James Henry Rollins' 1830 Vision of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and a Forewarning of Destruction

In December 1830, before he had ever met Joseph or Hyrum Smith in person, James Henry Rollins experienced a powerful, composite vision while he was observing spiritual manifestations in Kirtland and praying to know whether those workings were of the Lord. After much praying he was shown Joseph and Hyrum Smith in a dream or vision, standing side by side behind a wall that seemed transparent and the color of amber. The light that enveloped them and Rollins was described as unlike sunlight—penetrating him from head to foot—and they beckoned him to follow them to a door opening to the north. They received him in a very pleasing manner as he entered, showed him ‘‘the beauties of the place’’ (a heavenly realm unlike anything on earth), and led him across a long hall. Rollins also had a guide at his side (described as a spiritual/divine guide) who showed him many things, saying some of those things would transpire and were being literally fulfilled. That guide took him back and showed him a ‘‘liquid billow of fire’’ on either side that rolled along and consumed everything on the earth; it had no flame. When Rollins asked what it was, the guide said it was the destruction to come to cleanse the earth and make it pure. The guide likewise showed Rollins many things he would have to pass through and told him to hold fast to the Iron Rod (a meaning Rollins did not then understand). These elements—the vision of Joseph and Hyrum, the heavenly scenes and the amber wall and penetrating light, the reception at the north door, the divine guide, the billow of fire representing future destruction, and the admonition to hold the Iron Rod—are all recorded in Rollins’s autobiographical accounts.