He had been on a visit to the people called Shakers, at New Lebanon, and was returning on foot, on a beautiful evening of September. The sky was without a cloud; the stars shone out beautifully, and all nature seemed reposing in quiet, as he pursued his solitary way, wrapt in deep meditations on the predictions of the holy prophets; the signs of the times; the approaching advent of the Messiah to reign on the earth, and the important revelations of the Book of Mormon, when his attention was aroused by a sudden appearance of a brilliant light which shone around him "above the brightness of the sun." He cast his eyes upwards to inquire from whence the light came, when he perceived a long chain of light extending in the heavens, very bright and of a deep fiery red. It at first stood stationary in a horizontal position; at length bending in the centre, the two ends approached each other with a rapid movement so as to form an exact square. In this position it again remained stationary for some time, perhaps a minute, and then again the ends approached each other with the same rapidity, and again ceased to move, remaining stationary, for perhaps a minute, in the form of a compass. It then commenced a third movement in the same manner, and closed like the closing of a compass, the whole forming a straight line like a chain doubled. It again remained stationary a minute, and then faded away. "I fell upon my knees in the street," he says, "and thanked the Lord for so marvelous a sign of the coming of the Son of Man. Some persons may smile at this, and say that all these exact movements were by chance; but for my part I could as soon believe that the alphabet would be formed by chance and be placed so as to spell my name, as to believe that these signs (known only to the wise) could be formed and shown forth by chance." Parley now made his second visit to the prophet, who had returned from Pennsylvania to his father's residence in Manchester, near Palmyra, and here had the pleasure of seeing him for the first time. It was now October, 1830. A revelation had been given through the mouth of the prophet in which elders Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, Tiber Peterson and Parley P. Pratt were appointed to go into the wilderness through the Western States, and to the Indian Territory. These elders journeyed until they came to the spiritual pastorate of Sydney Rigdon, in Ohio. He received the elders cordially, and Parley presented his former friend and instructor with the Book of Mormon, and related to him the history of the same.