Note 36 — SECTION III.

These enigmatical warnings were some of the first words which the voice uttered, and they appeared strange to us all. They appeared void of instruction, impertinent and utterly inapplicable to any thing which was seen, remembered, or expected among us. None were then trifling with her; all wondered, and many were solemnized. Nor was there any remarkable contention among us. But after she had produced her strange, unexpected, unheard of message, our behaviour soon fixed the meaning of these enigmas, and rendered them like apples of gold and pictures of silver. Her speaking so much in a by-place (a cellar) separate from the common dwelling of man, like John in the wilderness, has offended us. If her paths were the Lord’s, instead of making them strait, we have made them crooked by misconception, misrepresentation, and falsehood. While the ghost was then speaking, one of the company was near eternity. Therefore “seek the Lord while he may be found.”

With what contempt and ridicule has the ghost been treated on account of the marriage! Therefore “I am not to be trifled with,” was pertinent. What violent contentions, occasioned by her messages, appropriate the terms “Peace, peace,” or “there must be peace,” as she more plainly said to another person about the same time.