On being asked where his residence was, and what was his occupation, he replied, "I am a traveller, and my legal residence is Zion Hill, Westchester county, New York; I am a Jewish teacher and priest of the Most High, saying and doing all that I do, under oath, by virtue of my having subscribed to all the covenants that God hath made with man from the beginning up to this time. I am chief high priest of the Jews of the order of Melchizedec, being the last chosen of the twelve apostles, and the first in the resurrection which is at the end of 2300 years from the birth of Mahomet, which terminated in 1830, that being the summit of the power of the false prophets. I am now denouncing judgment on the Gentiles, and that judgment is to be executed in this age. All the blood from Zacharias till the death of the last witness is required of this generation. Before this generation passeth away, this judgment shall be executed and declared. The hour of God's judgment is come."
Matthias commenced his public career in Albany; but not making many converts there, he soon removed to the city of New York. Here he met with but little success for some time; but it appears that in the autumn of 1832, he had succeeded in ingratiating himself into the favor of a number of individuals, among whom were three of the most wealthy and respectable merchants of Pearl Street. He represented himself to them to be the Spirit of Truth, which had disappeared from the earth at the death of Matthias mentioned in the New Testament, and that the spirit of Jesus Christ entered into that Matthias whom he now represented, having risen again from the dead. This blasphemous impostor pretended to possess the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, and that he now, at his second appearance of the spirit, was the Father, and had power to do all things, forgiving sins, and communicating the Holy Ghost to such as believed on him. And what was most astonishing and unparalleled, these men, who were before professors of the Christian religion, were blind enough to believe and confide in all he imposed on them.
So completely did he succeed in deluding these men, and in impressing them with the belief that he was actually a high priest of the order of the mysterious Melchizedec, upon a divine mission to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth, that he obtained entire control over them and their estates. "I know the end of all things," he would assert, illustrating it by placing a piece of paper in a drawer, leaving one end upon the outside, and saying, "You can see but one end of the paper, and so the world sees; but I see the whole length of it--I see the end."