Robert Mason's Vision of the Restoration — 30 Years Before It Happened

Around the year 1800, a devout Connecticut man named Robert Mason — known by neighbors as the 'Old Prophet Mason' — was laboring in his field at midday when he was caught up in a vision. He saw a vast forest of fruit trees, but no fruit could be found anywhere. He wept. Then, before his eyes, every tree fell to the ground, and young sprouts rose from the roots, grew rapidly, blossomed, and bore the most beautiful fruit he had ever seen. Just as he reached out to taste it, the vision closed.

He knelt and prayed to understand the meaning. The Lord revealed: "There is no church of Christ upon the earth in your generation. There is no man ordained of God to administer the ordinances of the gospel. But, in the next generation, I the Lord will set up my kingdom and my church upon the earth."

Mason was told: "You will live to see the day, and handle the fruit; but will never partake of it in the flesh."

In 1830 — the very spring the Church was organized — Mason related this vision to a young Wilford Woodruff for the first time, saying: "I shall never partake of this fruit in the flesh; but you will, and you will become a conspicuous actor in that kingdom."

These were the last words Mason ever spoke to Woodruff. The vision made a profound impression on Wilford Woodruff, who prayed earnestly that the Lord would prepare him for the true Church when it came. In the winter of 1833, Woodruff heard an Elder of the Church preach in a schoolhouse, felt the Spirit witness its truth, and was baptized — one of the first baptisms in Oswego County, New York. He later wrote to Mason telling him the Church had been found, with all the fruits Mason had described. Mason was aged and died not long after, never receiving baptism himself. When the doctrine of baptism for the dead was revealed, Wilford Woodruff went forth and was baptized on his behalf.

Mason was a true prophet — his prophecies were fulfilled.