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My First Vision
39
with being with the evil servant that said in his heart, “My Lord
delayeth His coming.”
All these things weighed heavily upon my spirits, and in the
confusion I was sometimes tempted to doubt my own experience.
While at family prayers one morning, the power of God began to
rest upon me, and the thought rushed into my mind that it was
mesmerism, and I resisted it. Immediately I was struck dumb and
for a few moments was lost to everything around me. I then saw my
sin in doubting the power of God, and that for so doing I was struck
dumb, and that my tongue would be loosed in less than twenty-
four hours. A card was held up before me, on which were written
[23]
in letters of gold the chapter and verse of fifty texts of Scripture.
[
These texts are given at the close of this article.
] After I came out of
vision, I beckoned for the slate, and wrote upon it that I was dumb,
also what I had seen, and that I wished the large bible. I took the
Bible and readily turned to all the texts that I had seen upon the card.
I was unable to speak all day. Early the next morning my soul was
filled with joy, and my tongue was loosed to shout the high praises
of God. After that I dared not doubt or for a moment resist the power
of God, however others might think of me.
In 1846, while at Fairhaven, Massachusetts, my sister (who
usually accompanied me at that time), Sister A., Brother G., and
myself started in a sailboat to visit a family on West’s Island. It was
almost night when we started. We had gone but a short distance
when a storm suddenly arose. It thundered and lightened, and the
rain came in torrents upon us. It seemed plain that we must be lost,
unless God should deliver.
I knelt down in the boat and began to cry to God to deliver us.
And there upon the tossing billows, while the water washed over the
top of the boat upon us, I was taken off in vision and saw that sooner
would every drop of water in the ocean be dried up than we perish,
for my work had but just begun. After I came out of the vision all
my fears were gone, and we sang and praised God, and our little
boat was to us a floating Bethel. The editor of
The Advent Herald
has said that my visions were known to be “the result of mesmeric
operations.” But, I ask, what opportunity was there for mesmeric
operations in such a time as that? Brother G. had more than he
could well do to manage the boat. He tried to anchor, but the anchor