"We were wrapped in the cloud. A solemn awe pervaded us. We saw the cloud and we felt the spirit of the Lord.
"Then we heard a voice out of the cloud saying:
"'Prepare to receive the word of the Lord, for it is coming!'
"At this we marveled greatly; but from that moment we knew that the word of the Lord was coming to Kirtland."
Now this is an Hebraic sign, well known to Israel after the glory of Israel had departed. It was called by the sacred people who inherited the covenant "the daughter of the voice."
Blindness had happened to Israel. The prophets and the seers the Lord had covered, but the "daughter of the voice" was still left to Israel. From time to time a few, with the magic blood of the prophets in them, heard the voice speaking to them out of the cloud.
Down through the ages the "daughter of the voice" followed the children of Israel in their dispersions. Down through the ages, from time to time, some of the children of the sacred seed have heard the voice. This is the tradition of the sons and daughters of Judah.
It was the "daughter of the voice" that Mother Whitney and her husband heard, at midnight, in Kirtland, speaking to them out of the cloud. Mother Whitney and her husband were of the seed of Israel (so run their patriarchal blessings); it was their gift and privilege to hear the "voice."
He was coming now, whose right it is to reign. The throne of David was about to be re-set up and given to the lion of the tribe of Judah. The everlasting King of the new Jerusalem was coming down, with the tens of thousands of his saints.
The star of Messiah was traveling from the east to the west. The prophet—the messenger of Messiah's covenant—was about to remove farther westward, towards the place where his Lord in due time will commence his reign, which shall extend over all the earth.