Retirement
Before Shiloh was finally deserted in May, Sandford heard the heavenly direction to "Retire." For the remainder of his life, Sandford lived in seclusion near the village of Hobart, New York in the Catskill Mountains. He prayed, farmed, raised sheep, studied astronomy, taught small groups, and gradually regathered his scattered followers into centers in different parts of the country. Messages were delivered to the faithful by a smaller inner circle.
Sandford continued to be supported by the tithes of his followers, and his retirement was "satisfying and serene," although his papers and books were twice destroyed in house fires. To some degree Sandford relaxed his earlier rhetoric. On New Year's Eve, 1941, he received a message from God to "remit the sins of each and every person that has been baptized since October 1, 1901." But he never renounced his claim to be Elijah; nor did he ever express remorse for those who had died on the Coronet thirty years earlier.
Sandford's death on March 4, 1948 was quiet and peaceful. His funeral and internment, however, were hasty and secretive. The news of his death was not released to the press for six weeks. Sandford had, of course, not died as Elijah in Jerusalem, but as an unheralded inhabitant of a Catskill village.
Read more about this topic: Frank Sandford
Famous quotes containing the word retirement:
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“Adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envy of another man’s enclosed pleasures: and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)
“Douglas. Now remains a sweet reversion—
We may boldly spend, upon the hope
Of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hotspur. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)