they had--(some of
them were almost as well off as _we are_, and some were poor,)--but they
offered what they had, and that was all that was required."

"Grandfather, what makes them poor now that had something then? You know
the Saviour didn't come then, as you said he would, and that is more than
three years ago."

"Well, they thought it would be contrary to scripture to take back their
sacrifice, and so many of them have made no improvements on their farms,
nor their buildings,--no, they have not even made _stone walls_! Some of
them sold what they had, and have been trying to help the poorer ones,
because they said they still believed that Christ was coming, and they
would not need it. For instance, they believe what Luke has recorded in
his xii: 33--'Sell your goods and give alms; lay not up treasure on the
earth,'--they think this must be understood literally! and they have gone
off into many strange notions, believing the door is shut, &c. &c."

"Well, how do they appear, father?"

"They do not seem to be, in the least, alarmed at poverty; they are
expecting soon to be delivered and made heirs with Jesus, to an
incorruptible inheritance that will abide forever. I could get along with
many points in their faith, and believe them honest, if they did not make
them tests for us; and because we do not believe in the great work that
was wrought in the past, and the present truths that they advocate, they
have no charity for us. They say we have backslidden and gone into a cold
lukewarm Laodocean state of the church."

"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