Awaiting the Millennium: The Children of Peace and the Village of Hope, 1812-1889

Andrew Thomson is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of
Guelph.

The Children of Peace were a millenarian splinter from the mainstream of
the Quaker faith in Ontario in the years surrounding the War of 1812.
The Children are now best known for the construction of the building we
know as the Sharon Temple, a unique structure that displays some of the
characteristics that made the Children of Peace distinctive. In this
book, anthropologist Albert Schrauwers examines the social and doctrinal
origins of the group and the evolution of their beliefs through more
than 75 years of the province’s history.

In 1812 David Willson, the founder of the Children, broke with the
Quakers after experiencing a series of intense visions that led him to a
new interpretation of the divinity of Christ and the role of man in a
new society. In the Village of Hope, Willson and his followers attempted
to create this new society. Schrauwers discusses the organization and
evolution of the group. The Children’s original tenets faced traumatic
changes following the completion of the temple in 1832, and again in the
wake of the changes wrought by the rebellion of 1837. At each stage, the
group’s distinctive beliefs are placed in their theological, economic,
and political contexts.

Schrauwers is most effective in outlining the differing visions of
economic and social success that separated the Children from the society
around them. The market and moral economies, as Schrauwers refers to
them, are explained and placed in the context of the society quite well.
The book is less effective in making the theological disputes accessible
to the reader beyond the most simple understanding. It is also weakened
by the decision to combine social science footnoting with the more
traditional endnotes. The result is confusing and fails to accomplish
the goal of footnoting: to aid and inform the reader.

Awaiting the Millennium at times gets lost in a maze of anthropological
jargon, but Schrauwers rescues the reader with his ability to
encapsulate several long and complex sections with one or two paragraphs
of conclusion. His detailed study tells readers all they are ever likely
to need to know about the Children of Peace.