On coming out, two men, one a justice of the peace, and the other a colonel, came up to me. The justice asked why, if I had anything against him, I did not, as the Scripture directs, go to him privately, and not expose him before all the congregation.
The other said, "If you have got a man by the throat, you need not think that because it is pleasant to you, it is so to him."
I told them that as the cap seemed to fit they might wear it. But I was much surprised, for I was not aware they were present.
About a day previous to the close of this meeting, I received a more important communication than either of the previous ones. A knowledge was given me that the ancient gifts of the gospel—speaking in tongues, the power to heal the sick, the spirit of prophecy, etc., were just about to be restored to the believers in Christ.
The revelation was a perfect knowledge of the fact, so sure and certain, that I felt as though the truth had been stereotyped upon me. I knew it from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, the whole of my system being filled with the Holy Ghost! I can compare it to nothing better than the change made on a clean sheet of paper by a printing press, leaving an indellible impression behind.
As the Spirit did not tell me to whom these things were to be restored, I at first fancied, in my ignorance, that the people with whom I had been meeting were about to be blessed with these things, so I joyfully visited the minister of the meeting, and laid before him the intelligence I had received.
But, to my great astonishment, I met with an utter repulse. He told me it was all of the devil, for such things had ceased forever!
Had anyone knocked me down with a beetle, I could not have felt more sensibly the opposition between the spirits by which we were actuated. I soon found, by the bold and determined way in which he fought against the principle of present revelation, etc., that it was not to him or his people that these gifts would be given. So I sought for them elsewhere.
A few days afterwards, curiosity led me to visit the Latter-day Saints, among whom I witnessed a fulfillment of the prediction, for I beheld a manifestation of the gifts of prophecy and tongues, and received the latter myself.
Notwithstanding this confirmation which I had received of the truth of the Church of the Latter-day Saints was very great, I did not feel sufficiently convinced to be induced to join them at once.