This letter appeared in the September1, 1911, issue of Paton's magazine, The World's Hope. Paton's followers met in Almont, Michigan, for three days starting August 1, 1911. Paton did not say how many attended, but the article reporting it suggests the number was very small. Fifty would probably be a generous estimate.
Keith was unable to attend but sent this letter to wish them well. His letter:
From Bro. Keith.
To the dear friends in Convention Assembled at Battle Creek, Mich. How gladly I would be with you if the Father in Heaven had made it possible for me to do so; but I am neither financially nor physically able.
Some of you know that for a good many years I have been intensely interested in the subjects which are at the foundation of your gathering together. About forty years since I began a course of Bible study taking in new views of different subjects and leaving behind old traditions until I am entirely remodeled. Starting from the M. E. church, I found myself almost completely out of mystic Babylon, before I had discovered the invitation to “Come out of her, my people.” I think that innate immortality was about the first mark of the Beast to be obliterated from my forehead, the trinitarian doctrine about the same time.
The Father did not allow me to stop there, but in a few years brought to my attention the time measurements of the Bible. And being naturally a lover of mathematics, I became at once interested in the mathematics of the Bible, and soon mastered the Chronology and related measurements, until when the beautiful system of parallels was discovered I was ready for it; and since I have watched the development of facts which seem to corroborate the conclusions drawn from the system.
The “Larger Hope” [He means Universalism] view did not seem to come so easy for some time, but it is all so plain to me now, that I sometimes wonder that I had any difficulty in seeing it at once. Now I love the “song of Moses the servant of god, and the song of the Lamb,” with all the intensity of my nature, enlightened by the “Spirit of Truth.”
I trust that the Lord gathered you together, and that he is in the midst of you, and that you will find it a very profitable meeting.
Yours in a sincere love of the truth,
B. W. Keith, Chicago, Ill.
1 comment:
It was interesting to note that the same issue of Paton's magazine that carried the letter from B W Keith also contained an obituary for another "old timer" J C Sunderlin.
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