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During the space of time which intervened between the time I had the
vision and the year eighteen hundred and twenty-three—having been
forbidden to join any of the religious sects of the day, and being of very
tender years, and persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends
and to have treated me kindly, and if they supposed me to be deluded to
have endeavored in a proper and affectionate manner to have reclaimed
me—I was left to all kinds of temptations; and, mingling with all kinds
of society, I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed
the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am
sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of
God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any
great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my
nature. But I was guilty of levity, and sometimes associated with
jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to
be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been. But this will
not seem very strange to any one who recollects my youth, and is acquainted with my native cheery temperament.
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The excitement, however, still continued, and rumor with her thousand
tongues was all the time employed in circulating falsehoods about my
father’s family, and about myself. If I were to relate a thousandth
part of them, it would fill up volumes. The persecution, however,
became so intolerable that I was under the necessity of leaving
Manchester, and going with my wife to Susquehanna county, in the State
of Pennsylvania. While preparing to start—being very
poor, and the persecution so heavy upon us that there was no
probability that we would ever be otherwise—in the midst of our
afflictions we found a friend in a gentleman by the name of Martin
Harris, who came to us and gave me fifty dollars to assist us on our
journey. Mr. Harris was a resident of Palmyra township, Wayne county,
in the State of New York, and a farmer of respectability.
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