“Well, father, I believe there is a great deal of truth in their statements, for there certainly is a wonderful difference in our camp and conference meetings, to what there used to be, for if any one shouts glory to God, now, as they used to in ’43 and ’44, it seems as if the whole meeting was agitated, until it is ascertained that it is one of the deluded ones, it seems as though they hardly dare say amen, either because they do not believe what you say, or for fear they shall be called _fanatics_. You know how they tried you and how hard you talked to them about it in the conference in Boston, last spring. You thought it was because they had no religion. And then the camp meeting too, at Lake Champlain; I suppose the most of them thought that you were going to prove that the door was shut, and that the past was true; and a good many of them might still have thought so, if elder Marsh had not taken it up and called forth your explanation, in his paper of Sept 28th. For my part, I don’t really understand all these things—that as soon as you begin to advocate the past truths in any of our meetings, these editors are either writing or visiting you to explain it more fully in their papers, and then neither party seems to be satisfied. If I were you, I would take a strait-forward course, and try to please God, if I could not any one else.”
“Well, my son, you know that these two editors have stood by me ever since 1842, and as for elder Himes, he has stood by me and been my warm and fast friend all these last seven years of joy and trials, and I cannot separate from him. No, I have told him that I would sustain him and his paper if I had to carry down our ‘_potatoes to Boston_,’ to raise the means. You see I must stand by him, and he and brother Marsh will defend and justify my course and views of bible doctrine; and defend my character from the aspersions of my enemies, and gladly publish any thing I have to say against the _Door Shutters_, &c.”
“Yes, yes—I know all that, father, but some how or other, these things do not look right. You began with a strait-forward bible course, and it cut like a sword with two edges, and that is the reason why these door shutters, &c., as you call them, believed your testimony, and they think there is just as much edge to the sword now as there ever was. However, you have studied the bible much more than I have, therefore I shall not dispute you, but I cannot see that this people, whom you have been to visit, are so much out of the way for venturing to go forward, after _your clear directions to them_, soon after the cry at midnight.”