ANOTHER ASCENSION-ROBE STORY.
The readers of the Review will remember the note respecting the Christian Standard, published in the issue of May 16 in which is given a quotation from the Independent respecting the Standard’s misrepresentation of the Methodist. A recent number of the Herald of Life thus takes this “holiness” paper to task for a baseless slander lately published in its columns:— In an article on “Millerism in 1843,” in the Christian Standard and Home Journal of the 11th inst., Rev. A. Atwood repeats that old “ascension-robe” slander which has been peddled about by certain papers and ministers until some honest people regard it as truth. He says:— “A dozen or so of deluded, thoughtless persons, called by some lunatics, procured long muslin robes, white of course, and went down to an island in the river near Highspire (near Harrisburg, Pa.), and watched all night for the coming of Christ in the clouds. No doubt they desired to go up, muslin robes and all. But all their prayers did not bring the desired result. In the morning they came back, draggled, hungry, and sad, stealing their way into town one by one, lest they should attract attention and be laughed at.” Now, if these persons did actually put on “long muslin robes, white of course,” the opinion of “some” that they were “lunatics” was correct, and hence “Millerism” is about as responsible for their vagaries as Methodism is for those of some Methodists, of which history furnishes considerable evidence. But the story does not hang together. The “witness agrees not.” If these persons stole back into town one by one “lest they should be laughed at,” they were not lunatics, and if not, then the muslin robes were never procured. We accept the latter view,—that they were not lunatics, and hence this “ascension-robe” story belongs, with all others of its class, in the category of slanders. We do not say that Mr. Atwood knows it to be false; but we are equally satisfied that he does not know it to be true. We have never yet found a person who saw one of these many “ascension robes” of which we have heard. Started by some one who had no regard for truth, and who hated these people, the story obtained currency, and is incorporated in an article as a fact. But Mr. A. has shown a spirit entirely inconsistent with his profession. His words, “No doubt they desired to go up, muslin robes and all,” and the picture he draws of the supposed return of these “draggled, hungry, and sad” people to the city, are pitiable if he believed they were lunatics, and worse if he believed they were not. The Standard is a paper professedly devoted to “holiness,” and as such we have highly esteemed it, and have found many excellent things in it; but if it continues to publish such articles as Mr. Atwood’s, we may be driven to the opinion entertained of it by the Methodist and Independent.