CHAPTER IV.

Continuation of the History of Mr. Pierson-Yet believes his Wife is to be raised from the Dead-The Negro Woman, Katy, and her Visions-Extracts from Mr. Pierson's DiaryHe purchases Katy's Freedom, and sends her Home to Virginia-Continues preaching at Bowery Hill-Sickness there, and dispersion of the Kingdom'-Copious Extracts from Mr. Pierson's Prayers, Meditations, and Closet Exercises-Mr. and Mrs. Folger return to the City-They fall again into the Hands of Mr. P. and Mrs. Further Extracts-Mr. Pierson asserts the Power of Miracles-His Covenant-Extraordinary Infatuation concerning His Wife-The Year 1831 -Mr. Folger's History resumed.

It is necessary in the present chapter still to pursue the history of Mr. Pierson. The idea that his beloved wife was yet to be raised from the dead, and restored to him in her own proper person, was so deeply implanted in his mind, as not to forsake him for many months, and even for years afterward. It seems, in fact, for a long time to have had an almost exclusive possession of his thoughts. Among his papers which, from the disorder that prevailed on his death, and the breaking up of the establishment at Sing Sing, seem to have been thrown into confusion, and many of them probably lost, the writer has been enabled to find no record of any spiritual interviews between Sarah and himself, after her burial, except that in the record of his meditations

on the 19th of December following, he says, Sarah spoke to him and said, “I agree to what you have written." It is known, however, that he declared, the day after the funeral, that she had appeared to him, and many believed in the reality of his vision. He also stated subsequently, that he had had several interviews with her-that her body was to be restored to him-and that, according to a revelation with which he had been favoured, she was to bear him a son who was to be called James. Nor did the deceased appear to her husband only. The reader may have remarked, in a preceding page, the name of "Katy" as among the inmates of Mr. Pierson's household on Bowery Hill. She was a woman of colour, from Virginia, a slave, who became a convert to Mr. Pierson's doctrines, and, of course, a member of "the kingdom." This Katy, it appears, had three interviews with Mrs. Pierson after her burial--or rather, the wench had the art to avail herself of the mental malady under which Mr. Pierson was suffering, and induce him to believe as much; and he has recorded the results of the supposed conferences between the departed mistress and her servant as follows:

KATY'S CONVERSATION WITH SARAH.

Friday, July 2, 1830. She appeared sitting in the coffin, top off-looking well. Spoke about the lamp that guided the Christian to heaven; invisible here because of sin and conflictat my espousals Elizabeth's hands almost touched her.

Tell Mr. Pierson to keep a close watch over Charlotte-that light mind she has got.

Tell Timothy the time is at hand, and to look to the Lord in faith, and get that load off his back.

Tell Mr. Pierson to give you those stockings you washed for me, and my old night wrapper. I desire you would wear something of mine.

She then rose up and began to fix and give directions for the cleaning and fixing the house. [I was the same day cleaning and fixing the house, and ordered every thing done as I thought she would have had it; this unbeknown to Katy].

She then came to me and put her hands round my neck and whispered to me, and she saw her no more.

Monday, July 5, 1830. Katy was sitting in the door, praying that she might see her. Sarah spoke and said, "This house is the Temple of God. Do you remember the time when you did not want us to move?" She showed how we were living before we were married. We were like two trees dug up by the roots and planted together, and we were covered by one mantle. At that time we conversed together about the work the Lord gave us to do, and it has been carried on ever since. I now had the whole of it on me.

To Katy she said, "Prepare to meet Christ without sin unto salvation." Heb. ix. 28. The Lord said not to murmur. He took her for his own glory, and 'twas his work.

She said, "Behold the bride, the Lamb's wife ;" and Katy had a view of the New Jerusalem. Rev. xxi. 9. Our union was an everlasting covenant never to be broken.

Saturday, July 10, 1830. She asked "how the children were." "Have you got all your things?" she asked. The Lord will do for him (me) what He sees best before he goes away. Tell him to go to the Penitentiary, State Prison, Almshouse, and Five Points, if it be only once or twice (Katy and Miss Rto go also.)

Those things which I had in hand I must lay down well [or finish the work here well].

The last work we did together (Five Points) brought us nearer to God than we ever were before.

Then the Lord took her for his own glory. She was as a bright morning star, and God took me for his own glory. I wonder Mr. Pierson has been so long with me in Jesus, and does not know me yet.

She says the mantle, or covering, is still over us, and we are both together in it, and shall never be separated.

Thus much for the visions of Katy, which, as we have remarked in a preceding page, she had "the art" to impose upon the credulity of Mr. Pierson.

It is not intended to be uncharitable; the black woman, too, may have been partially subject to the delusion prevailing at Bowery Hill, since mania, like various other diseases, often becomes epidemic; but it will be observed that, like the king of the Mohawks, when he dreamed that Sir William Johnson had given him his gold-laced coat, she did not dream for nothing; and the "stockings" and "wrapper" of the deceased were but small items in the total of the gains brought by her visions. Katy was not only a slave, but she had a family in Virginia, to which, of course, she was desirous of returning. By what further appliances she operated upon Mr. Pierson, is not known to the writer; but the following entries in his diary, at subsequent periods, indicate the determination to which he arrived :

Sunday, Sept. 26, 1830. After prayer concerning Katy's going to Virginia, the Lord said, "She may go. I will be with her, and no evil shall befall her. She shall see her children, and I will direct her and them in the way I have appointed for them."

The following memorandum is of an uncertain date. It is an answer to another prayer respecting

Katy :

"Send her away in peace. She shall return to her own native land, and die there. I will be with her. You may do for her what you please."

The supposed heavenly mandate was implicitly obeyed, as the writer has been informed by an intimate friend of Mr. Pierson. Katy's freedom was purchased for the sum of four hundred dollars. She

was sent back to her family, a free woman, and provision was made for her support, and the money promptly remitted until the decease of her benefactor. This is a beautiful incident in the annals of benevolence, and shows that, notwithstanding the errors of the head, there was a current of sympathy for human wo in his heart which neither error nor fanaticism could chill.

Mr. and Mrs. Folger having returned from the country in the month of July, were informed of the occurrences which attended the death and burial of Mrs. Pierson, and which, they were also told, had induced those acquainted with the circumstances to pronounce Mr. Pierson a deranged man. They lost no time in having an interview, and were satisfied from his conversation, and the explanation of his views, that he was not deranged—a conclusion which proves very clearly that they were getting yet more deeply involved in the delusion themselves. Mr. Pierson spoke to them of the "first resurrection," and contended that he had only been in error as to the time, but requested them not to recur to the subject in future. He continued to preach as before, and with yet stronger confidence, inasmuch as he construed the communication made to him on the 20th of June into a special commission. No child ever believed more implicitly what was told him by a kind father, than he believed that the Spirit had said to him, "I have named thee this day Elijah the Tishbite," &c.; and henceforward he was greatly anxious to relinquish his commercial pursuits and devote himself entirely to the ministry. To the