Midnight Cry - Volume 01, Number 15

              ) NIGHT CRY!
Y0MMI! I. NEW- YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1842. NUMBER 15.
1 JMTifte'the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie
I though it tarry, wait for it ; because it will surely come, it will not tarry."
tBY JOSHUA r. mm. DAILY- NO. 36 PARK- ROW. PRICE TWO CENTS.
THE MIDNIGHT CRY.
The Sea aiid the Waves Roaring:.
This sign is almost the last in the series described be-flre
the promise, " Then shall they see the Son of Man
coming in a cloud, with power and great glory." Some
t| ink it relates to the people on the earth, for people are
" waters" in the New Testament. In this sense,
tie prediction is strikingly fulfilled in that feverish and
excitement which everywhere prevails ; but we
tlinklhe language is to be understood literally, and that
had a literal fulfilment.
Our readers are familiar with the statement which went
tie rounds of the papers last Spring, that a sea captain,
itto crossed the Atlantic 106 times, had the roughest
last February that he ever knew. We need not
the desolating storm which carried mourning to
p many hundreds of families on Cape Oed last Fall, or
t| i destructive gale which shivered so many vessels at
itteucester two years before. The records of shipwrecks
i| all parts of the world are too numerous and too well
be repeated here. The recent papers have
swelled the catalogue. Here are specimens :
.; " AT S « A. Wo learn from the Portland Argus,
' tiit^ taUnited States Cutter Alert, Captain Whitcombe,
I on the 25th ult-, having on board the crew
i Fttie late schooner Catharine, of EastMachias, wrecked
i par Seguin Island.
- of coasting vessels were exposed, dnd
1 of the 18th ult- » previous
4lie.* wjnl; faad been, to the. . e& 9$ waid> for< eight or,
days, and hundreds of light coasting vessels from the
i Istward during that time, had been collecting in the
1 harbors along the coast ; consequently many of
I JMftinnst have been more or Jess injured by the gale,
I pi probably lost, that did not come to the knowledge of
Cutter.
he officers and crew of the Cutter were instru-in
saving several small vessels from destrue-
AT CJAPC GOOD HOPE. An English sloop of war
Cape' ' oC Good Hope, at St. Helena, communicated
i br " of a severe gale at the Cape on the 7th of j
« j .. during which several British vessels were |
lini' also ' that the s> hip Fairfield, of Boston, ,
nt Table Bay, and was a wreck.
of fiMInf our sheet with such extracts, we will
pad an anecdote. One day last summer, I called on
elderly gentleman who lived on the sea- coast between
and Gloucester. He was in m corn- field, which
is on two sides by the waves of the Atlantic,
were then rolling slowly on to the shore. As we
the house, I referred to his romantic situ-illuding
particularly to the bold roeks which de-
. the - opposite his dwelling Pointing to some
not less than thirty feet high, he said he had
| ii against those rocks, ^ pd break over
ilr r Vlttptt making any allusion to the subject
Christ's , I asked him how the state of the sea
id recently, im comparison with former years. He
replied, " It has been very much more tempest-
H within ' the last two years, than ever before within
He was an old man, and had always lived on that
aware ' that seoflers will still say, " All things
jrsjth « 3fiii% r^, t'bttt!" The : d0y of the Lord will
Inf'lhe night, when - the earth, and the
are therein, will be burned up."
Account of my first day's work in Tract Dis
tribution.
[ We pray God, that others may imitate this faithful
sister, and that many hearts and purses may be opened
to supply the means of scattering our publications wide
ly in this city and country.] ED.
I had about forty tracts of the common kind to give
out, in a defined district. I received 56 numbers of the
Midnight Cry from the office, with some small papers.
Tl^ ese were to be given to the world. I commenced
operations by accosting two mulatto men in Spruce st.,
who received the papers gladly and promised me they
would come to the church and hear more on this subject.
Some boys then came up to me, looking very anxiously
I gave them each one of the small papers. The next
man I accosted refused to take a paper ; upon seeing
this, a boy ran up and asked me to give it to him. Of
course I could not refuse. Other boys then came beg
ging me to give them a paper. JL asked them if they
would read them and make a pod use of them; this
they promised to do. One said, " he would keep his
till bed time and then read it.'' By this means I hoped
the subject would be brought before his family. To
these boys I gave the small papers. I called at some
houses in this part of the city, and then went through
Monroe to Catharine streets I met several persons,
whom I accosted and presented them with papers, some
of whom I was well pleased with, particularly a carman
a protestant Irish woman, and a sailor who wa § just
going to sea. Three of my papers I left in grog shops,
Borne of my tracts I left in other drinking places.
In Cherry street, I met, or rather passed by, a tleist,
and afterwards turned back and offered him a paper,
asking him to read it; he replied, " he would read any
thing that was good." On my asking him if he had
heard of this doctrine before, he replied yes, but he be
lieved it to be all a hurnbag, and compared Mr. Miller
with other imposters who have arisen. I then told him
that Mr. Miller proved his doctrine from the Bible, which
those others did not. He then told me he believed the Bi
ble to be " a pack of lies," for several reasons ; first, be
cause Solomon, and David and Isaiah make the Lord to
appear very wicked in some parts of their writings;
secondly, he said, " the story of our Saviour's miracu
lous birth would not be credited by the world in this
age." ( Perhaps he is too correct in this particular.)
When I referred him to the prophecies, he said, " yes,
and that prophecy has been held up to the people to com
plete the delusion." He then told me he had read the
Shaslres, Alcoran, and our Bible, and liked one as well
as the other. On asking him particularly if he had heard
Mr. Miller, or read his writings, he replied, " No." I
then begged him to come on Sunday to hear him, and he
promised faithfully he would.
My next conversation was in a house where the man
had heard Mr. Miller, but had misunderstood him, for he
told me Mr. Miller made a mistake in counting " the 15
days and 30 weeks." I asked him " where those num
bers were!" He said somewhere, but could not tell,
but was very positive they were in Daniel or Revelations.
I took my Testament and explained to him the. 15th
verse of the 9th chapter of Revelations. He then dis
covered that he had mixed two subjects together.
I argued some time with a Catholic woman, who re
fused both tracts and papers, saying, they were not I
' their tracts." She was very positive the end of the
world would not come till more signs and wonders had
taken place; yet she had no Bible in the house to tell her
any thing about it. She admitted they read the Bible,
but on my coming closer to the point, she said she had
none. I left her a paper, and made her promise to read
it. Some Catholics refused the tracts, pretending they
could not read. One said " she could read nothing but
Irish." One Catholic woman appeared willing and glad
to receive the tracts. Where the children could read I
would make them take them.
One Protestant English woman held a long argument
or conversation with me. She gave me as her reason
for not joining any church in this city, that she had dis
covered so much hypocrisy in some high professors
of religion that she could not fellowship with them. At
home, she said, their church members were all friendly
and united with each other,; but here she had discovered
that in many cases it was very different. After this I
called on an old lady, a member of the Episcopal Church,
who had heard very little of the Second Advent doctrine,
but she had no objections to it. She felt delighted with
the idea of our dear Saviour coming so soon. I was
much pleased with this visit, because I saw she was a
true Christian, and Fasketl her to pray for me when we
parted. Now may God give his blessing on this day's
labor. I have enjoyed it very much indeed. I did not
bring home a single paper or tract, but might have dis
posed uf more.
An Eastern Marriage.
BY A TRAVELLER.
We had scarcely sat down when we heard the sound
of music and mirth, and running to the window, observ
ed the glare of torches in the street. We* were told that
it was the " voice of the bridegroom and of the bride."
Some of us instantly set out to witness the spectacle of
an eastern marriage. We wished to see the parable of
the ten virgins illustrated, and our wish was gratified.
The bridegroom was on his way to the house of the
bride. According to custom, he walked in procession
through several streets of the town, attended by a nu
merous body of friends, all in their showy eastern garb.
Persons bearing torches went first, keeping the torches
in full blaze by a constant supply of ready wood, which
they put into a receiver made of wire, fixed on the end
of a long pole. Two of these torch- bearers stood close
to the bridegroom, so that we had a view of his person.
An instrument not unlike our bagpipe was playing,
drnflte were beating, and from time to time muskets
were fired in honor of the occasion. There was much
mirth expressed by the crowd, especially when the pro
cession stood* still, which it did every few paces We
thought of the words of John, " The friend of the bride
groom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth great
ly because of the bridegroom's voice."
A't length the company arrived at the entrance of the
street where the bride had her residence. Immediately
we heard the sound of many female voices, and observed
by the light of the torches, a company of veiled brides
maids, waiting on the balcony to give notice of the com
ing of the bridegroom. When they caught 4 sight of the
approaching procession, they ran back into the house,
making it resound with the cr|, " hahil, habil, hahil,"
and music of the voice and instrument commenced
within. Thus the bridegroom entered in^ " and the door
was shut." We were left standing in the street without,
" in the outer darkness." In our Lord's parable, the vir
gins go forth to meet the bridegroom with lamps in their
hands, but here they only waited for his coming. Still
we saw the traces of the very scene described by our
Lord, and a vivid representation of the way in which
Christ shall come to his waiting church, and the mar
riage supper of the Lamb begin. In India and other
parts of the East, it is the custom for the friends of the
bride to go oyt to meet the company.