NEW STYLE OF PREACHING. Verily, this is the age of delusion—the Millerites, the Smithites and a host of other absurdites, (if we may coin a word) appear to be gaining ground, to the overthrow of virtue, reason and all that is lovely in religion. Recently we recorded the insanity of three or four sisters in Massachusetts, by the Miller delu-sion, and we have before us in the Saco Her-ald, the case of Stephen Mitchell, of Kenne-bunk-port, who destroyed himself while un-der a similar excitement. There are crea-tures—men we cannot call them—perambu-lating every nook and corner of our peace-ful country, proclaiming that the great and terrible day of the Lord is near at hand, when he will appear in the heavens and the world be destroyed. Human nature is such, that thousands will flock to hear the ravings of these madmen, and more or less of them will fall victims to their presumption and fol-ly. No wonder then, that insanity is rife in our country—that the victims of delusion fall rapidly in our midst.
An individual calling himself Elder Swan has recently been lecturing in New London, Conn.—but whether he is a Millerite, a Mor-mon, or a Cochranite, we have not been able to learn, but by his language we presume him to be a disciple of Miller. We never heard of any thing so vile and impious—so shock-ing to decency and common sense, as the harrangue of this Elder, reported in a Con-necticut paper, a portion of which we copy. He was lecturing in a Baptist meeting house, and turning towards the gallery, singled out an individual, and thus addressed him:—
You mock Elder Swan! But remember what I tell you! God Almighty, sir, will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh upon you! Laugh at that now, you Christless diabolian! God Almighty will make you laugh t'other side of your mouth! You'll land in hell! I guess you wont laugh there! There's no galleries in hell! It's all pit! all pit! I tell you, sir, in the name of God Almighty, whose servant I am, that in hell you'll remember what Elder Swan told you! Now laugh at that!
Looking to the congregation below he broke out—
How many real Holy Ghost Christians do you think there is in this city? Very few; very few. We'll come into this Church and there is a few; go to the Methodist church, and there's a few; we have heard from them; go into the Presberterian church, and per-haps there may be a few; the Episcopalians! they are worse, if possible, than the Univer-salists! They will all land in hell! every one of them, Universalists and all! no mistake; the devil is sure to have the whole of them!
The Episcopalians must feel themselves highly complimented by this saint. He has doomed them all to hell, as being greater sin-ners than the poor Universalists. Then turn-ing to the individual who had claimed his at-tention before, he uttered—
Grin! you Christless Ishmealite! Grin! you can't grin Elder Swan out of counte-nance!
Then came the following anecdote. It is too good to be lost. The rich men must tremble on reading it:
I knew a Universalist in my country, a smart enterprising fellow—work day and night, and drove his sons like brutes, to ac-cumulate property—got up a saw-mill and run it Sundays—accumulated about $10,000—he took a little whiskey all the time he was getting it. By and by, God Almighty cut him down—he died a drunkard, and went right into hell! Well, about a fortnight after he died, God Almighty converted his wife and oldest daughter, and then another and another of the family, until they were all converted. Well, his money went to sup-port religion after all his raising the devil! You go round among that family to collect any thing for the cause of God, and I tell you, you'd see the old rusty Spanish mill'd dollars slip into the hat! No mistake!—Why if that fellow had have known it, he would have howl'd so that he would have scar'd the devil out of hell! Dont you see, God will have your money after all, to build up his cause; the gold and silver all belong to him—he will have it!
Looking at a young man who smiled at his rantings, he exclaimed—
Laugh, you christless, ungodly diabolian. Laugh! God Almighty will make you laugh t'other side of your mouth, when you get in hell! He will put your face on canvass, sir, where you can see it plainer than you can in a looking glass. No mistake about it. Re-member what I tell you.
Now comes the Elder's compliments to the Universalists:
I recollect an old gray-headed Universalist I met up west. I'd as soon meet 19 Alger-ines, 16 pirates and the devil, as to meet one of them.
A Universalist God is just the size of any ordinary Universalist. About the size of old Hosea Ballou or little Bachus Bailey.
God Almighty! uncover the pit of hell, and show these Christless, ungodly diaboli-ans, all the Universalists that have gone to hell from this city, for the last ten years!—Let them see them gnaw their chains and howl. Hang up the ghosts of hell in their bed chambers! Haunt them by night and by day. Stave them up! God Almighty, stave them up!
Addressing the members of the Baptist church, who had opened their house to him, he paid them the following handsome com-pliment:
I tell you that many of you that have got your names on these church books will land in hell, if you don't wake up and come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.—You talk to some of them about worldly mat-ters, Whaling or Bank Stock, or anything worldly, and you'll see their eyes start out of their heads! You'd think they were elec-trified! But you ring up in their ears, Re-pent! Serve God! Come up and help car-ry on this protracted meeting, and they'll sing out with these Christless, ungodly dia-bolians, Excitement! Wildfire! Animal Magnetism! Animal Feeling! Hell and the Devil! And oh! I don't like this kind of preaching. Too much hell-fire! I don't think it will do any good. I tell you its just the right kind of preaching. For you'll land in hell, the whole of you. God has marked you for hell.
If the Baptists permit the fellow to dis-grace their pulpit again, we should be led to think them almost deserving of such a fate.
The Elder concluded his impious and sav-age discourse as follows:
I understand some of your Christless dia-bolians gave out word that they would cow-hide Elder Swan. Now I would say to those, that Elder Swan defies all of those diabolians, and all the devils in hell to terrify him, and that we shall carry on this meeting, God wil-ling, as long as we please; we shall preach and pray, and worship God in our own way, and if souls are converted, we shall baptize them. I believe God Almighty owns the water—the river—don't he? Some of you may have a deed of the land—you won't scare Elder Swan; and I would give notice to those who wish to cowhide me, that I shall walk in Main street, next Monday, at 10 o'-clock, God willing, at which time I shall be ready to receive their chastising.
We have heard and read a great deal in our day, that is preposterous and absurd, but the language of Elder Swan throws every thing else far in the back ground. To per-mit such a creature to enter the pulpit—the house dedicated to the worship of Almighty God—must be a henious sin, 'smelling rank to Heaven.' But—shame for the sons of the pilgrims, while we repeat it—there are men among us who delight in such coarse and vulgar language, and believe they are doing God service, while listening to har-rangues so vile and impious—slanders so base and malignant. Truth and virtue must lament that humanity has fallen so low, while pity weeps oceans of tears. Give us the Bi-ble and the religion the Scriptures inculcate and we ask for nothing more. If men were gu ided by this sacred book, instead of being influenced by passion and a distempered im-agination, pure and undefiled religion would prevail, where now discord, fanaticism, in-sanity and death pervade the land.
