She was
invited to join them in their religious exercises, and accepted the
invitation-praying, and talking in her own peculiar style, and
attracting many about her by her singing.
When she had convinced the people that she was a lover of
God and his cause, and had gained a good standing with them,
so that she could get a hearing among them, she had become
quite sure in her own mind that they were laboring under a
delusion, and she commenced to use her influence to calm the
fears of the people, and pour oil upon the troubled waters. In
one part of the grounds, she found a knot of people greatly
excited: she mounted a stump and called out, 'Hear! hear!'
When the people had gathered around her, as they were in a
state to listen to any thing new, she addressed them as 'children,'
and asked them why they made such a 'To-do;-are you
not commanded to "watch and pray?" You are neither watching
nor praying.' And she bade them, with the tones of a kind
mother, retire to their tents, and there watch and pray, without
noise or tumult, for the Lord would not come to such a scene
of confusion; 'the Lord came still and quiet.' She assured them,
'the Lord might come, move all through the camp, and go away
again, and they never know it,' in the state they then were.
They seemed glad to seize upon any reason for being less
agitated and distressed, and many of them suppressed their noisy
terror, and retired to their tents to 'watch and pray;' begging
others to do the same, and listen to the advice of the good sister.
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