The Great Second Advent Movement: Its Rise and Progress

A Potato Field

The first is that of a believer who lived in New Ipswich, N.H., by the name of Hastings, who had a large field of splendid potatoes which he left undug. His neighbors were anxious about them and came to him offering to dig them and put them in the cellar for him free, if he would let them, “for,” said they, “you may want them.” “No!” said Mr. Hastings, “I am going to let that field of potatoes preach my faith in the Lord’s soon appearing.” GSAM 166.4

That fall, as may be learned from the Claremont (N.H.) Eagle, the New York True Sun, and various other public journals, the potato crop was almost a total loss from the “potato rot.” As expressed in the Sun, “How painful it is to learn that whole crops of this valuable esculent have been destroyed by the rot. A correspondent of a Philadelphia paper says the potato crop in that State is ruined. The only section from which little complaint is heard, is Maine, but even there the crop has not escaped the disease.” GSAM 167.1

As the fall was mild, and Mr. Hastings’s potatoes were left in the ground until November, none of them rotted. Consequently he had an abundant supply for himself and his unfortunate neighbors who had been so solicitous for his welfare the previous October, and who, in the spring, were obliged to buy seed potatoes of him, and were glad to pay a good price for them. What they supposed was going to be such a calamity to Mr. Hastings, God turned to a temporal blessing, and not only to him, but to his neighbors also. GSAM 167.2