hat marriage vows were to be annulled when
advisable and that complete spiritual liberty was to follow; a liberty
in which a new affinity might be sought, and a spiritual union begun
upon earth, a union as nearly approximate to God's standards as faulty
human beings could manage to attain.

Some of the faithful fell away at this time, being unable to accept the
full doctrine, but retained their faith in Cochrane's original power to
convert sinners and save them from the wrath of God. Storm-clouds began
to gather in the sky however, as the delusion spread, month by month
and local ministers everywhere sought to minimize the influence of the
dangerous orator, who rose superior to every attack and carried
himself like some magnificent martyr-at-will among the crowds that now
criticized him here or there in private and in public.

"What a picture of splendid audacity he must have been," wrote Ivory,
"when he entered the orthodox meeting-house at a huge gathering where
he knew that the speakers were to denounce his teachings. Old Parson
Buzzell gave out his text from the high pulpit: Mark XIII, 37, 'AND WHAT
I SAY UNTO YOU I SAY UNTO ALL, WATCH!' Just here Cochrane stepped in at
the open door of the church and heard the warning, meant, he knew, for
himself, and seizing the moment of silence following the reading of
the text, he cried in his splendid sonorous voice, without so much as
stirring from his place within the door-frame: "'Behold I stand at the
door and knock. If any man hear my voice I will come in to him and will
sup with him,--I come to preach the everlasting gospel to every one that
heareth, and all that I want here is my bigness on the floor.'"

"I cannot find," continued Ivory on another page, "that my father or
mother ever engaged in any of the foolish and childish practices which
disgraced the meetings of some of Cochrane's most fanatical followers
and converts. By my mother's conversations (some of which I have
repeated to you, but which may be full of errors, because of her
confusion of mind), I believe she must have had a difference of opinion
with my father on some of these views, but I have no means of knowing
this to a certainty; nor do I know that the question of choosing
spiritual consorts' ever came between or divided them. This part of the
delusion always fills me with such unspeakable disgust that I have never
liked to seek additional light from any of the older men and women who
might revel in