The Evansville journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1834-184?, 1844-11-14
From The Picayune.
MlLLERISM.

Are we living in the same age? or is The world
inoculated with lunacy? These are questions
that force themselves on one who reads aud
hears of this antics and extravagances of which
so many in The more norIheFnly section of the
Union acting under the Miller deiusion, are
guilty. Their conduct is absolutely irreconc-
liable with the carnations OF a sound mindf
and the vast number oil persons OF both sexes, ap-
parcntly gifted with OF least ordinary common
sense and Judgment, who swell the ranks OF this
impos,er, Miller, is enough TO make us dou 1 IT
we live in the nineteenth eenlury-the boaste d
era of Intelligence and niormation-w!,sa the
right OF a eIy-difused Christian knowledge
has dispelled The cloud Of sppers.ition thar hung
over the world in the dark ages and has made
the sum of revealed religion 50 refulgent. But
lie US doubt as we may, and marvel a. we will
at the incompatISiiity OF MllferIsm with a health
v mental tone, its absurdities and influences
are too numerous to be denied, and we ouly
hope for their abatement in the strong counter
feeling which the followers of the preposterous
creed must experience when its follies and false
hoods become eveident, as they must, even to
them. This world-ending business is not orig
inoI with Parson MIlIeri several other prophets
of like pretensions have preceded him, and all
their preaching and presages to tn contrary.
this great globe is still undissolved-is whole
and habitated as the Great Architect ofNature
made it.
The following extract from Mosheim's Eccl-
esiastcal History, under the head of the Tenth
Century," which we find in the Boston Tran
script,presents a faithful III Illustration of the Mill
er doctrines among the ignorant aud unrefeting
people -
Among the opinion which took possession
Of the OF the minds of men, none occasioned
such a universal panic, nor such dreadful i'm
pressions of terror and disnlay as a notion pre-
vailed of the immediate approach of the day
OF judgement. This notion, which took its rise
from a rem arkable passage 10 the Revelations
OF St John, ana had been entertained by some
teachers in the preceding century, was advan-
ced publicly many at this time, and spreading
itself. with amazing rapidity through the Eu-
roDean provinces, il threw them into great con-
sternation and anguish. They Imagined thar
St John had clearly foretold that alter a thou
sandyears from the birth of Christ, Satan was
10 be let loose from his prison, Anti Christ to
come, aud the destruction and confa gra tion Of
the world to follow these great aud terrible -
vents Hence Prodigious numbers Of people
abandoned all the civil connections and their
paternat relatiOnsf and, giving over to the
churches and monastaries all their lands, treas
nres, and worldly effects, repaired with the ut
most precipitation 10 Palestine, where they i'm
agiHed thai Christ would descend from heaven
10 Judge the world. Others devoted themselves
by a solemn aud voluntary oath TO the service
of the churches. converts, and the priesthood
whose slaves they became in the most rigorous
sense of that worlp, performing daily heavy
tasks-and all this from a notion that the Sn-
preme Judge would diminish thsir sentence and
look upon them with n more favorable and pro-
prtious eye. Oh account OF their having mad 2
themselves the slaves of his ministers-Wheu
an eclipse of sun or moon happened to be visi-
bfe, the cities were deserted, and their misera-
bic inhabitants fed 70, refuge to caverns, and
hid themselves among the craggy rocks and IN
der the bending SUBMITS of steep mountains
The rich attempted to bribe the Deity and the
sanity tribe by rich donations conferred on the
saeradotal and H%lonastic orders, who were look
ed upon as the immediate vicegerents of Hcav-
en-. In many places, temples. places and noble
~ediices. both public and private. were suffered
10 decay; they were deliberately pulled down.
from a notion that they were M longer of any
use, since the final dissolution of all things was
al hand. In a word, no language is sufficient
to express the confusion and despair tlat o men
ted the minds OF these miserrble mOrtals on this
oce asinn.-Ths general delu>ion wos indeed
opposed and combatod by the discerning few.
who endeavorea TO dispel these groundless. ter
roIs. and 10 efface the notions from which they
arose., IN the minds OF the people. But their at
tempts were inFfiectnal; nor could tfe apprehen
sions OF the superstitioHs multitude be entirely
removed before the end of this century. Then,
when they saw that the so much dreaded peri
cd had passed Without the arrival of any great
calamity, they began to understand that st john
had not fortold what they so much scared.
We cannon close this article without congra-
III lating our ~citizens OF the South thai they have
not permitted Themselves to be duped by the
shallow and nlitersse imposfors who propagate
Millerism. They hive several times attempted
10 nuke converts in this city, but, thanks to the
intelligence OF oui; people. not one was won
over 10 ihr %delnsioD, nor made a believer, in.
the imposture, But perhaps their i%ncrcdulity
may be sttsiSnted 10 Southern ignorance!