Revelation to J.W. Nanny

During the prophetic leadership of Joseph Smith III, J.W. Nanny became concerned about which church was God's true one. After prayer he received a vision which answered his question:

I sought the Lord in prayer and continued to read [materials sent him by various factions] and compare it with the Scriptures, knowing that God alone could give me light -- till one day in the latter part of February I was chopping wood out of dead trees in a cotton field; being alone I was in silent prayer. I had felled a tree and sat down beside it to rest, leaning back against the log as it lay across the cotton rows. As I sat there in silent meditation I was impressed to look up, and to the northwest I saw a personage approaching me clothed in a white flowing robe. He stopped directly in front of me, and about ten feet away, and beckoning me said, "Come hither."

I immediately left my body and started with my guide, and we seemed to go many miles till we came to an exceeding high mountain which was very beautiful. For the first time since we started, my guide spoke and said, "What desirest thou?"

I answered, "Oh, my Lord, if I have found favor in thy sight, shew unto thy servant where is thine authority and upon whom it rests, and where is the true Church of Jesus Christ."

He said, "As thou hast been faithful before the Lord, and sought him in humble prayer, these things shall be made known unto thee; therefore, I say unto thee, look."

I looked, and he said, "What seest thou?"

I replied, "Oh, my Lord, my reins are consumed within me, for I see an old man with full, long white beard and gray hair crowned with a radiant light and hedged about with a structure mighty and strong, which all the powers of earth and hell cannot overthrow."

He then said to me, "Knowest thou the meaning of these things?"

I said, "Be merciful unto me, oh, Lord, and declare them unto thy servant, for I know not their meaning."

He said, "That old man that thou seest is the servant and prophet of the most high God, Joseph Smith [III], the son of Joseph Smith that was slain for his testimony, and the light that crowns his head is the Spirit of revelation by which the Saints of all ages are led; and the structure thou seest is the truth, the rock on which the Church is built, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ is the body, the bride, the Lamb's wife, with whom the authority rests."

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