CHAPTER VIII.
FIGGERS WON'T LIE
"Figgers won't lie," said Elder Hankins, the Millerite preacher. "I sayfiggers won't lie. When a Methodis' talks about fallin' from grace hehas to argy the pint. And argyments can't be depended 'pon. And when aPrisbyterian talks about parseverance he haint got the absolutesartainty on his side. But figgers won't lie noways, and it's figgersthat shows this yer to be the last yer of the world, and that the finaleend of all things is approachin'. I don't ask you to listen to no'mpressions of me own, to no reasonin' of nobody; all I ask is that youshould listen to the voice of the man in the linen-coat what spoke toDan'el, and then listen to the voice of the 'rithmetic, and to a sum insimple addition, the simplest sort of addition."
All the Millerite preachers of that day were not quite so illiterate asElder Hankins, and it is but fair to say that the Adventists of to-dayare a very respectable denomination, doing a work which deserves morerecognition from others than it receives. And for the delusion whichexpects the world to come to an end immediately, the Adventist leadersare not responsible in the first place. From Gnosticism to Mormonism,every religious delusion has grown from some fundamental error in theprevious religious teaching of the people. By the narrowly verbal methodof reading the Scripture, so much in vogue in the polemical discussionsof the past generation, and still so fervently adhered to by manypeople, the ground was prepared for Millerism. And to-day in manyregions the soil in made fallow for the next fanaticism. It is only aquestion of who shall first sow and reap. To people educated as thosewho gathered in Sugar Grove school-house had been to destroy the spiritof the Scripture by distorting the letter in proving their own sectright, nothing could be so overwhelming as Elder Hankins's "figgers."
For he had clearly studied figgers to the neglect of the other branchesof a liberal education. His demonstration was printed on a large chart.He began with the seventy weeks of Daniel, he added in the "time andtimes and a half," and what Daniel declared that he "understood not whenhe heard," was plain sailing to the enlightened and mathematical mind ofElder Hankins. When he came to the thousand two hundred and ninety days,he waxed more exultant than Kepler in his supreme moment, and on thethousand three hundred and five and thirty days he did what JonasHarrison called "the blamedest tallest cipherin' he'd ever seed in allhis born days."
Jonas was the new hired man, who had stopped into the shoes of August atSamuel Anderson's. He sat by August and kept up a running commentary, ina loud whisper, on the sermon, "My feller-citizen," said Jonas,squeezing August's arm at a climax of the elder's discourse, "Myfeller-citizen, looky thar, won't you? He'll cipher the world intonothin' in no time. He's like the feller that tried to find out thevaloo of a fat shoat when wood was two dollars a cord. 'Ef I can't do itby substraction I'll do it by long-division,' says he. And ef this'rithmetic preacher can't make a finishment of this sub_lu_nary speer byaddition, he'll do it by multiplyin'. They's only one answer in hisbook. Gin him any sum you please, and it all comes out 1843!"
Now in all the region round about Sugar Grove school-house there was agreat dearth of sensation. The people liked the prospect of the end ofthe world because it would be a spectacle, something to relieve thefearful monotony of their lives. Funerals and weddings were commonplace,and nothing could have been so interesting to them as the coming of theend of the world, as described by Elder Hankins, unless it had been afirst-class circus (with two camels and a cage of monkeys attached, sothat scrupulous people might attend from a laudable desire to see themenagerie!) A murder would have been delightful to the people of Clarktownship. It would have given them something to think and talk about.Into this still pool Elder Hankins threw the vials, the trumpets, thethunders, the beast with ten horns, the he-goat, and all the otherapocalyptic symbols understood in an absurdly literal way. The world wasto come to an end in the following August. Here was an excitement,something worth living for.
All the way to their homes the people disputed learnedly about the "timeand times and a half," about "the seven heads and ten horns," and theseventh vial. The fierce polemical discussions and the bold sectariandogmatism of the day had taught them anything but "the modesty of truescience," and now the unsolvable problems of the centuries were takenout of the hands of puzzled scholars and settled as summarily andpositively as the relative merits of "gourd-seed" and "flint" corn.Samuel Anderson had always planted his corn in the "light" of the moonand his potatoes in the "dark" of that orb, had always killed his hogswhen the moon was on the increase lest the meat should all go to gravy,and he and his wife had carefully guarded against the carrying of a hoethrough the house, for fear "somebody might die." Now, the preaching ofthe elder impressed him powerfully. His life had always been not so mucha bad one as a cowardly one, and to get into heaven by a six months'repentance, seemed to him a good transaction. Besides he remembered thatthere men were never married, and that there, at last, Abigail would nolonger have any peculiar right to torture him. Hankins could not haveciphered him into Millerism if his wife had not driven him into it asthe easiest means of getting a divorce. No doom in the next world couldhave alarmed him much, unless it had been the prospect of continuinglord and master of Mrs. Abigail. And as for that oppressed woman, shewas simply scared. She was quite unwilling to admit the coming of theworld's end so soon. Having some ugly accounts to settle, she would fainhave postponed the payday. Mrs. Anderson might truly have been called awoman who feared God--she had reason to.
And as for August, he would not have cared much if the world had come toan end, if only he could have secured one glance of recognition from theeyes of Julia. But Julia dared not look. The process of cowing her hadgone on from childhood, and now she was under a reign of terror. She didnot yet know that she could resist her mother. And then she lived inmortal fear of her mother's heart-disease. By irritating her she mightkill her. This dread of matricide her mother held always over her. Invain she watched for a chance. It did not come. Once, when her mother'shead was turned, she glanced at August. But he was at that momentlistening or trying to listen to one of Jonas Harrison's remarks. AndAugust, who did not understand the circumstances, was only able toaccount for her apparent coldness on the theory suggested by Andrew'suniversal unbelief in women, or by supposing that when she understoodhis innocent remark about Andrew's disappointment to refer to hermother, she had taken offense at it. And so, while the rest weredebating whether the world would come to an end or not, August had adisconsolate feeling that the end of the world had already come. And itdid not make him feel better to have Wilhelmina whisper, "Oh! but she_is_ pretty, that Anderson girl--a'n't she, August?"