LDS Freedom Forum

I remember hearing looong ago about a vision of people eating at a table outside with poison floating down from the sky and killing them.
Someone just told me that it's in VIsions of Glory, but I know I heard it long before that book. Anyone know a source?

henrietta wrote: ↑September 13th, 2019, 6:48 am I remember hearing looong ago about a vision of people eating at a table outside with poison floating down from the sky and killing them.
Someone just told me that it's in VIsions of Glory, but I know I heard it long before that book. Anyone know a source?

I've actually never heard this and I read visions of glory, though I did skim the last half, so I must have missed it. Someone here might know though.

It may be one of the visions referenced in the back of Visions of Glory. Maybe Charles Evans? I’ll look

henrietta wrote: ↑September 13th, 2019, 6:48 am I remember hearing looong ago about a vision of people eating at a table outside with poison floating down from the sky and killing them.
Someone just told me that it's in VIsions of Glory, but I know I heard it long before that book. Anyone know a source?

Is this what you're looking for?

https://josephsmithfoundation.org/lds-c ... s-d-evans/

Charles D. Evans was a church patriarch, in the 1890’s, while living in Springville, Utah.

While I lay pondering in deep solitude on the events of the present, my mind was drawn into a reverie such as I had never felt before,–a strong solicitude for my imperiled country utterly excluded every other thought, and raised my feelings to a point of intensity which I did not think it possible to endure. While in this solemn, profound, and painful reverie of mind, to my infinite surprise, a light appeared in my room, which seemed to be soft and silvery as that diffused from a northern star. At the moment of its appearance, the acute feeling I had experienced instantly yielded to one of calm tranquility.

Although it may have been at the hour of midnight, and the side of the globe whereon I was situated, was excluded from the sunlight, yet all was light and bright and warm as an Italian landscape at noon, but the heat was softer or more subdued. As I gazed upward, I saw descending through my bedroom roof, with a gently gliding movement, a personage clothed in white apparel, whose countenance was smoothly serene, his features regular, and the flashes of his eye seemed to shoot forth scintillations, to use an earthly comparison, strongly resembling those reflected from a diamond under an intensely illumined electric light, which dazzled but did not bewilder. Those large, deep, inscrutable eyes were presently fixed upon mine, when instantly placing his hands up on my forehead his touch produced an indescribable serenity and calmness, a calmness not born of earth, but at once peaceful, delightful and heavenly. My whole being was imbued with a joy unspeakable. All feelings of sorrow instantly vanished. Those lines and shadows which care and sorrow impress upon us were dispelled as a deep fog before a blazing sun. In the eyes of my heavenly visitor, for such he appeared to me, there was a sort of lofty pity and tenderness, infinitely stronger than any such feeling I ever saw manifested in ordinary mortals. His very calm appeared like a vast ocean stillness, at once overpowering to every agitated emotion. By some intuition, or instinct, I felt he had something to communicate to sooth my sorrows and allay my apprehensions. Thereupon addressing me, he said: “Son, I perceive thou hast grave anxieties over the perilous state of thy country, that thy soul has felt deep sorrow for its future. I have therefore come to thy relief and to tell thee of the causes that have led to this peril. Hear me attentively.

“Seventy-one years ago [1823], after an awful apostasy of centuries, in which all nations were enshrouded in spiritual darkness, when the angels had withdrawn themselves, the voice of prophets hushed, and the light of Urim and Thummim shown not, and the vision of the seers closed, while heaven itself shed not a ray of gladness to lighten a dark world, when Babel ruled and Satan laughed, and Church and Priesthood had taken their upward flight, and the voice of nations, possessing the books of the Jewish prophets, had ruled against vision and against Urim, against the further visits of angels, and against the doctrine of a church of apostles and prophets, thou knowest that then appeared a mighty angel with the solemn announcement of the hour of judgment, the burden of whose instructions pointed to dire calamities upon the present generation. This, therefore, is the cause of what thou seest and the end of the wicked hasteneth.” My vision now became extended in a marvelous manner, and the import of the past labors of the Elders was made plain to me. I saw multitudes fleeing to the place of safety in our mountain heights. The church was established in the wilderness.

Simultaneously the nation had reached an unparalleled prosperity, wealth abounded, new territory was acquired, commerce extended, finance strengthened, confidence was maintained, and peoples abroad pointed to her as the model nation–the ideal of the past realized and perfected–the embodiment of the liberty sung by poets and sought for by sages. “But,” continued the Messenger, “thou beholdest a change. Confidence is lost, wealth is arrayed against labor, labor against wealth, yet the land abounds with plenty of food and raiment, and silver and gold are in abundance. Thou seest also the letters written by a Jew have wrought great confusion in the finances of the nation which, together with the policy of many wealthy ones, has produced distress and do produce further sorrow.” Factions now sprang up as if by magic; capital had entrenched itself against labor throughout the land; labor was organized against capital. The voice of the wise sought to tranquilize these two powerful factors in vain. Excited multitudes ran wildly about; strikes increased; lawlessness sought the place of regular government.

At this juncture I saw a banner floating in air whereupon was written the words, “BANKRUPTCY, FAMINE, FLOODS, FIRE, CYCLONES, BLOOD, PLAGUE.” Mad with rage, men and women rushed upon each other. Blood flowed down the streets of cities like water. The demon of bloody hate had enthroned itself on the citadel of reason; the thirst for blood was more intense than that of the parched tongue for water. Thousands of bodies lay untombed in the streets. Men and women fell dead from the terror inspired by fear. Rest was but the precursor of the bloody work of the morrow. All around lay the mournfulness of a past in ruins. Monuments erected to perpetuate the names of the noble and brave were ruthlessly destroyed by combustibles.

A voice now sounded aloud these words, “Yet once again I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once again signifies the removing of things that are shaken, as of things that are made; that those things that cannot be shaken may remain.” Earthquakes rent the earth in vast chasms, which engulfed multitudes; terrible groanings and wailings filled the air; the shrieks of the suffering were indescribably awful. Water wildly rushed in from the tumultuous ocean, whose very roaring under the mad rage of the fierce cyclone, was unendurable to the ear. Cities were swept away in an instant, missiles were hurled through the atmosphere at a terrible velocity, and people were carried upward only to descend an unrecognizable mass. Islands appeared where ocean waves once tossed the gigantic steamer. In other parts, voluminous flames emanating from vast fires, rolled with fearful velocity, destroying life and property in their destructive course. The seal of the dread menace of despair was stamped on every human visage; men fell exhausted, appalled and trembling. Every element of agitated nature seemed a demon of wrathful fury. Dense clouds, blacker than midnight darkness, whose thunders reverberated with intonations which shook the earth, obscured the sunlight.

Darkness reigned unrivaled and supreme. Again the light shone, revealing an atmosphere tinged with a leaden hue, which was the precursor of an unparalleled plague, whose first symptoms were recognized by a purple spot which appeared on the cheek or on the back of the hand, and which, invariably, enlarged until it spread over the entire surface of the body, producing certain death. Mothers, on sight of it, cast away their children as if they were poisonous reptiles. This plague, in grown persons, rotted the eyes in their sockets and consumed the tongue as would a powerful acid or an intense heat. Wicked men, suffering under its writhing agonies, cursed God and died, as they stood on their feet, and the birds of prey feasted on their carcasses.

I saw in my dream the Messenger again appear with a vial in his right hand, who addressing me, said: “Thou knowest somewhat of the chemistry taught in the schools of human learning, behold now a chemical sufficiently powerful to change the waters of the sea.” He then poured out his vial upon the sea and it became putrid as the blood of a dead man, and every living soul therein died. Other plagues followed which I forbear to record. A foreign power had inroaded the nation, which, from every human indication, it appeared would seize the government and supplant it with monarchy. I stood trembling at the aspect, when, lo, a power arose in the west which declared itself in favor of the Constitution in its original form; to this suddenly rising power, every lover of constitutional rights and liberties throughout the nation gave hearty support. The struggle was fiercely contested, but the Stars and Stripes floated in the breeze, and bidding defiance to all opposition, waved proudly over the land. Among the many banners I saw, was one inscribed thus: “The government based on the Constitution, now and forever”; on another, “Liberty of Conscience, Social, Religious, and Political.”

The light of the Gospel which had but dimly shone because of abomination, now burst forth with a lustre that filled the earth. Cities appeared in every direction, one of which, in the center of the continent, was an embodiment of architectural science after the pattern of eternal perfections, whose towers glittered with a radiance emanating from the sparkling of emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and other precious stones set in a canopy of gold, and so elaborately and skillfully arranged as to shed forth a brilliancy which dazzled and enchanted the eye, excited admiration and developed a taste for the beautiful, beyond anything man had ever conceived. Fountains of crystal water shot upwards their transparent jets, which, in the brilliant sunshine, formed ten thousand rainbow tints at once delightful to the eye. Gardens, the perfection of whose arrangement confound all our present attempts at genius, were bedecked with flowers of varied hue to develop and refine the taste and strengthen a love for these nature’s chastest adornments. Schools and universities were erected, to which all had access; in the latter, Urims were placed for the study of the past, present, and future, and for obtaining a knowledge of the heavenly bodies, and of the construction of worlds and universes. The inherent properties of matter, its arrangements, laws, and mutual relations were revealed and taught and made plain as the primer lesson of a child. The conflicting theories of geologists regarding the foundation and age of the earth were settled forever. All learning was based on eternal certainty.

Angels brought forth the treasures of knowledge which had laid hid in the womb of the dumb and distant past. The appliances for making learning easy surpass all conjecture. Chemistry was rendered extremely simple, by the power which the Urims conferred on man of looking into and through the very elements of every kind; a stone furnished no more obstruction to human vision than the air itself. Not only were the elements and all their changes and transformations plainly understood, but the construction, operations and laws of mind were thus rendered equally plain as those which governed the coarser elements. While looking through the Urim and Thummim, I was amazed at a transformation, which even now is to me marvelous beyond description, clearly showing the manner in which particles composing the inorganic kingdom of nature are conducted upward to become a part of organic forms; another astounding revelation was a view clearly shown me of the entire circulation of the blood, both in man and animals.

After seeing these things and gazing once more upon the beautiful city, the following passage of scripture sounded in my ears: “OUT OF ZION, THE PERFECTION OF BEAUTY, GOD SHINETH.” On this I awoke to find all a dream. I have written the foregoing, which is founded on true principle, under the caption of a dream, partly to instruct and partly to check the folly of reading silly novels now so prevalent. CHARLES D. EVANS Springville, Utah (Contributor, Vol. 15, 1893; TRUTH 1:12, pp. 161-163; see also Visions of the Latter Days, p. 55)

Dream of the Plagues?
The Dream of the Plagues (1884)

Author unknown. “Vision of Plagues”. The Contributor. August 1884, 5:411

The present times seem to be more than usually prolific of prophetic dreams among the Latter-day Saints. In nearly every settlement the people have been warned of events soon to occur; and visions of the future glory of the Kingdom of God upon this earth have passed like a panorama before many of those who love God and obey His commandments.

Some two or three years ago, I had retired for the night, when suddenly a glorious messenger appeared at my bedside and awoke me from my slumber. The light of his presence filled the room, so that objects were discerned as clearly as at noonday.

He handed me a book, saying, “Look, and see what is coming to pass.” I took the book in my hands and, sitting up in bed, examined it carefully and read its contents. In size this book was about seven by ten inches, opening like a copybook and bound in beautiful cover, on the front of which was stamped in gold letters its title, which was The Book of the Plagues. The leaves were printed only on the front side of each, and were composed of the very finest quality of pure white linen, instead of paper. The typography throughout was in the finest style of the printer’s art. Each page was composed of a picture printed in colors as natural as art can copy nature, which occupied the upper half of the space, below which was the printed description of the scene represented.

On the first page was a picture of a feast in progress, with the long table set upon a beautiful lawn, over which were interspersed clumps of fine shrubs and towering trees. In the background through the foliage, could be discerned a stately suburban villa, adorned with all the ornaments of modern architecture. The landscape presented the appearance of midsummer. The sky, and indeed the whole atmosphere, appeared of a peculiar sickly brassy hue, similar to that which may be observed when the sun is wholly eclipsed, and the disc is just beginning again to give its light. Throughout the atmosphere small white specks were represented, similar to a scattering fall of minute snowflakes in winter. About the table a part of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen were seated in the act of partaking of the rich repast with which the table was laden. The minute specks falling from above were dropping into the food apparently unheeded by all, for a sudden destruction had come upon them. Many were falling backward in the agonies of a fearful death; others drooping upon the table, and others pausing with their hand still holding the untasted food, their countenances betraying a fearful astonishment at the peculiar and unlooked for condition of their companions. Death was in the atmosphere; the judgments of God had come upon them as silently and swiftly as upon the proud Sennacharib and his host of Assyrians.[/u]

In one corner of this picture was a small circular vignette, showing the front of the store of a dealer in pork. The wide sidewalk was covered by an awning supported on posts at the outer edge, and on this walk were shown barrels of pork, long strings of sausages, fresh slaughtered hogs, piles of smoked bacon and headcheese; and along the edge of the walk, next to the store, beneath the front windows, leaned a number of large hams and pieces of side meat, reaching across the whole front, except a small space at the doorway. There were twelve of these pieces, and on each piece was painted a large letter, in order to make as a whole the word ABOMINATIONS.

Below this scene was the description: A Feast among the Gentiles, commencement of the Plague. And in smaller type below [was] a note saying that the particles of poison, though represented in the picture, are so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.

On the next page was another picture. It was a street scene in a large city. In the foreground were the residences of wealthy city merchants. The character of the buildings gradually changed; along the view and in the distance were shown the great buildings of trade and commerce in the heart of a large metropolis. On the sidewalks throughout the long vista, the busy, throbbing rushing crowd had been cut down like grass before the mower.

Again it was a midsummer scene. The same atoms of poison were falling through the air, but their work was done; the same sickly brazen atmosphere that seemed thick with foul odors laid upon the earth, in which no breeze stirred a leaf of the foliage. Upon the balconies of the richly decorated residences, across the thresholds of the open doorways, along the walks and upon the crossings, lay the men, women and children, who a few days before were enjoying all the pleasures of life. Further on, the dead were everywhere. Houses of business that had been thronged with customers stood with open doorways, frowning upon streets covered with the dead. Across the thresholds of the banks lay the guardians of wealth, but no thieves were there to take the unlocked treasures within. The costly merchandise of a thousand owners laid untouched upon the counters and shelves. In the noonday glare of the sickly sun, not a soul was shown alive; not one had been left to bury the dead—all had been stricken or had fled from the death-dealing plague and the doomed city. Along midway upon the street, a hungry drove of those horrible ugly slaughterhouse dogs, (which may be seen in the pens attached to the filthy slaughtering places in the outskirts of many cities), was tearing and devouring the dead and feasting upon the bodies of rich and poor alike with none to molest them.

Below this picture was the description: Progress of the Plague among the Gentiles. A street scene in a large city. Nearly fifty of these pictures I carefully observed, wherein the fearful effects of this and other plagues were almost as vividly portrayed as if I had actually seen them.

The last scene in the book was descriptive of the same plague as the first. A beautiful park-like, grassy prairie was surrounded by elm and cottonwood trees, the area embraced being about eighty rods across. In the center of this enclosure was a large cone-shaped tent of a bright purple color, about thirty feet in height by twenty in diameter at the base. Midway in height in this tent was a floor dividing the inside into two stories. Near this tent was another, a round wall tent, about thirty feet in diameter, and nearly as high as the first. This was clean and white. Leaving a space of about a hundred yards from these central tents were hundreds of small rectangular wall tents in rows, reaching as far as the surrounding trees, each tent clean and white, and appearing to be of a size suited to the wants of an ordinary family. Not a human being, animal, bird or vehicle was in sight. Not a breath of air appeared to be stirring. The same atmosphere as in the previous pictures, with the atoms of poison, was represented, and the same time and season of the year.

Below this picture was the description: “A camp of the Saints who have gathered together and are living under the daily revelations of God, and are thus preserved from the plague.” I understood from this that each family was in its tent during the hours of the day that the poison falls, and thus were preserved from breathing the deathly particles.

Handing the book to the messenger, who all this time had remained by my side, he vanished from my view as suddenly as he had appeared. I awoke my wife, who was soundly sleeping, and commenced to relate to her what I had just beheld. After telling her the description of the two pictures at the beginning of the book, and commencing on the third, this third picture and all up to the last was suddenly taken from my memory, so that I have never been able to recall them; but still I remember that they were scenes about the plagues and judgments.

henrietta wrote: ↑September 13th, 2019, 6:48 am I remember hearing looong ago about a vision of people eating at a table outside with poison floating down from the sky and killing them.
Someone just told me that it's in VIsions of Glory, but I know I heard it long before that book. Anyone know a source?

This sounds like the Dream of Plagues published in The Contributor magazine in 1884. You can read it here: http://visionsandtribulation.blogspot.c ... agues.html

Below this scene was the description: A Feast among the Gentiles, commencement of the Plague. And in smaller type below [was] a note saying that the particles of poison, though represented in the picture, are so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.

On the next page was another picture. It was a street scene in a large city. In the foreground were the residences of wealthy city merchants. The character of the buildings gradually changed; along the view and in the distance were shown the great buildings of trade and commerce in the heart of a large metropolis. On the sidewalks throughout the long vista, the busy, throbbing rushing crowd had been cut down like grass before the mower.

Again it was a midsummer scene. The same atoms of poison were falling through the air, but their work was done; the same sickly brazen atmosphere that seemed thick with foul odors laid upon the earth, in which no breeze stirred a leaf of the foliage. Upon the balconies of the richly decorated residences, across the thresholds of the open doorways, along the walks and upon the crossings, lay the men, women, and children, who a few days before were enjoying all the pleasures of life. Further on, the dead were everywhere. Houses of business that had been thronged with customers stood with open doorways, frowning upon streets covered with the dead. Across the thresholds of the banks lay the guardians of wealth, but no thieves were there to take the unlocked treasures within. The costly merchandise of a thousand owners laid untouched upon the counters and shelves. In the noonday glare of the sickly sun, not a soul was shown alive; not one had been left to bury the dead—all had been stricken or had fled from the death-dealing plague and the doomed city. Along midway upon the street, a hungry drove of those horrible ugly slaughterhouse dogs, (which may be seen in the pens attached to the filthy slaughtering places in the outskirts of many cities), was tearing and devouring the dead and feasting upon the bodies of rich and poor alike with none to molest them.

Rumpelstiltskin wrote: ↑September 17th, 2019, 12:49 am
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2013
The Dream of Plagues
The Dream of the Plagues (1884)

From cited article.

Site registration date, actually it was the 23rd, but now shows 22nd because my time zone changed two hours. 2448 or 4824 portends another natural phenomena, as impressive as they come without lasting harm. How many peculiar people live in a zip code that begins with 84 ?

BeNotDeceived wrote: ↑September 17th, 2019, 2:28 am

Rumpelstiltskin wrote: ↑September 17th, 2019, 12:49 am
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2013
The Dream of Plagues
The Dream of the Plagues (1884)

From cited article.

Site registration date, actually it was the 23rd, but now shows 22nd because my time zone changed two hours. 2448 or 4824 portends another natural phenomena, as impressive as they come without lasting harm. How many peculiar people live in a zip code that begins with 84 ?

I grew up in one.

My birthday written in m/dd/yy has 24 forward and backward and a 48

Davka wrote: ↑September 17th, 2019, 7:11 am

BeNotDeceived wrote: ↑September 17th, 2019, 2:28 am

Rumpelstiltskin wrote: ↑September 17th, 2019, 12:49 am
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2013
The Dream of Plagues
The Dream of the Plagues (1884)

From cited article.

Site registration date, actually it was the 23rd, but now shows 22nd because my time zone changed two hours. 2448 or 4824 portends another natural phenomena, as impressive as they come without lasting harm. How many peculiar people live in a zip code that begins with 84 ?

I grew up in one.

My birthday written in m/dd/yy has 24 forward and backward and a 48

Me too, grew up in 84101.

Most peculiar for posting in the peculiar people thread , but must request access to private discussion.

Ok, here’s my guess: 04/24/1948

Some days my target departure time is 04:48, on most Mondays my target arrival time at ANC is 04:48 local. Sure ± 5 minutes probably would work fine, so my choice is a bit arbitrary, but 84, 448 and even 2448 doth appear so many ways it boggles my boggled mind. Even the is foreordained to supply another spectacular show on 2448 ...

Hope you join the discussion in said sub-forum.