PROPHECY OF JOSEPH HOAG.
By Joseph Hoag
JOSEPH HOAG, a member of the Society of Friends, was born in Duchess County, N. Y., April 23, 1762. He began to preach when eighteen years of age. After a long life of ministry, traveling extensively in all parts of the United States and Canada, he died at Charlotte, Vt., Nov. 2, 1846, in his eighty-fifth year. He was known as a godly man, as having great power over bad men, and having the gift of prophecy. The following vision, which we publish by request, was given him in the year 1803, at Charlotte, Vt.:— In the year 1803, in the eighth or ninth month, I was working one day alone in the field and observed that the sun shone clear, but a mist eclipsed its brightness. As I reflected upon the singularity of the event, my mind was struck into a silence the most solemn I ever remember to have witnessed, for all my faculties were low and unusually brought into deep silence. I said to myself, "What can this mean?" I do not recollect ever before to have been sensible of such feeling. And I heard a voice from heaven say:— "This which thou seest, which dims the brightness of the sun, is a sign of the present and coming times. I took the forefathers of this country from a land of oppression, and planted them here among the people of the forest. I sustained them, and while they were humble, I blessed them and fed them, and they became a numerous people. But now they have become proud and lifted up, and have forgotten Me, who nourished them and protected them in the wilderness, and are running into every abomination and evil practise of which the old countries are guilty, and have taken quietude from the land, and have suffered a dividing spirit to come among them. Lift up thine eyes and behold." And I saw them dividing in great heat. The division began in the church on the points of doctrine. It commenced in the Presbyterian Society and went through the various religious denominations, and in its progress its effects were the same; those that dissented went off with high heads and taunting language, and those who kept to their original sentiments appeared exercised and sorrowful. And when the dividing spirit entered the Society of Friends, it raged in as high a degree as in any I had before discovered; as before, those who kept to their ancient principles retired by themselves. It next appeared in the lodges of the Free Masons, where it broke out in appearance like a volcano, inasmuch as it set the country in an uproar for a length of time. Then it entered politics, through the United States, and did not stop until it produced a civil war, and an abundance of human blood was shed in the course of the combat. The Southern States lost their power, and slavery was annihilated from their borders. Then a monarchical power arose, took the government of the States, established a national religion, and made all societies tributary to support its expenses. I saw them take property from the Friends to a large amount. I was amazed at beholding all this, and I heard a voice from heaven proclaim: "This power shall not always stand, but with it I will chastise My church until they return to the faithfulness of their forefathers. Thou seest what is coming upon thy native land, for their iniquities, and the blood of Africa, the remembrance of which has come up before Me." This vision was sent for many days. I had no idea of writing it for many years, until it became such a burden that, for my own relief, I have written it. JOSEPH HOAG.