preparing for the great event. Occasionally he was
really eloquent, and his description of the last day had all
the terrible distinctness of Anelli’s painting of the “End of
the World.”