relate to the coming of Christ and the end of the world. Thus the popular
ministry undermined faith in the word of God. Their teaching made men
infidels, and many took license to walk after their own ungodly lusts.
Then the authors of the evil charged it all upon Adventists.

While drawing crowded houses of intelligent and attentive hearers,
Miller's name was seldom mentioned by the religious press except by way of
ridicule or denunciation. The careless and ungodly, emboldened by the
position of religious teachers, resorted to opprobrious epithets, to base
and blasphemous witticisms, in their efforts to heap contumely upon him
and his work. The gray-headed man who had left a comfortable home to
travel at his own expense from city to city, from town to town, toiling
unceasingly to bear to the world the solemn warning of the judgment near,
was sneeringly denounced as a fanatic, a liar, a speculating knave.

The ridicule, falsehood, and abuse heaped upon him called forth indignant
remonstrance, even from the secular press. "To treat a subject of such
overwhelming majesty and fearful consequences," with lightness and
ribaldry, was declared by worldly men to be "not merely to sport with the
feelings of its propagators and advocates," but "to make a jest of the day
of judgment, to scoff at the Deity Himself, and contemn the terrors of His
judgment-bar."(562)

The instigator of all evil sought not only to counteract the effect of the
advent message, but to destroy the messenger himself. Miller made a
practical application of Scripture truth to the hearts of his hearers,
reproving their sins and disturbing their self-satisfaction, and his plain
and cutting words aroused their enmity. The opposition manifested by
church-members toward his message, emboldened the baser classes to go to
greater lengths; and enemies plotted to take his life as he should leave
the place of meeting. But holy angels were in the throng, and one of
these, in the form of a man, took the arm of this servant of the Lord, and
led him in safety from the angry mob. His work was not yet done, and Satan
and his emissaries were disappointed in their purpose.

Despite all opposition, the interest in the Advent Movement had continued
to increase. From scores and hundreds, the congregations had grown to as
many thousands. Large accessions had been made to the various churches,
but after a time the spirit of opposition was manifested even against
these converts,