Passion, Purpose & Power

2. Joseph Bates

Despite opposition PPP 24.1

Early in 1844, Joseph Bates sold his home in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, to pay for his preaching activities, which included a trip to Maryland, a destination against which he had been warned. PPP 24.2

About this time I sold my place of residence, ⁷ including the greater portion of my real estate, paid up all my debts, so that I could say once more that I owed “no man anything.” For some time I had been looking and waiting for an open way to go down South into the slaveholding States with the message. I was aware that slaveholders in the South were rejecting the doctrine of the second advent, and but a few months before had ordered Brn. [Brethren] Storrs and Brown from the city of Norfolk, Virginia, and I was told that if I went South the slaveholders would kill me for being an abolitionist. I saw there was some danger, but imperative duty and a desire to benefit them and unburden my own soul, overbalanced all such obstacles. PPP 24.3

Bro. [Brother] H. S. Gurney,⁸ now living in Memphis, Mich., said he would accompany me as far as Philadelphia. . . . [There] we attended some of the crowded meetings of Bro. Miller and others. It was truly wonderful to see the multitudes of people gathered to hear him preach the coming of the Lord. Bro. G. now concluded to accompany me South. We reached the city of Annapolis, Maryland, by the way ofWashington, and crossed the Chesapeake Bay through the ice to the central part of Kent Island, on which I had been cast away some twenty-seven winters before. At the tavern we found the people assembled for town meeting. The trustees of two meeting-houses who were present, were unwilling to open their doors for us, and intimated the danger of preaching the doctrine of Christ’s coming among the slaves. We applied to the tavern- keeper for his house; he replied that we could have it as soon as the town meeting closed. PPP 24.4

We then made an appointment before them, that preaching on the second advent would commence in the tavern the next afternoon at a given hour. Said the keeper of the tavern, “Is your name Joseph Bates?” I answered, “Yes.” He said that he remembered my visiting his father’s house when he was a small boy, and informed me that his mother and family were in another room and would be glad to see me. His mother said she thought she knew me when I first came to the house. PPP 25.1

The notice of our meeting soon spread over the island, and the people came to hear, and soon became deeply interested about the coming of the Lord. Our meetings continued here, I think, for five successive afternoons. The mud was so deep, on account of a sudden thaw, that we held no evening meetings. The tavern was a temperance house, and accommodated us much better than any other place we could have found in the vicinity. PPP 25.2

At the commencement of our last afternoon meeting, a brother who had become deeply interested in the cause, called Bro. G. and myself aside to inform us that there was a company about two miles off at a rum store, preparing to come and take us. We assured him that we were not much troubled about it, and urged him to go into the meeting with us and leave the matter in their hands. The people seemed so earnest to hear that my anxiety increased to make the subject as clear as I could for them, so that the ideas of being taken from the meeting had entirely passed from me. But before I had time to sit down, a man who was at the meeting for the first time, whom I knew to be a Methodist class-leader, and one of the trustees that refused us the use of their meeting-house, arose and commenced denouncing the doctrine of the Advent in a violent manner, saying, that he could destroy or put down the whole of it in ten minutes. I remained standing, and replied, “We will hear you.” In a few moments he seemed to be lost in his arguments, and began to talk about riding us on a rail. I said, “We are all ready for that, sir. If you will put a saddle on it, we would rather ride than walk.” This caused such a sensation in the meeting that the man seemed to be at a loss to know which way to look for his friends. PPP 25.3

I then said to him, “You must not think that we have come six hundred miles through the ice and snow, at our own expense, to give you the Midnight Cry, without first sitting down and counting the cost. And now, if the Lord has no more for us to do, we had as lief lie at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay as anywhere else until the Lord comes. But if he has any more work for us to do, you can’t touch us!” PPP 26.1

One Dr. Harper arose and said, “Kent, you know better! This man has been giving us the truth, and reading it out of the Bible, and I believe it!” In a few minutes more Mr. Kent shook me heartily by the hand and said, “Bates, come and see us!” I thanked him, and said my work was so pressing I did not think I should have time; but I would come if I could. But we had no time to visit only those who had become deeply interested, and wished us to meet with them in their praying circles. At the close of our meeting we stated that we had the means, and were prepared to defray all the expenses of the meeting cheerfully, unless some of them wished to share with us. They decided that they would defray the expenses of the meeting, and not allow us to pay one cent. —Joseph Bates, Autobiography of Joseph Bates, 1868, pp. 277-280. PPP 26.2