The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-11
"sEooND-ADyBErp FANATIC1sM.

diffused by a part of the pious world, at one
time or another, regarding the second coming
of Christ, makes a brief reference to the most
conspicuous of them apt enough to attract a
little intelligent interest. There has been no
age since the days of the apostles without be-
levers in the speedy advent Of the Savior and
the accompanying millennium. Sometimes
they have been numerous enough to form dis
bear the general conservatism Of the church
and of Christendom. Little was known or
said of any of them, however, till within the
last fifty years. Twenty years ago Rev. Mr..
Cummings, of London, held a conspicuous
position in the religious world as the
champion of a second-advent faith that diff
fered from the earlier one of Rev. VIM. Miller,
of this country, only in assigning no definite
time for the great catastrophe. The recent
notion that it would occur on the first of this
year, and the disappointment of believers in
the East, who had made ready their ''ascen-
sion robes and settled their worldly affairs, is
even yet almost fresh news. But the great
movement, if it can be called SO, Of the
Second Adventists was in the latter half of
1912 and the first few months Of 1843.
For ten years Rev. William Miller, of Mas
sachusetts, had been teaching the speedy Sec
ond coming of Christ. He had studied the
prophecies and all attainable literature bear
ing on the subject, and devised a mode Of in
depreciation Of the mysterious or obscure
outgivings of the prophets, which assured
him that the world was to wind up for the
millennial period in l843. Further study
enabled him to announce, with confidence,
that it would occur in the spring Of the year,
and a final and exhaustive revision of his
calculations fixed the time in April. The allie
gorical descriptions Of the Apocalypse, the
many-horned beast, the angelwith walls. and
others, but especially Daniels 'times, times
and a half" as the limit to the period of
wonder" declared by "the man clothed in
linen, which was upon the waters of the
river" were the main dependence of these
pregnant interpretations. No man could re-
flute them by more plausible constructions or
closer calculations. AS the fellow said Of
the Garden of Eden containing one hundred
and sixty acres, nobody could prove from
the Bible that it wasn't So" The novelty,
the deepening interest as the fateful time
drew on, the sincere faith of many, made
such a time of religious excitement as had
never been seen in the West, at least since
the great Cane Ridge revival in Kentucky,
early in this century, and that was local and
narrow to the range of the Millerite excite
ment.
A revival 'sraged" in all the churches in
indianapolis. More converts were made that
winter and spring than were ever made in the
State, in the same number of people, in five
times the period. Not that many or any be-
lieved in the Millerite notion, but that notion
stirred a breadth and depth of interest that
drew into it's current hundreds who gave it
little heed and no credence. Several mis-
s~ionaries of no little ability, specially in
structed in this subject, came to the city,
and drew large audiences at the different
churches they occupied. The recent "His-
tory Of the City and County" says, that zone
dreary, d~rizzling Sunday night, one of the
most eloquent Of these Second Advent mis-
sionaries preached in the Lutheran Church,
southeast corner of Meridian and Ohio streets.
and dwelt particularly on the accompanying
phenomena of the advent, the p~ortents in the
heavens, the fire consuming the earth, and
cession of fervid prayers, and dismissed the
audience to the damp and darkness outside
only to throw some of the weak-nerved into
a still wilder excitement, from a lurid glow
covering all the western sky, as if the world
over that way were really on ire-the effect,
as it turned out, of the burning of some large
stacks of hemp on the west side of the river,
a little north of where HaughsSille is now"
A good many of the believers in what was
usually called "Millerism'' gave it all their soul
and strength. A Mrs. Sanders, wife of an old
farmer south Of the city, on what is now
Shelby street, made her ascension robes"
and frequently went out Of a night to the
fields to wait for the coming Of the Lord, with
no other dress. Some men were said to have
sold their property and quit business. A
wealthy farmer, southeast of town, by the
name of Hobart, a man of considerable ma
tive poetical genius, a leading Baptist of the
county, became so infatuated that when the
day came and the Lord didn't, he went off to
the Ohio Shakers, gave them all or part Of his