"Having done all-too-well early on, he badly stretched his resources in trying to enlarge his store" (62). He went bankrupt and his reputation was damaged. God was testing him again. But now his misfortunes had cost him money and most of his friends.
In 1816, Robert and his wife Margaret's eldest boy died, and then Matthews himself fell ill for several months. "The previous ten years had been an agony for everyone. Two of the Matthews children had died. The family's fall into nomadic poverty was complete, making a mockery of Robert Matthew's earlier transient respectable independence. Robert's bad moods now came continually: his religious seeking had taken him from Scots Calvinism to Methodism and then to Judaism, with no end in sight" (68).
When Matthias and Pierson met by chance on Bowery Hill they were both susceptible to each other's ideas. It gives you closure and something to "grasp" onto when you have the company of someone who feels like you and believes what you .
believe. This also holds true in respect to his followers also, including Isabella Van Wagenen, Catherine Galloway, and the Folgers.
An example of this is when Elijah and Matthias meet, and realize that there is a significance of June 20 for the both of them.
Other themes are also present in The Kingdom of Matthias, which deal with excessiveness and misinterpretation.
People had become religious fanatics (just like on channel 57). The story about the farmer who forgot about an unannounced day of fasting and tried to light a fore in his hearth; had everyone in his family spend the rest of the day reading the Bible, singing psalms, and repeating the catechism. This seems a little excessive.
Matthias" explanation of his clothes is much like how he interpreted the Bible. He picked and chose references that reinforced his beliefs.
--- ---Jesus Essay--- --- God had promised a messiah to the oppressed Jews. This messiah would be the savior of the world and bring prestige back to the Jews by conquering their enemies, and letting them reclaim their land, the land that God gave them. There were two ideas of what this mes...
