Early Writings of Ellen G. White
CT Experience and Views
PG 81

William Miller's Dream


I dreamed that God, by an unseen hand, sent me
a curiously wrought casket about ten inches long by
six square, made of ebony and pearls curiously inlaid.
To the casket there was a key attached. I immediately
took the key and opened the casket, when, to my wonder
and surprise, I found it filled with all sorts and
sizes of jewels, diamonds, precious stones, and gold
and silver coin of every dimension and value, beautifully
arranged in their several places in the casket;
and thus arranged they reflected a light and glory
equaled only to the sun.
I thought it was not my duty to enjoy this wonderful
sight alone, although my heart was overjoyed at

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the brilliancy, beauty, and value of its contents. I
therefore placed it on a center table in my room and
gave out word that all who had a desire might come
and see the most glorious and brilliant sight ever seen
by man in this life.
The people began to come in, at first few in number,
but increasing to a crowd. When they first looked
into the casket, they would wonder and shout for joy.
But when the spectators increased, everyone would
begin to trouble the jewels, taking them out of the
casket and scattering them on the table.
I began to think that the owner would require the
casket and the jewels again at my hand; and if I
suffered them to be scattered, I could never place them
in their places in the casket again as before; and felt
I should never be able to meet the accountability, for
it would be immense. I then began to plead with
the people not to handle them, nor to take them out of
the casket; but the more I pleaded, the more they
scattered; and now they seemed to scatter them all
over the room, on the floor and on every piece of
furniture in the room.
I then saw that among the genuine jewels and coin
they had scattered an innumerable quantity of spurious
jewels and counterfeit coin. I was highly incensed at
their base conduct and ingratitude, and reproved and
reproached them for it; but the more I reproved, the
more they scattered the spurious jewels and false coin
among the genuine.
I then became vexed in my physical soul and began
to use physical force to push them out of the room;
but while I was pushing out one, three more would
enter and bring in dirt and shavings and sand and
all manner of rubbish, until they covered every one of
the true jewels, diamonds, and coins, which were all
excluded from sight. They also tore in pieces my casket

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and scattered it among the rubbish. I thought no man
regarded my sorrow or my anger. I became wholly
discouraged and disheartened, and sat down and wept.
While I was thus weeping and mourning for my
great loss and accountability, I remembered God, and
earnestly prayed that He would send me help.
Immediately the door opened, and a man entered the
room, when the people all left it; and he, having a
dirt brush in his hand, opened the windows, and
began to brush the dirt and rubbish from the room.
I cried to him to forbear, for there were some
precious jewels scattered among the rubbish.
He told me to "fear not," for he would "take care of
them".
Then, while he brushed the dirt and rubbish, false
jewels and counterfeit coin, all rose and went out of
the window like a cloud, and the wind carried them
away. In the bustle I closed my eyes for a moment;
when I opened them, the rubbish was all gone. The
precious jewels, the diamonds, the gold and silver
coins, lay scattered in profusion all over the room.
He then placed on the table a casket, much larger
and more beautiful than the former, and gathered up
the jewels, the diamonds, the coins, by the handful,
and cast them into the casket, till not one was left,
although some of the diamonds were not bigger than
the point of a pin.
He then called upon me to "come and see."
I looked into the casket, but my eyes were dazzled
with the sight. They shone with ten times their former
glory. I thought they had been scoured in the sand
by the feet of those wicked persons who had scattered
and trod them in the dust. They were arranged in
beautiful order in the casket, every one in its place,
without any visible pains of the man who cast them
in. I shouted with very joy, and that shout awoke me.