I saw the artist lay down his palette and paints, fold his arms, and look straight at me, and I was shocked out of my dreaming by the abrupt question: “Brother Kimball, have you ever been to heaven?” Apparently he had difficulty translating my faraway gaze onto the canvas. I suppose I was daydreaming, and quite detached from this world. This particular day was a busy one like most others. The angle was changed, the hours-many of them-were spent, and finally the portrait was near completion. It did not pass, and I was to submit to a redoing. After weeks the portrait was exhibited to the First Presidency and later to my wife and daughter. With paints, brushes, and palette ready, the artist scrutinized my features and daubed on the canvas alternately. I sat on a chair on an elevated platform in his studio and tried very hard to look handsome, like some of the other brethren. Lee Greene Richards was selected as the artist, and we began immediately. Sometime later authorization was given by the First Presidency of the Church for my portrait to be added to the others.
When I came to this service, I looked upon them with admiration and affection, for these were truly great men with whom I was associated. Around its walls are portraits of the Brethren. Here important meetings of that body are held. In the temple on the fourth floor is the room of the Council of the Twelve Apostles with large chairs in a semicircle. More than once I have repeated an experience I had in getting my portrait painted. But perhaps sometimes we should stop to reflect that all are not criminals, all are not bad, and all are not rebellious. We nearly panic at the divorce frequency and broken homes and delinquent children about us. We shudder at immoralities which terrify us.
We should say, "How shall we be able to appear before our God prepared, as it were, to sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb if we indulge this worldly temper or passion? How shall we be able to rejoice in the hope of seeing our blessed Savior if we have thus dishonored His name, or if we have thus neglected to promote His cause? How shall we meet our Lord with joy, if we thus forget Him now?" That these meditations may help the sad and tried believer to "recover their strength" on their way to their eternal home above, is the earnest prayer of the author.My beloved brothers and sisters and friends: Much is being said of deep crime which darkens heaven’s windows. We would be often restrained from what is unworthy of our heavenly hopes, by the thought of the glimpse of Heaven which has left its sweet, yet solemn remembrance. Then would they exercise a sanctifying influence over us. They should be seasons of great searchings of heart, when our souls are, as it were, gazing upon the realities of eternity, in the sight of the heart-searching God, with all their inmost recesses laid bare before Him.
In these meditations on heavenly bliss, we should try as much as we can to render them profitable for our sanctification and growth in grace. In the midst of much that is difficult to be understood prophetic of things past and to come the veil is sometimes lifted up, and the humble believer looks in and catches a glimpse of the glory which Jesus wills that he shall share. It has already passed through several editions and, having been blessed by God to many, especially among the sick and sorrowful, it is again sent forth to speak silently to the troubled heart of what is revealed to us of the things that are unseen and eternal in the Book of the Revelation. Another edition of this little book of "Glimpses of Heaven!" has been called for.
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