“The text was a curious one—‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Elder Holmes, he gave a Bible history of visions, and of the times when the Lord spake to Israel in visions, and the times when there were no visions, and then he went over history to show that when people lost their prophetic sense the nation declined. It was a wonderful discourse. But while he was giving a picture of the woful Middle Ages, when the people lost their visions in bloody wars, the church suddenly grew still; you could have heard a pin drop. The foot-stove had made such a warmth under my cloak that I had almost gone to sleep. I was glad that the Middle Ages were gone, and was thinking that things in this world must be above all right now, when the stillness of the church awoke me. I started up and looked around wild like, and my heart gave a thump as I saw Elder Holmes standing in the pulpit, silent, with uplifted hands,—and the great silk sleeves of his robe did make his arms appear awful. The Elder was looking straight at me. “I turned my head. Every eye in the gallery was fixed upon me. I looked towards the deacons’ pew. The four deacons all set, bent forward like, staring straight at me. What had happened? “I might well ask that. Every one seemed looking at something over my head. I looked up, and there, right over my head, hung a vision. The heavens had come down, or so thought all the people, and so thought I. How shall I describe it as it appeared to me? I seem to see it now. “Over my head hung a ring, bright as silver and pearls, and full of golden light. A miraculous ring! From the ring there were floating away little silver rings, which I took to be wings of angels, and which melted away as they went up. The sunlight shone through the silver ring as I sat between the windows, and the vision seemed at times like a circle of glass filled with glimmering gold. I never can describe how I felt at that hour. I thought of the hymn—Heaven forgive my vanity!— “‘The Lord descended from above, And bowed the heavens most high, And underneath his feet he cast The garments of the sky.’ “I lifted up my eyes to the choir. The singers were all looking down upon me as though they were just rising to sing. Even the bass-viol _seemed_ to be looking. Then I dropped my eyes to the pew where the deacons’ wives sat, and Deacon Coon’s wife, she looked just as though her eyes would shoot out of her head, and Deacon Bradford’s wife, she sat looking just like _this_, with a snuff-box in her hands—_so_—and her neck as long as a sea loon’s flying—_so_.