21st October 1814: Joanna Southcott publishes an address to her followers

The Leeds Intelligencer of Monday 31st October 1814 published the following article about an address recently given by Joanna Southcott to her followers:

JOHANNA SOUTHCOTT.

This bewildered or wicked woman has published the following Address to her friends:–

"Many of the Believers in my Visitation, as I have been informed, begin to grow impatient in their expectation, as to the marriage spoken of not having taken place, and published a long time before the child should be born; and seeing the harvest nearly ended, "they appear ready to sink in the great deep—the seas before them, and the Egyptian host behind them;" so that where is the promise of either the Marriage or the Child? will soon be the cry of the public; and the believers themselves will be ready to say—‘the harvest is over; the day is ended; and we are not saved.’―From this I see clearly that my enemies would soon boast and triumph, while the Believers would be ready to sink in despair, if the way they are stumbled in remained without being answered and explained. In order, therefore, to give away such a state of mind in the Believers, I take this opportunity of informing them, that when the marriage was first mentioned to me, it was before I had any knowledge of what would follow; I was warned that a private marriage would first take place in my own house, which afterwards was to be granted to be realized in public.

"This circumstance stumbled me, and also my friends, who were made acquainted with it, because at that time there appeared no necessity for such a private marriage to take place in haste; but now I see cause enough, from the dangers which begin to appear; so that, from my present situation, and my own feelings, I can judge the truth of the words that are already in print. For, if there be ‘no Son’, there will be ‘no adopted Father,’ and no marriage to be binding: because it will be but a temporary marriage, from which death must soon release me. But who the bridegroom is must not be publicly made known, after the marriage hath taken place, until the child be born. Thus, taking the whole into consideration, it is clear to me that the marriage and the birth of the child may, and will, most likely take place within, perhaps, less than a day the one before the other; therefore the Believers may from this hint be able to form a correct judgment, and check their impatience, so as not to look for the Sixth Book immediately after the marriage shall have taken place; but that the Sixth and Seventh Books, to complete the wonders, as before said, will be in order, and in right time, both after the birth of the child shall have taken place.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.

October 21, 1814.