Yet more revisions to the Barbour Bio.

This isn't finished writing; it isn't even rough draft. This is an outline in development. I post it for your comments and observations. Please comment.

A Third Failure

            Accepting that Christ was invisibly present led Barbour to other conclusions. He supposed that Translation would occur in 1875, apparently announcing that through a supplement to the October 1874 Herald of the Morning. I could not locate that issue, but he referred to it with the paper’s resumption in June 1875:

We resume the publication of the paper, as was foreshadowed in the October supplement, in which the statement was made, ‘If after the developments of October shall have passed, this paper is continued, it will retain the name of “The Herald of the Morning.” At that time, our views of ‘the end of the world,’ or ‘the time of harvest,’ and the way in which these prophetic periods would terminate, were very different from present. And yet the impression was strong that humanity would receive food and light on these subjects ... and the paper continued.

            Exact dating for the revised ‘views’ adopted by Barbour and those who remained attached to his theology is difficult. We discuss it in some detail in Separate Identity, volume one. They believed their ascension would take place on May 1, 1875. The Woodsfield, Ohio, Spirit of Democracy, with typical misrepresentation of actual belief, reported: “The Adventists who usually hold a camp-meeting at Alton Bay, New Hampshire, have divided within the past year. The new party calls itself “Timists,’ and have fixed the date of the end of the world May 1, 1875.”[1] This brief report is nearly all we have of the 1874 Alton Bay conference. Yet, we see in it the beginning of the irreparable rift between Barbourites and Advent Christians.

            Barbour was an Age-to-Come believer though his beliefs were ill formed. He wasn’t interested in a restored paradise earth, though he saw it as scriptural doctrine. He focused on heavenly resurrection of the saints, among whom he included himself. One does not see that in this article. And Barbour used the phrase “end of the world,” though inexactly.

[translation disappointment here]

            Reluctant to abandon 1873, 74, and 1875 as prophetic dates Barbour redefined his beliefs.

[B. W. Keith here]

            A hardcore of believers persisted. At least one of them was at the Springfield, Massachusetts, camp meeting. It was the primary annual gathering of the Life and Advent Union. As a religion they were more welcoming than Advent Christians who were shedding members who retained age-to-come belief. Springfield was chosen because it was a center of Life and Advent belief. One of the most numerous congregations was there. They called themselves Bethel Church of the Association of Believers in the Pre-Millennial Advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They were a union congregation made from two pre-existing churches. An 1875 Directory gave their number as 275, saying that seats were free and noting congregation singing. They were well-supported financially. The Directory added: “The Life and Advent Union Association, of which this church is a member, have their camp grounds north of Liberty street, near old Chicopee Falls road, and hold camp-meetings there usually the second week in August.”[2] So it was at the August 1875 camp meeting that a Barbourite asserted their two-stage, partially invisible parousia doctrine.

            One of those present remembered this in his old age. John Abner Cargile was new to the Adventist movement. Though in short order he associated with Advent Christians, he was independent in 1875. A southerner whose ministry was centered in Alabama, he came to Adventism from the Primitive Baptists through a study of man’s nature. In 1875 he made his “first visit north, and attended the eastern camp-meetings.” He attended both the Alton Bay and Springfield meetings. His recalled events this way:

The writer is old enough to remember reading after one N. H. Barber in about 1870 A. D. I believe, who lived in Rochester, N.Y., who taught that Christ would come in October, 1874. When the time passes, as one of his followers told the writer, while at a campmeeting at Springfield, Mass., in 1875, that Mr. Barber was right as to the ending of the 2300 years Daniel 8:14, in October 1874 A. D. But that he was mistaken only in the manner of his coming, which was to be as a thief, secretly to steal away his saints. And so far as I am informed, that was the beginning of the secret of the return theory. I said to my informant: “Do you call my Christ a rogue, sir?” He said: “Well, the Bible says he was to come as a thief.” I said: “Yes, he was to come unexpectedly as a thief, but not to steal as a thief.”[3]

            Cargile thought his non-sequitur reply clever even forty some years later, but it did not and does not address the issue of an invisible parousia. That’s aside from the main point here. Barbour’s failure affected many in the broad millennialist and Adventist movements. The camp meetings in 1874 and 75 were full of controversy and division. The main Sunday observant Adventist and millennialist bodies largely abandoned time setting, though its extinction among each body was delayed into the 20^th Century. Barbourites went into a precipitous decline.

            Some clung to date setting, pointing to September 1875. The Portland, Maine, Daily Press reported: “The 10^th of September is fixed for the next Adventist scare, but skeptics think the earth is too wet to burn for six months yet. The Adventists had better do what the earth will not – dry up.” Barbour suggested something else.

            Barbour did not join in the September speculation but modified his exegesis to accommodate his latest failure. [continue from 6/75 hom]

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[1]               See the January 26, 1875 issue.

[2]               Springfield City Directory and Business Advertiser, 1875-1876, Clark W. Bryan & Co, 1875, page 43.

[3]               J. A. Cargile in Present Truth Messenger as reproduced in the June 26, 1917, issue of The Restitution. See also Cargile: The Autobiography: Or, Personal Experiences and Recollections of John A. Cargile, Advent Christian Publication Society, Boston, 1891.