Matthias was approaching the end. Once he prayed for the restoration of his decayed teeth, and again that his eyesight might be what it was in his youth. The second of these prayers, he claims, was answered. But his troubles continued. His daughter’s husband came to Sing Sing and roused the village to a siege of Matthias, to compel him to give up the young woman. Before a magistrate, Matthias denounced the Lutheran minister who had performed the marriage, on the grounds that the minister was a devil and that the devil could not marry. In spite of his magnificent appearance, hypnotic eye, and princely dress, Matthias was in danger from the mob; but the authorities protected him and he managed to escape from the village with the loss, a second time, of his beard. He then returned to New York and Folger, now convinced that he had been swindled, began a prosecution. Matthias fled, was captured, and his trunks were examined. “Linen shirts of exquisite fineness, the wrist-bands fringed with delicate lace, silk stockings and handkerchiefs, kid and other gloves, and a great variety of similar articles filled one of the trunks; while the other contained his gold-mounted cocked hat, an olive cloak of the finest texture, lined throughout with velvet and silk; a new green and brown frock-coat of similar quality, the former heavily embroidered with gold, and the latter with silver, in the form of stars, with a large sun on one breast and seven stars on the other; two merino morning dresses; and other rich et cæteras ‘too tedious to mention.’ But the rarest articles of all were two night caps, made of linen cambric, folded in the form of a miter, richly embroidered—one with the names of the twelve apostles written around it, and ‘Jesus Matthias’ adorning the front in more conspicuous characters: the other surrounded with the names of the twelve tribes, the front embellished the same as the other. The whole betokened the utmost extravagance and lavish expenditure of money and labor; and months must have been spent by female hands (probably those of some one or more of his disciples) in ornamenting and making up the apparel of this dainty impostor.”
The civil suit against Matthias was not prosecuted, as the Folgers by this time wanted nothing so much as to escape publicity, but Matthias was held for trial on the charge of murder. He had incautiously said to a friend that Pierson would not have died if he had not lost faith in him (Matthias). He had perceived that the spirit of truth was departing from Pierson and, as for the black-berries, he admitted that he had picked them, but having discovered that there was a curse upon them that year had not eaten any himself. He suggested that, in spite of the blackberries, Pierson might have been saved if he had not transferred his faith elsewhere. On the 16th of April, 1835, Matthias was brought to trial and, while in jail, issued a decree commanding all farmers to lay aside their plows, for “there shall be no more sowing in the earth until I, the Twelfth and last of the Apostles, am delivered out of the house of bondage.” He also prophesied that the village of White Plains, where the trial was being held, would sink under the ground if he were convicted. He protested the competence of the courts on the grounds that evidence had been taken in secret before the Grand Jury, and that all secret institutions “are cursed of God and were dissolved five years ago.” (He meant his own announcement of 1830.) His raving and gestures were so violent that he was ordered removed from the court room, but, from the door, continued to shriek out the word “dissolved, dissolved, dissolved” until he was carried away.
According to one account, a competent physician found evidence of poisoning in the body of Mr. Pierson, but there was conflicting testimony and a clever lawyer managed to bar the question whether Pierson’s death was caused by want of care. The court instructed the Jury which obediently returned a verdict of “not guilty.” Judge Ruggles, however, taking up the accusation of brutality to Matthias’s daughter, sentenced him, with the name of impostor, to three months in the county jail. He reappears fleetingly in the house of Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, calling himself Joshua the Jewish minister, wearing a sea green frock coat and pantaloons. To Joseph Smith, already in the possession of the Mormon revelation, Joshua-Matthias spoke even less coherently than to his early disciples. He said “that all the railroads, canals, and other improvements are performed by the spirits of the resurrection. The silence spoken of by John the Revelator, which is to be in heaven for the space of half-an-hour, is between 1830 and 1851, during which time the judgments of God will be poured out, after that time there will be peace.”
Eventually, Matthias confessed his identity and lectured to the Mormons. Joseph Smith acknowledged that Matthias made some very excellent remarks, “but his mind was evidently filled with darkness. . . . He tarried until Wednesday, 11th, after breakfast, when I told him, that my God told me, that his god was the devil, and I could not keep him any longer, and he must depart. And so I, for once, cast out the devil in bodily shape, and I believe a murderer. . . .”
From that point on, Matthias is lost in obscurity. The two writers, William L. Stone and Gilbert Vail, who are the chief authorities, finished their work while Matthias was still in jail. His career made such a sensation in New York that controversy raged about every point and, in Stone’s account, many of the important names are veiled by transposed initials or asterisks. Whether he imposed himself on others later in life is doubtful. He had already been the Messiah and suffered a sufficient martyrdom to satisfy his deluded spirit.
Contemporary writers, opposed to the violence and hysteria of religious excitement, used him as a terrible example. His blasphemy and adultery were equally condemned. Stone compared him to Simon Magus and, more closely, to John of Leyden, the leader of the sect of Munster Anabaptists. Here too were found divine commission, the luxuries of dress and table, and oriental versatility in sexual relations. John, like Matthias, condemned all other prophets since the time of Christ and held that he alone could understand the scriptures. A parallel nearer home was found in the career of a discharged army officer named Cochrane who began his imposture by calling himself a clergyman in the hope of getting a night’s lodging and a meal. Cochrane was far more deliberate in his impositions and far less deluded than Matthias. His pretension to being a minister was accepted. He soon had a large following in New Hampshire. And even skeptical observers confess to the mysterious power “like animal magnetism,” which he exerted. Cochrane, too, believed that he was to be the father of a holy child but, as women continued to attract him, he multiplied his offspring until they became a race of holy men. The women he seduced were many. The story of Matthias is a more complicated record of delusion and imposition, strangely intermingled. The center of it involves five people in the course of only five years, but it exhibits almost in every detail the dangers of religious hysteria when “ancient wisdom and austere control” have departed.
[1] It was generally rumored that Finney had driven several persons mad with his preaching.
[2] This violence about hogs occurs again in John Alexander Dowie, a prophet on a larger scale. See page 391.
† Among the prominent European authors, were Byron and Tannahill, author of Jessie, the Flower of the Dumbline. † The death of Marcos Bozzaris stirred the country and public concerts were given to aid the Greek Revolution. Byron’s death was reported three months after it occurred, with an account of the destruction of his memoirs by Thomas Moore. † A new novel by Miss Porter, author of Thaddeus of Warsaw became popular and also The Pilot by the author of The Pioneer; the posthumous works of Percy Bysshe Shelley were going through the press, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge announced The Wanderings of Cain. † The Ladies’ Magazine said “love is composed of all that is delicate in happiness and pleasure. . . . It does not appear from the writings of the ancients that they entertained the pure idea which we attach to love.” † Three New York doctors made a successful expedition into New Jersey and brought back the skeleton of a mammoth. † Mr. Perkins’ steam gun to supplant gun powder was patented. † In Memphis men went to hotels for their meals leaving their wives at home. In Cincinnati youths affected curled hair. Nearly everybody suffered from dyspepsia. The favorite amusem
ent was a Chamber of Horrors, and billiards and cards were forbidden by law. † To the annoyance of English travelers, the terms lady and gentleman were freely used without regard to rank. † The appearance of two French dancers in a western theater caused all the ladies to leave and the clergy to protest from the pulpit. † Robert Owen and the Reverend Alexander Campbell publicly debated the truth of all religion for fifteen sittings. † The dance Europeans called quadrille was named cotillion here. † Puddings, pies, and sweets were very popular.
† Pulverized starch was freely used as face powder; and women refused to wear muffs, or boots, or cotton stockings. City women were supposed to have extremely pretty feet but a great “want of tournure.” † “The lovers of impassioned and classical numbers” derived gratification from the work of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks. † The prospectus of the Brooklyn Collegiate Institute included Latin through Horace and Tacitus, intellectual philosophy, critical reading of Young’s poems, hydrostatics, galvanism, political economy, Evidences of Christianity, natural theology, treatise on the globes, mineralogy, astronomy, vocal music, and modern languages. † The standing army of the United States consisted of 6,000 men. Heroes of the Boston Tea Party denied that they were disguised as Indians. † In Missouri the only small change consisted of silver dollars cut into halves, quarters, and eighths.
IX. The New Soul.
HIS effect on many types of men, on Tappans, Weld, Matthias, Noyes, and others makes Finney significant; his violence for the Lord makes him personally interesting. The other evangelists of his time and of the period following, lack his essential quality almost entirely. We hear of the Reverend A. B. Earle preaching more than seventeen thousand sermons, but the sample that survives is not particularly interesting. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of the 12th of March, 1858, reports that Neptune Engine Company, No. 7, attended the Second Baptist church in a body to hear Earle preach on the text, “Where the Worm Dieth not and the Fire is not Quenched.” “He thought nothing would grieve them more than to meet with a fire they could not put out. They would go home sorrowful at heart should such an event happen to them . . . but he would speak to them of a fire which could never be quenched. . . . That is remorse.” Elder Jacob Knapp, a famous Evangelist in his day, seems to have had a readier wit; when a heckler asked, “Who was the devil’s father?” Knapp retorted, “Young man, keep your own family record.” A typical moderate was the Congregationalist, E. P. Hammond, known as the children’s evangelist. He was himself “a child of prayer” and would often repeat the hymn
“Alas and would my Saviour bleed
And would my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?”
On one occasion, however, he was suddenly inspired to repeat some less sacred verse—The Charge of the Light Brigade. There were those who considered this a bit theatrical, but Hammond was pragmatically justified for, the very next day, one of the survivors of the Six Hundred came to him, converted! He was accused of too great urgency in bringing children to an announcement of their decision for Christ, but he himself maintained that he was careful to make them intelligent as to their decision and required of each child at least one scriptural reason for loving Christ. It was his intention to “bring a dash of Christian sunlight and a breath of free Christian courage and hope in every sermon.”
Some of these evangelists worked in the leaderless revivals which followed the panic of 1857. For several years money and the promise of money had poured out of California. A period of unprecedented speculation and spending set in. Throughout the year 1856, everything in America was booming and statistics were broadcast to prove that it was the most prosperous year in the history of the world. Inflation was excessive. In the summer of 1857, Western business firms began to fail and Eastern banks drained by the West slowly succumbed. On the 14th of October, 1857, the crash came, precipitated by the failure of the Ohio Life Insurance Company. In the state of Maine alone, thirty-seven wildcat banks failed. The new tariff and inflated currency were both blamed. As in the panic of 1837, “shin-plasters” appeared. These were little I.O.U.’s given generally as change in the course of small transactions and ranged in amount from 1 cent to several dollars, redeemable when the banks resumed payment in specie. It was, says a writer of the period, a time of coldness and deadness in the church and Dr. Thompson, the historian of revivalism, noting that times of failure and depression are favorable for the impression of the truth, makes the quaint observation that the “Holy Ghost in his free sovereignty does not despise the help of circumstances.” (Finney comments with enthusiasm on this revival but, characteristically, omits all reference to the financial panic.) The business depression was seized upon by a Mr. Lanpheir, pastor of the Reformed (Dutch) church, who proposed noon-day prayer meetings for the business men who were sitting in nervous idleness in their empty offices. These were a great success. Every church in the downtown district in New York held such meetings daily while, by “systematic visitations,” an attempt was made to penetrate into every house in the city and discover the religious condition of every family. Although the scrutiny began in the slums, it finally reached the brown-stone fronts and “Fifth Avenue itself was not left to be exempt.” But there was nothing to shock the fashionable world in this revival. There were no “spiritual jerks” and no fanaticism. From the metropolis, the revival spread through the state. At one time, two hundred towns and cities were holding similar revivals. The seeds were scattered westward so that Cleveland held meetings from six in the morning till nine at night; and some who came to Chicago on business “have become so distressed about their condition as sinners against God that they have entirely forgotten their business in the earnestness of their desire for salvation.” There was “universal unction manifest in Washington.” It is also on record that “nearly all the students of Yale college were anxious.” During this revival, for the first time, “the Holy Spirit seems to occupy with divine power and glory all the common channels of man’s intercourse with man . . . the electric telegraph conveys the thrill of Christian sympathy with the tidings of abounding grace . . .” and, it was reported, without charge.
Finney says in his biography that, if he had had a sword in his hand, he could have cut down “the slain” as fast as they fell. The warrior of the Lord was to be followed by the commercial traveler. It was literally as a salesman that Dwight Lyman Moody began his career. “The biggest human,” as Drummond calls him, sold more shoes in a Chicago store than any other clerk and a biographer assures us that, had he remained in that business, he might have ended his life as head of a shoe trust. The trust he filled was of a more exalted nature.
Moody was born in a Unitarian family, in 1837, but the decorum and indifference of the Unitarian bodies did not long appeal to this “go-getter,” born before his time. In Chicago, he attached himself to a Congregational church and, as the attendance was unsatisfactory, he rented four pews and dragooned enough young men to fill them every Sunday. Then he began to recruit children for the Sunday school and, presently, he founded a school of his own in “the Sands,” surrounded by saloons and gambling dens, and established the North Mission. Some ten years earlier, the Young Men’s Christian Association had been “organized by a band of active consecrated young men” in New York. It was at first an object of suspicion, but Moody saw it as a beautiful agency and adopted it in Chicago where he became its secretary and sexton. At that time, it was his habit to let no day go by without stopping at least one person in the street and inquiring about the state of his soul. One night, as he was going home, he remembered that he had not done his good deed for that day, so he spoke to the first passer-by who later said of him, “Moody is doing more harm than any ten men in Chicago.” Eventually, however, the man apologized and asked Moody to pray for his soul. When the Civil War began, Moody could be seen, night after night, at Camp Douglas, “going from tent to tent, striving to bring the soldiers under the influence of divine grace.” It was as a result of his lab
ors that the first Y.M.C.A. building in Chicago was built. A few weeks later, it burned and, without the loss of a moment, Moody collected enough money for another. His chorister, Bliss, having been killed at Ashtabula (“Heaven’s choir needed another sweet voice”), the collaboration of Moody and Sankey began. Together they went to Britain to win ten thousand souls for Christ and, although the Scotch were suspicious of the small harmonium which Sankey used to keep time, suspecting it of being an organ with a devil in every pipe, the Holy Ghost was poured out upon their meetings. They crossed to Belfast, because they wanted Ireland for Christ, and, from March to July, they held meetings in London, where the Earl of Shaftesbury (in a slightly ambiguous sentence) said that “if Mr. Sankey had done no more than to teach the people to sing ‘Hold the Fort,’ he would have conferred an inestimable blessing on the British Empire.”
Sankey’s hymns were as well adapted to Moody’s melodrama of conversion as “The Brewers Big Horses Can’t Run Over Me” is to Billy Sunday’s. In spite of reference back to David and the psalms, singing, in Protestant churches, had been called error, apostasy, human tradition, and carnal worship, and Bishop Berkeley’s offer of an organ was once declined by a worried church because it was an instrument of the devil. Yet some songs were irresistible:
Ye monsters of the bubbling deep
Your maker’s praises spout;
Up from the sands ye coddlings creep,
The Stammering Century Page 18
