The following is William Miller's dream, as given in The Three Worlds, the first of Pastor Russell's books, long since out of print, where it is told only as a dream. (Jer. 23:28.) It calls to mind a dream of Pastor Russell's, often told in private. In his early youth he dreamed of sleeping in an attic. Suddenly he awoke to see the morning sun, just emerged over the hill-top, blazing directly in his face. He jumped to his feet with a start, thinking that it must be late. In doing so he stumbled over several forms still asleep. He was about to reproach himself for thus rudely awakening them, when he discovered that not one of the sleepers had been disturbed. The application is evident. “The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” Pastor Russell was awakened by the light of the Sun of the New Day. He tried to waken others, and succeeded with “just one here, one there;” but the great mass are still asleep. However, the Dawn comes on apace. Now for William Miller's dream:
“I dreamed that God, by an unseen hand, had sent me a curiously wrought casket, about ten inches long by six square, made of ebony and pearls curiously inlaid. To the casket there was a key attached. I immediately took the key and opened the casket, when, to my wonder and surprise, I found it filled with all sorts and sizes of jewels—diamonds, precious stones—and gold and silver coin of every dimension and value, beautifully arranged in their several places in the casket; and thus arranged, they reflected a light and glory equalled only by the sun. [These jewels are the beautiful truths which the open casket unfolded to his sight.] I thought it was my duty not to enjoy this wonderful sight alone, although my heart was overjoyed at the brilliancy, beauty and value of its contents. I therefore placed it on a center-table in my room, and gave out the word that all who had a desire might come and see the most glorious and brilliant sight ever seen by man in this life. The people began to come in, at first few in number, but increasing to a crowd. When they first looked into the casket, they would wonder and shout for joy. But when the spectators increased, every one would begin to trouble the jewels, taking them out of the casket and scattering them on the table.
“I began to think that the owner would require the casket and jewels again at my hand; and that if I suffered them to be scattered, I could never place them in their places in the casket again as before, and felt I should never be able to meet the accountability; for it would be immense. I then began to plead with the people not to handle them, nor take them out of the casket. But the more I pleaded, the more they scattered; and now they seemed to scatter them all over the room, on the floor, and every piece of furniture in the room. I then saw that among the genuine jewels and coin they had scattered an innumerable quantity of spurious jewels and counterfeit coin. I was highly incensed at their base conduct and ingratitude, and reproved and reproached them for it; but the more I reproved, the more they scattered the spurious jewels and false coin among the genuine. I then became vexed in my very soul, and began to use physical force to push them out of the room; but while I was pushing out one, three more would enter, and bring in dirt, shavings, sand, and all manner of rubbish, until they had covered every one of the true jewels, diamonds and coins from sight. They also tore into pieces my casket and scattered it among the rubbish. I thought that no man regarded my sorrow or my anger. I became wholly discouraged and disheartened, and sat down and wept. [When the 1844 time passed, how perfectly was this fullfilled.] While I was thus weeping and mourning for my great loss and accountability, I remembered God, and earnestly prayed that He would send me help.
“Immediately the door opened and a man entered the room, when the other people all left it. Then he, having a dirt brush in his hand, opened the windows and began to brush the dust and rubbish from the room. I cried to him to forbear; that there were some precious jewels scattered among the rubbish. But he told me to fear not, for he would take care of them. Then while he brushed the dust and rubbish, the false jewels and counterfeit coin, all rose and went out of the window like a cloud and the wind carried them away. In the bustle I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them the rubbish was all gone, and the precious jewels, the diamonds, the gold and the silver coins lay scattered in profusion all over the room. He then placed on the table a casket, much larger and more beautiful than the former, and gathered up the jewels, the diamonds, the coins, by the handful, and cast them into the casket, till not one was left, although some of the diamonds were not bigger than the point of a pin. He then called upon me to come and see. I looked into [pg 329] the casket, but my eyes were dazzled with the sight. The contents shone with ten times their former glory. I thought that they had been scoured in the sand by the feet of those wicked persons who had scattered and trod them in the dust. They were arranged in beautiful order in the casket—every one in its place—without any visible pains on the part of the man [Pastor Russell] who cast them in. I shouted for joy; and that shout awoke me.”
21:21. And the twelve gates were [twelve] pearls; every several gate was of one pearl.—“The peculiar lustre of a pearl is dependent on the fact that the surface is not perfectly smooth, but covered with the irregularly sinuous edges of innumerable layers of inconceivable thinness, deposited one over the other. The distance of these edges from each other varies indefinitely, the pearls of the finest water having them closest. They are always, however, too fine to be detected by the naked eye. The edges make so many steps, so to speak; and the iridescence is produced by the mutual interference of the rays of light reflected from these thousands of angles. For their water, or lustre, as distinguished from iridescence, pearls are indebted to their being composed of thin layers, which allow light to pass through them, while their numerous surfaces disperse and reflect the light in such a manner that it returns and mingles with that which is directly reflected from the exterior. The thinner and more transparent the constituent layers, the more perfect is the lustre. The immediate occasion of the production of a pearl appears to be always the presence of some extraneous substance inside of the shell of the mollusk.” (McC.) The mollusk is the earthly tabernacle; the extraneous substance is the New Mind. The successive layers are the additions made to it, “precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little and there a little.”—Isa. 28:13.
And the street of the City was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.—There will be but one street in that City, the street which has been in process of construction throughout the Age. The Prophets tell us of it.—Prov. 16:17; Isa. 40:3; 49:11; 35:8; 62:10-12.
21:22. And I saw no temple therein.—No special place of worship, for the use and benefit of the Little Flock.
[For] BECAUSE the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it.—The Bride's whole life is completely wrapped up in the Father and the Son. Her one consuming wish is to glorify the Lord's dear name. Of what need is any special place of worship for one who can say, “For to me to live is [for] Christ [to live]?”—Phil. 1:21.
21:23. And the City had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine [in] ON it.—“The sun signifies the light of this Gospel Age; the moon signifies the typically reflected light of the Gospel in the Law and the Prophets of the previous Dispensation. The glorified Church will have no need of the light which in the present time she so much enjoys through the Word and the Spirit, and the Law and the Prophets. She will have, instead of these, a much more excellent glory, being, herself, a part of the Sun of Righteousness.” (Z. '01-201.) “ ‘Then shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father’—our Lord Jesus, the Head of the Church, of course being included. The Prophet mentions the same Sun of Righteousness, saying, ‘The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His beams.’—Malachi 4:2.”—Z. '16-393.
For the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.—“We are not to lose sight of the fact that Christ is the Head of the Church, even as the Father is the head of Christ Jesus. (1 Cor. 11:3.) Hence the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb will always be an inner Temple in this great Temple which God has provided for the world's blessing during Restitution Times.”—Z. '16-393; Isa. 24:23; 60:19, 20; Rev. 21:11; 22:5.