She touched my forehead again, and lo! the brightness and the glory of the scene departed, and I immediately descended, and soon was in a low and gloomy subterranean vault. Darkness in thick folds encompassed me, and a feeling of supernatural dread entered my soul and shocked my being. A quivering and spasmodic action wrought in fearful conflict throughout. My spirit startled at every movement of my mind. Yea, it appeared as if my thoughts wrestled amid the darkness. A distant roar broke upon my ear, as if an ocean poured its mighty waters foaming and surging down some craggy rockbound cataract. In vain I sought to grasp some substance by which to impede my rapid movement, which appeared to force me downward toward the awful abyss.

At this moment a blue sulphurous flash disturbed the vault of nether darkness, and as it disappeared all around me floated grim specters, each enveloped in the fire of unhallowed passion. So sudden had been the change and so dreadful its effects upon me, that no thought but that of horror and despair had entered my mind, until these lurid ghosts appeared; then. a more fearful terror possessed me, and I turned to seek refuge in the embrace of my guide, and lo! I found her not! Alone and in this dreadful place; no means are left to me to express the most faint idea of, the agony of that moment. At first I thought I would pray, but in an instant, the whole scene of my life was before me. Then I exclaimed, "O for one short hour on earth! for space, however brief, for preparation of soul, and to secure fitness for the world of spirits."

But my conscience, as if some fiend, in a voice hoarse and trembling, echoed, "In thy day thou didst reject and spurn the means adapted to thy necessities, canst thou hope for successful suit in this dark scene of woe?" And then to add to my misery, my former doubts and skepticism arose like living beings, looking upon me with a piercing glare. They revolved around me in condemning mockery. Thus congregated my life’s meditations. No secret thought but now composed a part of that attending throng; even those thoughts I had, as I supposed, forgotten, proceeded in order and strength around me. Again they changed, and each appeared an orb revolving in the mental, spiritual, and moral atmosphere of my being, and these, although first appearing in separate parts, at length combined as components of myself. To escape them was to flee from my own life. To annihilate them would seem to blot out my own existence. Then it was that I realized the force of the Savior’s expression, "For every idle word that man shall speak, he shall give account in the day of judgment."

While thus my mental being seemed revolving in outward vision about my despairing thought, and while in the most absolute wretchedness my spirit longed to be delivered from this nether gloom, and to repossess the bodily form, another scene most terrible of all was suddenly made visible. It was the full and perfect representation of my Crucified Redeemer. Suddenly and in one continuous vision my entire life of thought concerning him, passed in a separate embodiment before my mental view. In one compartment of vision, dotted with appropriate imagery, appeared those thoughts which I had conceived of him as a man. In another compartment still, appeared a representation of my thoughts concerning his special atonement for the limited number of the elect, and there in fearful forms, appeared those thoughts which had been mine when I had conceived myself to be doomed to endless punishment, because predestined to reprobation from eternity. Still in another compartment appeared, also in forms appropriate, my thoughts concerning the eternal salvation of all mankind without the necessity of special moral reformation, and without personal and living faith in the Savior in regard to his atonement. And still in another compartment appeared, also clad in images significant of their interior nature, those thoughts concerning Salvation by morality. These separate compartments blended in one revolving sphere around me, in which were ten thousand confused and rapidly combining and separating images, which at once bewildered, excited and surcharged my mind. Thus my mental being moved in fearful vision about my thought, and every phase of doctrine concerning Christ, Heaven, Hell, Religion, or Eternal Life, which I had ever heard in discourse, or which I had conceived by study, or learned in conversation, or evolved in mental action, made a part of the tremendous sight.

Oh, how bewildering these conflicting yet associated ideas of the Redeemer! As they encircled me in one confused yet coherent cloud of imagery, I saw in each some distorted view of the Savior, but from none in their separate forms, neither in the entire cloud of changing views, could I behold him as he is, and therefore the divine glory, honor, majesty and perfection could not be manifested in their exalting and redeeming power, and I could not see him as a Prince and a Savior in that true character which he sustains to the world.

Bewildered, and ready to abandon all hope of ever escaping that abode, I had determined in my mind that the sight was the last which was to fill up the cup of woe, from which I had drank already to agony, and which to all eternity could not be drained, when lo! I saw the Savior extending his arms toward me, while from his lips in holy music fell the lovely and soul enrapturing sentence "Come unto me all ye Weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

How vast the contrast, when from the midst of the cloud, was revealed that glorious Being encompassed with the shining appearance of a sun. Inwrought into the revolving surface of the halo of light which encircled him, and which moved with calm but rapid motion, I beheld a representation of the true relation between the Divine Redeemer and the universe of light, where holy angels dwell, and the awful disparity between my own nature and that sphere of light and life, harmony and love.

I thus beheld him whom, in my madness, folly, and skepticism I had so often rejected. At first I wished to break from the mental embodiment which was about my inner being, and mingle the very elements of my life with this sphere of light, and to dwell in its beauty, peace, and joy: but being unable to enter into its reality by reason of the diversity existing between its exaltation and the impure elements of my fallen mind, a feeling of distrust and doubt again arose within me.