The Plagues of this Country
Christian Recorder: July 12, 1862
With the Civil War raging on, Turner equates the policies of Lincoln with the biblical plagues
that fell on the Egyptians.
Keywords: Civil War, President Lincoln, William Miller, Theology
Mr. Editor:--There seems to be a very singular correspondence existing between the war
in the United States and the Egyptian plagues. I suppose no one, in the face of so many
evidences, will question the practicableness of the assertion, that this war is being waged through
a providential for the benefit of some portion of discarded humanity. For the last two hundred
years many of the most pious and learned theologians have been preaching that some dreadful
calamity would take place among the inhabitants of the earth about the year 1866. And that this
catastrophically condition of things would be very transitory in its duration, and afterwards the
earth, being refined by the agencies of this universal disaster, should emerge forth in all the
purity of Eden’s innocency.
These speculations are not yet at an end, though they had partially ceased to agitate the
theological world till (William) Miller’s theory spread consternation through America and a part
of Europe, by proclaiming that the world would end in 1844. When men of all grades and
positions began to sift the Scriptures, either for the purpose of refuting or approving this theory;
and strange to say that many of its most stern opposers sit down with every fiber of their soul
prejudiced against it; but rose after an examination with favorable convictions. And since that
time such gigantic minds as are possessed by Dr. Cross, of the Methodist Church, and Dr.
(Joseph) Seiss, of the Lutheran Church in this country, in connexion (sic) with the immortal
Drs.(George) Cummins and Elliot of England, (especially the latter’s Horse Apocalypse) have
been organizing a grand galaxy of pre-millenarians, the works, argument, suggestions and
sentiments of whom have been calling attention to some great issue just ahead. Though piles of
infamy and derision have been heaped upon Miller and his theory, because he erred in his
conclusions, so much so that all those who have not since looked at things in absolute
contradiction to Miller, have been branded as a Millerite, yet my impression is that the world will
yet see that Miller was not as big a fool as they supposed him.
Though Miller did certainly err in his assumption of fixed dates, and to precise definite
periods, and there is where he lost his power. If Miller had took the grounds that Drs. Cumming
and Cross did, by compiling his prophetic figures and chronological predictions to show that
some great change in human affairs would soon take place, he would have retained a more
durable influence, which would have diffused a spirit of inquiry among the common people of as
great avidity as he did among the few learned.
But because there was not a literal fulfilment of his predicted statements, two-thirds of
the people who even claimed to think, without ever examining or comparing his views with the
prophetic bearing of sacred writ, began at once to pour forth their denunciatory tirades upon him,
with about as much consistency as the Roman Inquisition did upon Galileo, for what with a little
improvement was philosophically true. Now Miller saw, both from the indexes of prophecy and
the prognostication of transpiring events, that the world was on the eve of some great mutation,
which should rock nations and convulse societies in every human sphere. He saw that this
dispensation of human affairs was fast receding, and that God was about to sever the distinctions
which split the social order of humanity, by placing them upon a platform of more equality and
unanimity. But the great error into which both Miller and others no less distinguished have
fallen, is in attempting to define what this great consummation of things should be, which they
thought the sin qua non, because every man being prone to think for himself who has mind
enough to rise above the current of the fogyism of his day, have been actuated with a sufficiency
of self-certainty to tell, so far as his own views extend, what this thing about to take place should
be. Some have thought that the world was about to end, others that Christ was about to enthrone
himself at Jerusalem and sway a scepter of universal righteousness, or that that God was about to
purify the earth with fire, and afterwards to refit it for the habitation of his saints, etc.; but all
agree that it is for the bettering of oppressed humanity. Now how far truth may corroborate with
any of the above statements must be seen by future generations.
But that the King of heaven has been appealing to the hearts of men to get ready for some
dreadful issue, I think is verified in the many ministers whom God has recently raised up, and
books which have been sent out to warn us of some great fullness of time.
Three years ago the northern lights, which frescoed the heavens, were terrific in their
appearance—that the skies would at times seem to be turning with blood, and the hearts of men
in every direction falling, from the dreadful foreboding anticipations which agitate a criminal
conscience. The free people of color in every direction were hunted and pursued as rabbits, and
particularly in the slave States denounced as an offensive nuisance, while church conventions
and conferences broke up in wild confusion, political assemblies, legislative and congressional
bodies, ended in partisan strife. The atmosphere of human society seemed to be charged with
sectional divisibility, and all avowed obligations which bound man to man appeared to be
severed. And then to crown this hell-forged schism, Jeff Davis, elder brother to Pluto, was
inaugurated in all his bestial vices to preside over a power organized for the purpose of crushing
down the manliness of as loyal hearts as ever owed fealty to the God of heaven.
Abraham Lincoln and not Jeff Davis becomes the Pharaoh of the mystic Egypt
(American slavery.) And however unwilling to comply with a dispensation of liberation,
nature’s God calls from heaven, echoed to by five million of mystic Israelites, (subject slaves) in
peals of vivid vengeance, let my people go. Moses and Aaron, in the garb of threats for the
nation’s heart-blood, stand before the mystic Pharaoh with a demand endorsed by the purposed
of God, for their redemption; but, being refused, a series of plagues begins, commencing at Fort
Sumter.
A proclamation calling forth seventy-five thousand men, to protect an ensign which had
long waved over an enslaved people, is issued; but with no contemplations of responding to
Heaven’s demand.
The first plagues which staggered the nation’s energies, was the killing of several soldiers in the streets of Baltimore; but partly recovering from that by the encouragement gained through
the energetic achievements of Gen. (Benjamin) Butler, Gen. (Irwin) McDowell was invested
with the chieftainship of the Potomac Army. He, very forgetful of his mission, issued a
proclamation that no Negro should come within his military lines. This, of course, being
endorsed by the President, else he would have soon altered it, as in the case of Fremont and
Hunter, the second plague smote the American Egyptian in the Bull Run defeat.
Shortly after another partial recover, Gen. Fremont in the West heard a voice saying from
heaven, Let my people go. He hearkened to the call by a corresponding proclamation that rebels
should be shot and their slaves set free; but the presidential Pharaoh hardened his heart and made
void all proceedings. And mystic Egypt was smitten by the third plague in the death of Gen.Nathaniel Lyon, the fall of Lexington, and the demoralization of Gen. (Franz) Siegel’s army.
Shortly after Gen. (John C) Fremont was removed and (Henry) Halleck placed in his stead, he
issues a proclamation, that Negroes were disloyal, and merely came as spies into the Federal
lines, and forbid their future entrance, and returned many back to their rebel masters. Again, as a
penalty, the fourth plague smote this mystic Egypt in the destruction of lives, ships, and other
property, and almost the demoralization of the entire nation by the coming out of the Merrimac
from Norfolk. Gen. Hunter soon after saw that it was no use to try to refuse the heavenly
demands, and in one sweeping proclamation, over which angels rejoiced, declared the mystic
Israelites free throughout South Carolina, Georgia and Florida; but the presidential Pharaoh
hardened his heart, and in one (grim) mutter, furious enough to make hell grumble, precipitously
hurled them back into the darkest caverns of oppression, ever felt by a fiendish nerve. Soon
after, the fifth plague smites in the extermination of a Maryland regiment, the capturing of
thousands of prisoners by (Thomas J.) Stonewall Jackson, the running of Gen. (Nathaniel)Banks, and the perpetration of other cruelties too horrible, too brutal, too infernal to
mention. And I tell old mystic Egyptian today, my people must go free. The sixth plague—the
sixth phial or vial—or the sounding of the sixth trumpet is just ahead. What Miller and other
prophet writers have been seeing, and the great revolution which is to rack the earth and
convulse the nations about the year 1866, is the liberation of the oppressed. And I now predict
that the time is near at hand. Miller saw it through the fog of a few future years, and could not
describe it; but all the nations of Europe and America will be in war before five years, unless
freedom’s banner waves in majestic splendor over every hill and dale. If England and France
ever interfere with this nation, it will be because God in his providence will compel them for the
purpose of exterminating slavery. And mystic Egypt, with mystic Pharaoh at its head, may
refuse compliance to Heaven’s demand; but the inexpressible tortures inflicted upon ancient
Egypt, the cruelties of Antiochus to the Jews, the devastation of Jerusalem by the Roman
Generals Titus and Vespasian, the bloody streets of France in 1792, will all hardly bear a
comparison to what will befall this nation
H. M. T.
Washington, July 2, 1862
