the opening of the earth to receive the wicked.

As the saints were caught up, the wicked fell into pits and have not
been seen since. The flames that issued from the rending globe set
everything on fire. Who can select language sufficiently graphic to
portray such a lurid dissolution of a planet, and the gathering of the
faithful, quick and dead?

Thus was this large world purified by fire while the saints were
gloriously enraptured. After the fury of this burning was passed, the
great Creator of the universe made a new world whereon righteousness
dwelled.

The saints became the possessors and rulers of this whole sphere, living
in joy and peace unprecedented. It has been the happiest six hundred
years since the beginning of this planet. How long this period will
continue no one seems to know, and but few are conjecturing, for each
soul is completely happy and congenially employed.

The time will come, however, when this blissful period will be at an
end, only to give way to a state of existence infinitely greater and
more glorious, which in our language would be called Heaven.

[Illustration: Beginning of the Millennium.]

I will briefly describe a few characteristics of this Millennial life as
I saw it and as it is now existing.

1. The saints are living in spiritual bodies. They are not cumbered with
a fleshy body, and are capable of traveling through the air at a speed
far beyond that attained by the swiftest winged creature of any world in
the whole universe.

Their spiritual bodies are highly organized and sensitive to a fine
degree. At will they are capable of rendering themselves visible or
invisible, as we comprehend these terms.

As the perfectly formed flower, blushing in its wealth of color, is
called beautiful, so we would designate these symmetrical
spirit-creatures, moving in the glory of their higher endowment and
shaded with the living tints of Heaven.

2. These inhabitants know nothing of fatigue. Their strength of body and
vitality of mind are unabating. What a contrast between the creatures of
our Earth and those of the Millennial world on whom the passing of
centuries has no ill effect.

3. There is nothing on this purified world to generate disease; hence
these favored people never suffer any pain of body or of mind. The long
line of sin-shadows has all vanished from this redeemed planet, and the
atmosphere is all aglow with the mellowed light of peace and love.

4. Jealousy and all