October 6: O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. Isa. 54:11, 12

The church nominal, which, from being the gate-way to glory, became a gate-way to error and confusion, a miserable mixture composed chiefly of tares, hypocrites—a confused mass of worldly profession in which the Lord's jewels are buried, and their true beauty and luster hidden… Here, as sheep in the midst of devouring wolves, the true embryo Kingdom of God suffered violence, and the violent took it by force; and, like their Lord, in whose footprints they followed, they were despised and rejected of men, men of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But now, as the Millennial morning dawns, and the doctrinal errors of the dark night past are discovered, and the real gems of truth are lighted up, the effect must be, as designed, to separate completely the wheat from the tares. C154, 164 The Church is pictured as the glorious New Jerusalem built of precious stones, and the declaration is made that "no weapon formed against it shall prosper." R3596