The encounter between the Prophet Matthias and Joseph Smith ends when Smith banishes Matthias from Kirtland, Ohio and both men swear that the other is possessed by Satan. Smith clearly thought Matthias was deranged saying that "his mind was evidently filled with darkness (5)" and fully acknowledges Matthias as a murderer on page six of The Kingdom of Matthias. Both men shared the bond of being poor, uneducated men who had fallen on hard times during the market revolution. They were the product of a theological movement that relied less on learned ministers and more on ordinary people with intense religious experiences. “Drawing on more than two centuries of occultism and Anglo-American millenarian speculation, the seers of the new republic traced the pattern of later prophetic movements down to our own time” is a quote from page six that explains the impact of both men and their followers. had on American history. Another sect of religious fanatics of this period were the Finneyites who rejected the Calvinist approach to determinism and predestination. They believed that "individuals could overcome inherited human selfishness and be saved through repentance and prayer (7)." Although they advocated mobility along the religious hierarchy, the Finneyites sought to retain two spheres of society, an industrial sphere and a domestic sphere. The industrial and monetary aspects were to be dominated by men while women were allowed to direct the child-rearing and household maintenance activities associated with the domestic side. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayElijah Pierson was shaped by his disapproval of the class system established in his home of Morristown, New Jersey. As a young man he was dismayed by the allocation of seats in church, with the more elite getting better seats. “By the standards that Elijah Pierson would later adopt, the unchanging inequality of this close-knit patriarchy was a perfect model of injustice (17)” is evidence of how the intolerance displayed in Morristown affected Pierson. This mentality made him want to spread the word of God to every caste imaginable, choosing to open storefronts in Five Points and Bowery Hill. He found success as a clerk on Wall Street in New York, where he established his connections with the Brick Presbyterian Church in Spring. Through this church, Pierson met Sarah Stanford and they married shortly after and practiced retrenchment which was "the ultra-evangelical movement aimed at avoiding luxury in food, clothing and furnishings." The irony is that fasts that were practices of retrenchment are almost certainly what led to Sarah's death and Elijah's madness. He also remained a virgin until the age of 35, denying him the opportunity to grow up as a normal person. He must have been socially awkward and unable to keep his sanity after Sarah died. Pierson's story can be called a love story because it is about a man who fell into a dark period after the death of his one and only lover, Sarah Stanford. Robert Matthews, the man who would become the prophet Matthias, was born and raised in a Scottish colony in the Hudson Valley. It was here that Matthias witnessed sermons about fire and brooms and people having visions of Jesus (56). It would have been common for Matthews to view the visions with serious conviction and act accordingly. In.