2006-06
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/31/2006
Lengthy, neatly penned (easily readable) 8 page (each sheet blank on reverse) 8 x 10 letter written in the year 1847 (month and day not given). Although addressee also not given, it obviously was to Isaac Leeser and was amongst his personal papers. It opens: “Having attended the late Advent Lectures in the Great Tent at Niblo’s [famous, popular restaurant and meeting place in N.Y. City], corner of Broadway and Prince Streets during 8 of the 10 days of their continuance, having given particular attention to the doctrines promulgated and being enabled without difficulty to detect the material errors of those doctrines, I report for publication my views stated in a few and plain words.” Then follows the 8 lengthy pages of that meeting and his counter-interpretations of what the Adventist preached! Although he makes no outright statement about his own religious affiliation, there is every indication by his statements that he might very well have been Jewish and the general thrust of his statements and discourse would seem to clearly point in that direction. He continues: “…The Adventist are a class of preachers who have undertaken to enlighten their fellow-men upon religion substantially according to the opinions of one William Miller, a worthy old farmer who, possessing some good faculties for the investigation and comprehension of the prophecies in the Bible…came to the rational conclusion that we are at the eve of a very important change in mundane affairs as under the influence of Divine Government.” The unknown writer reports how Miller has acquired a large following but whether those adherents have joined the movement because “of the recklessness of the age or from contemplating the surprising developments of physical progress” is a matter worth debating. His observations are very discriminating and his rejoinders rational and well phrased; occasionally passionate or stinging. Continuing, he writes: “…undertaking here to declare any creed or peculiar religious belief as especially my own I am ready to confute the Adventist upon their own ground…and while my hand is in, I even extend the offer of defiance to the advocates of any and every set of opinions or fancies under the guides of religion which recognize the benefit of preaching as preferable to the practice of vain imagination before sound sense of persuading or terrifying others, rather than reforming one’s own conduct, of investigating the future instead of using the present time, of indulging folly and pride in lieu of disciplining the mind to reverence and humility [and more in that same vein].” In his conclusion: “About these Jews, whom our friends the Adventist make so little of…possibly some of those unassuming and discreet minds who think that perfect wisdom reigns in the will of the Deity, may conceive that the chosen people have now sufficiently expiated their national aims and that they have but individually to turn onto the Lord with all their hearts to obtain the blessing recorded throughout the scriptures as their inheritance, and to stand a holy people, and a living monument and evidence of the truth of prophetic revelations. [He punctuates that final statement with the French phrase ‘nous verrons’] and signs it merely ‘Rex.’” Normal aging. Exc. Possibly, his letter was printed in an issue of the Occident. Research could uncover an interesting story
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