Many valuable essays in opposition to the views of Mr. Miller were published by Professors Moses Stuart, D.D., Enoch Pond, D.D., Rev. John Dowling and others, but with little avail. The deluded ones were in no condition to be aided by argument; dissent and objections they construed as persecution. The day was fixed (April 23, 1843,) for the world to end, but it passed quietly by with no remarkable phenoinena. When a confession of a mistake was looked for the pride of opinion for a time held them back, but, forced at length to a partial acknowledgment, they admitted a slight mistake, and said the event would take place in the end rather than the beginning of the Jewish year, which would be March 22, 1844." An intelligent observer said: The specified day came, as calm and bright a harbinger of spring as ever shone upon the earth. The Son of man did not appear in the clouds of heaven. The lecturers kept on lecturing, and the publication of their books and periodicals did not cease. They fixed upon September of that year as the crisis, and when September passed, they concluded that 1847 must be the time, because chronologers varied in their system of dates. Finally the excitement ended. Some returned to their vocations, some to the churches, some became infidels, and others passed over into the belief of materialism, annihilationism, etc. A Radical Departure. A radical departure occurred in the infancy of the movement, inaugurated by Rev. Geo. Storrs, formerly of the Methodist Episcopal Church. While he was preaching in Albany, N. Y., as early as 1842 he published a pamphlet setting forth the doctrine of the final annihilation of the wicked. Subsequently he embraced the doctrine of the pre-millennial advent of Christ as held by Mr. Miller, and sought affiliation with him. He was received, and improved his position by disseminating his annihilation opinions throughout almost the entire body of Adventists. He published a monthly serial in Philadelphia, and also in New York city for a number of years, devoted to the advocacy of his peculiar opinions, among which the following are the most prominent : 1. A denial of the existence of the human soul as a distinct entity. 2. A denial of conscious existence between death and the resurrection. 3. That the wicked will be annihilated after general judgment. 4. And at some period Mr. Storrs was accredited with the disbelief of the resurrection of the wicked.· The "Materialistic Adventists" are sometimes divided into two classes: the "Christian Adventists" and "Seventh-Day Adventists." RESULTS OF SKEPTICAL THOUGHT. 321 CHAPTER VII. SKEPTICISM, SOCIALISM, ETC. SEC. 1. Radical Doubt. 1 SEC. 2. Socialism. IT Section 1.-Radical Doubt. T has been stated in these pages that the great revival of 17991803 broke the sway of French infidelity so prevalent during the twenty years previous, and ushered in a new era of spiritual life and religious faith. But skeptical habits were so deeply fastened upon many individuals and some communities that a considerable time elapsed before they were thrown off. Virginia, Kentucky and some portions of New York suffered the longest. Bishop Meade, who was consecrated to the work of the Christian ministry in 1818, at Williamsburg, Va., the scat of William and Mary College, of which Bishop Madison was then president, has represented the moral and religious condition of eastern Virginia at that time as most deplorable. On my way to the old church the Bishop and myself met a number of students with guns on their shoulders and dogs at their sides, attracted by the frosty morning, which was favorable to the chase; and at the same time one of the citizens was filling his ice-house. On arriving at the church we found it in a wretched condition, with broken windows and a gloomy, comfortless aspect. The congregation consisted of two ladies and fifteen gentlemen, nearly all of whom were relatives or acquaintances. . . . The religious condition of the college and of the place may be inferred. I was informed, that not long before this, two questions were discussed in a literary society of the college. First, Whether there be a God? Secondly, Whether the Christian religion had been injurious or beneficial to mankind? Infidelity was then rife in the State, and the College of William and Mary was regarded as the hot-bed of French politics and religion. I can truly say that then, and for some time after, in every educated young man in Virginia whom I met I expected to find a skeptic, if not an avowed unbeliever.* In 1802 Rev. Seth Payson, D.D., of Rindge, N. H., published a volume entitled Proofs of the Existence and Dangerous Tendency of *The Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia. By Bishop William Meade, D. D. Philadelphia. 1857. J. B. Lippincott & Co. Vol. I, pp. 29, 30. Modern "Illuminism." To render their opposition to Christianity the more effective the French and German infidels had formed secret societies, the members of which were called "the Illuminati." It was believed that such societies existed in this country, aiming at the overthrow of the Church and civil government. This volume was intended as a warning. It was not until some years after the century opened that the moral darkness and infidelity that long prevailed in western New York were dissipated. JE, agent for the Holland Land Company, exerted a very pernicious and disastrous influence. He disregarded the Sabbath, and was opposed to all religious institutions. The whole surrounding region was long noted for its irreligion. It was a common remark that the Sabbath had not found its way across the Genesee River. An infidel club was early formed, and by them a circulating library, containing the works of Voltaire, Volney, Hume and Paine, was established. * Early missionaries along Lake Erie and as far west as Cleveland, Ohio, in 1808 and 1810, reported: "Infidelity abounds to an alarming degree, and in various shapes." "Here Satan keeps his strongholds." "Infidelity here walks in brazen front." + It has been before noticed that at the close of the last century a majority of the inhabitants of Kentucky were reported to be infidels. The services of a chaplain in the Legislature were dispensed with a measure significant of the kind of sentiment in the ascendency, and the Transylvania University, founded by the Presbyterians, passed under the control of skeptics. Not one of its trustees, at one time early in this century, was a religious man, but all were skeptical about religion. Rev. Dr. Holley, a gentleman of superior classical attainments, but an extreme Socinian, was elected to the presidency in 1817. His sermons were described as but "little better than eloquent deism, with the gilding of Christian phraseology. Public opinion began to be freely expressed. It found new provocation in the publication of the 'Transylvania theses,' or Latin exercises of the students, which showed only too plainly that the rationalistic views of the president were bearing fruit in the minds of his pupils. . . . His lessons in morals may be judged from his address to the students: 'Young gentlemen, whatever you find within you, cherish it, for it is a part of your nature; restrain it not.' ། *History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, Philadelphia. Vol. II, p. 109. Ilid. Vol. II, p. 110. | Ibid. Vol. II, p. 300. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 421. By Rev. E. H. Gillett, D.D. DOUBTERS. "Three Doubting Thomases." 323 The lives of some of the apostles of doubt in the previous century were protracted into the nineteenth century. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Cooper and Thomas Paine have been described as "born democrats and social revolutionists. Their opposition to the Church was largely the result of their iconoclastic natures. The first was the political, the second the scientific, and the third the social representative of the contemporary Anti-Christian movement. The first was influential by reason of his political station as President of the Republic; the second by reason of his office as educator; the third in consequence of his early and ardent advocacy of the cause of American independence. On one occasion Mr. Jefferson sent a government vessel to France to convey Mr. Paine to this country as the nation's guest."* The skeptical influence of these three men was felt during the first quarter of this century. Mr. Jefferson died in 1826, after having occupied the most prominent positions in the nation for about fifty years. Early in life a politician and an unbeliever of the French school, his religious opinions were subsequently modified under the influence of Rev. Joseph Priestley, with whom he became intimate after the removal of the latter to America. In later years Mr. Jefferson was much like Mr. Priestley, a humanitarian of the more radical Socinian type, his sympathies never becoming enlisted with the historic religion. † Mr. Cooper died in 1840, in South Carolina. Born in England, he early became a devoted student of natural science and law. Entering into the political agitations of the period, we have noticed him as a member of the English democratic societies. He was sent as their representative to "the affiliated clubs" of France, and took part with the Girondists, but, apprehending their downfall, he escaped to England; where he was censured for his course by Mr. Burke in the House of Commons. He followed his friend Priestley to America and settled in Pennsylvania as a lawyer. Uniting with the democrats of that day he vigorously opposed the administration of President Adams. For a violent attack upon Mr. Adams in a Pennsylvania newspaper, in 1799, he * Paper on American Infidelity, read before the Evangelical Alliance, New York city, October, 1873. by Rev. W. F. Warren, D.D., LL.D., President of Boston University. Harper Brothers, 1874, p. 250. In 1858 A Life of Hon. Thomas Jefferson, by Henry S. Randall, LL.D., was published (New York, Derby & Jackson, 3 vols., 8vo.), affording a fuller view of his private character than any other work. It is especially full of details in regard to his habits, conversations, etc., in his later years, giving an exhibit of his maturest thoughts. It is evident that his religious opinions underwent a considerable change. See pp. 319, 320 of this volume. was convicted of libel, fined, and imprisoned six months. He subsequently held positions as land commissioner and judge, but was removed from the latter position for arbitrary conduct. He then successively occupied professorships in several leading colleges. He has been described as "a vigorous pamphleteer in various. political contests and an admirable conversationalist. In philosophy he was a materialist, and in religion a free-thinker." In these institutions he exerted a large skeptical influence over numerous classes of young men. The last of the trio was the most notorious of them all. Mr. Paine came to the United States in 1774, where he took a lively interest in the Revolution. He went to England in 1787, and soon after to France, where his Age of Reason was published in 17941795. In 1802 he returned to America, where he died in 1809. In venturing to discuss the question of revealed religion he attempted to navigate a sea in which he showed gross ignorance of the Bible. In this last period of his life he exhibited the ripe and loathsome fruitage of a long life of corrupt seed-sowing, running down to the lowest depths of moral degradation † and dying a horrid death. ‡ * See p. 320. + Laborious attempts have been made to vindicate Mr. Paine's character, by Robert G. Ingersoll, O. B. Frothingham, and others. The latter said: "There was a soul of faith in him; and in these days he would take rank with our beloved Theodore Parker." "All the gravest charges against him have been utterly disproved, and have fallen to the ground. We have left the memory of a man full of zeal for God and for humanity." Lecture in Horticultural Hall, Boston, January, 1870, upon the "Beliefs of Unbelievers." But Hon. Gouverneur Morris, who personally knew him well, wrote from Sainport, France, June 25, 1793: “At present, I am told, he is besotted from morning to night. He is so completely down that he would be punished if he were not despised." Letter to Hon. Robert Morris. In another letter from Sainport to Hon. Thomas Jefferson, March 6, 1794, he said of Paine: "In the best of times he had a larger share of every other sense than common sense; and I tely the intemperate use of ardent spirits has, I am told, considerably impaired the small stock which he originally possessed." Life of Gouverneur Morris. Vol. III, p. 46, etc. A writer in a leading secular paper described the later period of his life: "He was a sight to behold; a confirmed drunkard, a notorious liar, a profane wretch, so drunk, so profane, so filthy, that no decent person could remain with him; and, as he had abandoned Madame Bonneville (with whom he eloped from Paris), with kicks and curses, he had no companion but an old black woman, who was as drunk and as filthy as himself, and the casual visitor would find Paine and the negress dead drunk upon the floor." "In 1804 he returned to New York city. But he was so filthy that no one would keep him, and, with tears, to an old Welshman, Paine cried out, 'No one will take me in.' This Welshman had compassion on the miserable old man ; dragged him out of a low tavern, put him in a tub of hot water, and scraped this prophet of infidelity until the dirt peeled off of him. But Paine soon became too much for the Welshman, and he had to turn him off. He approached the close of his life one of the dirtiest, most drunken, brutal, profane, indecent, impure, blasphemous mortals that any age endured-houseless, penniless, friendless," See the Life of Rev. Stephen Grillett, an honored minister among the Friends, and Lives of the Roman Catholic Bishops. Vol. I, pp. 379-385. |