"I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt, they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrine the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. He again forbade me to join with any of them: and many other things did he say unto me which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again I found myself lying on my back looking up into heaven."[1]
From this period he relates that he became the subject of the hottest persecution and reviling; but he continued to tell what he had seen and what had been told him, taking comfort and encouragement from the similarity of his experience with that of St. Paul, who "saw a light and heard a voice," though few believed his testimony. He continued at his farm work, and on the evening of September 21, 1823, three years after his first vision, he received another and more important communication.
"During the space of time which intervened between the time I had the vision, and the year 1823, having been forbidden to join any of the religious sects of the day, and being of very tender years and persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends and to have treated me kindly, and if they supposed me to be deluded to have endeavoured in a proper and affectionate manner to have reclaimed me, I was left to all kinds of temptations, and mingling with all kinds of society, I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth and the corruptions of human nature, which I am sorry to say led me into divers temptations, to the gratification of many appetites offensive in the sight of God. In consequence of these things I often felt condemned for my weakness and imperfections; when on the evening of the above-mentioned 21st September, after I had retired to my bed for the night, I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins and follies, and also for a manifestation to me that I might know of my state and standing before him; for I had full confidence in obtaining a divine manifestation, as I had previously had one.
"While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in the room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor. He had- ↑ His unconsciousness during the reported interview, and the position in which he found himself on awaking, closely resemble the condition of those subject to trances among the Methodists and Spiritualists, but which phenomena appear to have been unknown to Joseph at that time.
