Visiting the Brethren
95
to tremble. I saw that she had acted the hypocrite, professing holiness
while her heart was full of corruption.
After I came out of vision, I related with trembling, yet with faith-
fulness, what I had seen. The woman calmly said: “I am glad the Lord
knows my heart. He knows that I love Him. If my heart could only be
opened that you might see it, you would see that it is pure and clean.”
The minds of some were unsettled. They did not know whether
to believe what the Lord had shown me, or to let appearance weigh
against the testimony I had borne.
Not long after this, terrible fear seized the woman. A horror rested
upon her, and she began to confess. She even went from house to
house among her unbelieving neighbors, and confessed that the man
she had been living with for years was not her husband, that she ran
away from England, and left a kind husband and one child. Many other
wicked acts she confessed. Her repentance seemed to be genuine, and
in some cases she restored what she had taken wrongfully.
As a result of this experience, our brethren and sisters in Camden,
and their neighbors, were fully established in the belief that God had
revealed to me the things which I had spoken, and that the message
was given them in mercy and love, to save them from deception and
dangerous error.
In Vermont
In the spring of 1850 we decided to visit Vermont and Maine. I left
my little Edson, then nine months old, in the care of Sister Bonfoey,
[134]
while we went on our way to do the will of God. We labored very
hard, suffering many privations to accomplish but little. We found
the brethren and sisters in a scattered and confused state. Almost
everyone was affected by some error, and all seemed zealous for
their own opinions. We often suffered intense anguish of mind in
meeting with so few who were ready to listen to Bible truth, while
they eagerly cherished error and fanaticism. We were obliged to make
a tedious route of forty miles by stage to get to Sutton, the place of our
appointment.