Book of Mormon/Plagiarism accusations/Benjamin Paddock/Paddock text in context

The Genesee Conference for 1826 was held at Palmyra, Wayne County, N.Y., commencing on the 7th of June, Bishop Hedding presiding. On several accounts it was a rather remarkable session. The venerable Bishop M'Kendree then visited us for the last time. He was too feeble to preside, and occupied the chair only once or twice, and then only for a few minutes at a time. Still, however, at the urgent request of Bishop Hedding and leading members of the Conference, he signed the Journals at the close of the session as one of its presiding officers. Brethren were anxious to secure at least his signature as a memorial of his visit. he had been familiar with the entire history of the Conference, and stated with tearful emotion that he still had great affection for its members, and that to take his final leave of them, so far, at least, as earth was concerned, was the special object of his visit. His whole bearing was at once so lovely, so dignified, and so impressive, that all were melted, and, in a pleasant sense, awed in his presence. Dr. Nathan Bangs was his traveling companion, having come on with him from New York, and watched over him with the greatest tenderness and care. Their respectful, nay, even deferential, treatment of each other was a most lovely sight. The Bishop always spoke of his companion as "the Doctor," and addressed him as if he were a man of superior rank; while the doctor's reciprocal bearing was still more reverential and promptly obedient. But then neither bishops nor doctors of divinity were quite as numerous at that early day as they now are; and for this reason, perhaps, as well as others, they were possibly both more noticed and more revered.

I have ever regarded it as one of the most memorable privileges of my early ministry that I was allowed to journey with these now sainted men from Palmyra to Utica, at which later place I had just been stationed for the second year. The Conference adjourned on Wednesday, and Dr. Bangs agreed to preach for me on the following Sabbath. Finding the captain of a canal boat, who said he would see us into Utica by Saturday afternoon or evening, we concluded to take passage with him. That was before the day of canal packets, so that a small cabin and slow progress were necessarily incidental to our homeward journey. The stage-coach would have given us a speedier transit, but would have been far less friendly to the good Bishop's age and feebleness. It will be readily admitted, that the difference between such a conveyance and Pullman's railroad palace-car is considerable. But forty-six years since even the cabin of a freight-boat was quite a luxury; while now to put a bishop into such a place would seem much like sending him "to prison and to death." Our momentum was much less than had been promised, so that we were very late in reaching Utica. But, with such company, the considerable number of junior preachers on board could hardly complain that time hung heavy on their hands. Brief lectures from the Bishop and Dr. Bangs, with spiritual songs and prayers by the younger brotherhood, made our mimic cabin a little Bethel. The school was a rare one; and, homesick as the students were, they could hardly have complained had the journey been still more protracted.

But to return to the Conference. On another account the session was remarkable. A great camp-meeting was held in connection with it. The ground was only about a mile from the village, so that members of the Conference not immediately and specially employed could take part in its services. At that early day, and previously, meetings of the kind were not unfrequently held in the neighborhood of our Annual Conferences; but the present one was exceptionally large. There were more than one hundred tents on the ground, and these were occupied by our people from almost all parts of the country, many of them coming from a distance of one hundred miles or more. The spirit of the meeting was admirable. Conversions were numerous and powerful; while ministers and people seemed to vie with each other in their efforts to promote the work of God. But the Sabbath was the great day of the feast. Beginning in the morning at eight o'clock, five sermons were preached before the services closed in the evening. Bishop Hedding and Dr. Bangs took the two appointments nearest the meridian of the day, and preached with even more than their ordinary freedom and power. At about five in the afternoon the stand was assigned to the Rev. Glezen Fillmore, then in the vigor of mature manhood, now - for he still lives, a blessing to the Church and the world - trembling on the extreme verge of time. The sermon was in his best style - more carefully prepared and more effectively delivered than were his discourses generally. The latter part of it contemplated the whole process of personal salvation, from its incipiency to its consummation in the world of light. Having traced the track of the believer, all along from the dawn of spiritual life till he had entered the land of Beulah, and was about to plume himself for his flight to the celestial city, the speaker paused as if struggling with irrepressible emotion, and, looking upward, exclaimed, "O God, hold thy servant together while for a moment he looks through the gates ajar into the New Jerusalem!" To describe the effect would be quite impossible. A tide of emotion swept over the congregation that seemed to carry all before it. I was seated near Bishop Hedding, who, from fatigue, was reclining upon a bed under and a little to the rear of the stand. It had been noticed before that he was much affected by the sermon; but when the sentence given above was uttered, the tears almost literally spurted from his eyes, and his noble form shook as if under the resistless control of a galvanic battery. The Rev. Goodwin Stoddard exhorted, and invited seekers within the circle of prayer in front of the stand. Hundreds came forward; some said nearly every unconverted person on the ground. In the spring of 1828, when I was pastor in Rochester, the delegates from New England, on their way to the General Conference in Pittsburgh, called and spent the Sabbath with me. Almost the first thing they said after we met was, "Where is that brother that wanted God to hold him together while he looked into heaven a moment?" It seems that the good Bishop had reported the sermon in more circles than one, for others from the east made a similar inquiry.

But though a volume might be written about that Conference, it seems proper now simply to add, that, at the close of it, B. G. Paddock and Hiram May were appointed to the Potsdam Circuit, in St. Lawrence County.