Experience and Views
7
in a vision of God’s glory, and seemed to be rising higher and higher
from the earth, and was shown something of the travels of the Advent
people to the Holy City, as will be seen in the vision hereafter.
After I came out of vision everything looked changed, a gloom
was spread over all that I beheld. O, 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 told the view to our
little band in Portland, who then fully believed it to be of God. It was
a powerful time. The solemnity of eternity rested upon us. About one
week after this the Lord gave me another view, and shewed me the
trials I must pass through, and that I must go and relate to others what
he had revealed to me, and that I should meet with great opposition,
and suffer anguish of spirit by going. But said the angel “The grace of
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God is sufficient for you: he will hold you up.”
After I came out of this vision I was exceedingly troubled. My
health was very poor, and I was but seventeen years old. I knew that
many had fallen through exaltation, and I knew that if I in any way
became exalted that God would leave me, and I should surely be lost.
I went to the Lord in prayer and begged him to lay the burden on some
one else. It seemed to me that I could not bear it. I lay upon my face
a long time, and all the light I could get was “Make known to others
what I have revealed to you.”
In my next vision I earnestly begged of the Lord, that if I must go
and relate what he had shown me, to keep me from exaltation. Then he
shewed me that my prayer was answered, and if I should be in danger
of exaltation his hand should be laid upon me, and I should be afflicted
with sickness. Said the angel, If you deliver the messages faithfully,
and endure unto the end, you shall eat of the fruit of the tree of life,
and drink of the water of the river of life.
Soon it was reported all around that the visions were the result of
mesmerism, and many Adventists were ready to believe, and circulate
the report. A physician, who was a celebrated mesmerizer, told me
that my views were mesmerism, and that I was a very easy subject,
and that he could mesmerize me and give me a vision. I told him that
the Lord had shown me in vision that mesmerism was from the Devil,
from the bottomless pit, and that it would soon go there, with those
who continued to use it. I then gave him liberty to mesmerize me if
he could. He tried for more than half an hour, resorting to different