soon effaced by the ever flowing tide of natural law and orderly
progression. Now, that this was the case and that yet this body of
believers did not diminish but increased, did not become demoralised but
grew in moral strength, did not lose faith but continued to cherish a
more ardent hope and daily expectation of the Divine appearing, is no
doubt due to the working of some law which we do not understand, and
which it would therefore be unscientific to pronounce upon.

The congregation of Adventists in Chellaston, however, was not
noticeable for size or influence. Some in the neighbourhood did not even
know that this congregation existed, until it put forth its hand and
took to itself the old preacher who was called Lazarus Cameron. They
understood his language as others did not; they believed that he had
come with a message for them; they often led him into their
meeting-place and into their houses; and he, perhaps merely falling into
the mechanical habit of going where he had been led, appeared in his own
fashion to consort with them.

There, was something weird about the old preacher, although he was
healthy, vigorous, and kindly, clean-looking in body and soul; but the
aspect of any one is in the eye of the beholder. This man, whose mind
was blank except upon one theme, whose senses seemed lost except at rare
times, when awakened perhaps by an effort of his will, or perhaps by an
unbidden wave of psychical sympathy with some one to whom he was drawn
by unseen union, awoke a certain feeling of sensational interest in most
people when they approached him. The public were in the main divided
into two classes in their estimate of him--those who felt the force of
his religion, and argued therefrom that his opinions were to be
respected; and those who believed that his mind was insane, and argued
therefrom that his religion was either a fancy or a farce. At first