23
It caused me serious reflection then, and often has since, how very strange it was that an obscure boy, of a little over fourteen years of age, and one, too, who was
doomed to the necessity of obtaining a scanty maintenance by his daily
labor, should be thought a character of sufficient importance to attract
the attention of the great ones of the most popular sects of the day,
and in a manner to create in them a spirit of the most bitter
persecution and reviling. But strange or not, so it was, and it was often the cause of great sorrow to myself.
28
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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