Experience and Views
9
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 should be loosed in less than twenty-four hours. A card was
held up before me, on which was written in gold letters the chapter and
verse of fifty texts of Scripture. 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, Mass., my sister, (who usually accom-
panied me at that time,) sister A. and brother G. and myself started in
a sail-boat to visit a family on West’s Island. It was almost night when
we started. We had gone but a short distance when a sudden storm
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, the rain descended as I never saw it before, the
lightnings flashed and the thunders rolled, I was taken off in vision,
and saw that sooner would every drop of water in the ocean be dried
up than we should perish, for I saw that my work had but just begun.
[9]
After I came out of the vision all my fears were gone, and we sung
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 chance was
there for mesmeric operations in such a time as that?
Bro. G. had more than he could well attend to, to manage the boat.
He tried to anchor, but the anchor dragged. Our little boat was tossed
upon the waves, and driven by the wind, while it was so dark that we
could not see from one end of the boat to the other.
Soon the anchor held, and Bro. G. called for help. There were but
two houses on the Island, and it proved that we were near one of them,
but not the one where we wished to go. All the family had retired to
rest except a little child, who providentially heard the call for help
upon the water. Her father soon came to our relief, and in a small boat,