My First Vision
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We all entered the cloud together, and were seven days ascending
to the sea of glass, when Jesus brought the crowns and with His own
right hand placed them on our heads. He gave us harps of gold and
palms of victory. Here on the sea of glass the 144,000 stood in a
perfect square. Some of them had very bright crowns, others not so
bright. Some crowns appeared heavy with stars, while others had but
few. All were perfectly satisfied with their crowns. And they were all
clothed with a glorious white mantle from their shoulders to their feet.
Angels were all about us as we marched over the sea of glass to the
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gate of the city. Jesus raised His mighty, glorious arm, laid hold of the
pearly gate, swung it back on its glittering hinges, and said to us, “You
have washed your robes in My blood, stood stiffly for My truth; enter
in.” We all marched in and felt that we had a perfect right in the city.
Here we saw the tree of life and the throne of God. Out of the
throne came a pure river of water, and on either side of the river was
the tree of life. On one side of the river was a trunk of a tree, and a
trunk on the other side of the river, both of pure, transparent gold. At
first I thought I saw two trees. I looked again, and saw that they were
united at the top in one tree. So it was the tree of life on either side of
the river of life. Its branches bowed to the place where we stood, and
the fruit was glorious; it looked like gold mixed with silver.
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We all went under the tree, and sat down to look at the glory of
the place, when Brethren Fitch and Stockman, who had preached the
gospel of the kingdom, and whom God had laid in the grave to save
them, came up to us and asked us what we had passed through while
they were sleeping. We tried to call up our greatest trials, but they
looked so small compared with the far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory that surrounded us, that we could not speak them out,
and we all cried out, “Alleluia! heaven is cheap enough!” and we
touched our glorious harps and made heaven’s arches ring.
After I came out of vision, everything seemed changed; a gloom
was spread over all that I beheld. Oh, how dark this world looked to
me! I wept when I found myself here, and felt homesick. I had seen a
better world, and it had spoiled this for me.
I related this vision to the believers in Portland, who had full
confidence that it was from God. They all believed that God had chosen
this way, after the great disappointment in October, to comfort and
strengthen His people. The Spirit of the Lord attended the testimony,