Chapter 17—Opposers of the Truth
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See Appendix.
]
I was shown the case of Stephenson and Hall of Wisconsin. I saw
that while we were in Wisconsin, in June, 1854, they were convicted
that the visions were of God; but they examined them and compared
them with their views of the age to come, and because the visions did
not agree with these, they sacrificed the visions for the Age-to-Come.
And while on their journey East, last spring, they both were wrong
and designing. They have stumbled over the Age-to-Come, and they
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are ready to take any course to injure the Review; its friends must be
awake and do what they can to save the children of God from deception.
These men are uniting with a lying and corrupt people. They have
had evidence of this. And while they were professing sympathy and
union with my husband, they (especially Stephenson) were biting like
an adder behind his back. While their words were smooth with him,
they were inflaming Wisconsin against the Review and its conductors.
Especially was Stephenson active in this matter. Their object has been
to have the Review publish the Age-to-Come theory, or to destroy its
influence. And while my husband was openhearted and unsuspecting,
seeking ways to remove their jealousy, and frankly opening to them
the affairs of the office, and trying to help them, they were watching
for evil, and observing everything with a jealous eye. Said the angel
as I beheld them: “Think ye, feeble man, that ye can stay the work of
God? Feeble man, one touch of His finger can lay thee prostrate. He
will suffer thee but a little while.”
I was pointed back to the rise of the advent doctrine, and even
before that time, and saw that there had not been a parallel to the
deception, misrepresentation, and falsehood that has been practiced
by the Messenger party, or such an association of corrupt hearts under
a cloak of religion. Some honest hearts have been influenced by them,
concluding that they must have at least some cause for their statements,
thinking them incapable of uttering so glaring falsehoods. I saw that
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