Chapter 27.
Good-bye to England—A Poem—The Master's Question.
I continued to labor pleasantly with Elder Howard O. Spencer until I was released to return home. I remember the sad look that rested on Howard's face when I said goodbye to him; a man of sorrows, but as true and good a man as ever lived.
I borrowed ten dollars of John H. Miles, and sold him my valise for five dollars. Then I bought a suit of clothes that served me until I returned home.
My last Sunday in England I spent with Elder Jacobs. We attended a Methodist open-air meeting on May Hill. There were four local ministers present. They mistook me for one of Spurgeon's elders from London, and invited me to preach. With joy, I accepted the chair; but soon they ordered me down; and when I refused to come down, they tried to pull me down. I appealed to the people, who sustained me. The ministers left in disgust. I talked for one hour on the restoration of the Gospel, then called President Jacobs to the chair, and he bore a strong testimony to the truth of what I had said.
It was thus that I closed my missionary labors in England.
When I came home, I brought Mother Jaynes, the old lady whom I first saw in a dream, while sleeping in a wooden-bottomed chair. Just before starting for home, I received a kind letter from my father-in-law, William M. Black. Brother Black had forgotten my address, and so sent the letter to the Liverpool office. By mistake it had been sent from there into Scotland. It traveled thence all over Scotland and England, and finally found me on the streets of London. The envelope was so worn that a ten-dollar greenback bill was plainly visible, and was kept in its place only by a tow string tied around the envelope. The money, reaching me in that way seemed a miracle, and I resolved to do a charitable deed with it.
At Michael, Dean Hill, in the Bristol conference, lived a family by the name of Burris. The family consisted of father and mother, a son Absalom, nineteen; Emma, seven; and Kissy, three years of age. The father and son were not in the Church; but the home had been a home for our elders for twenty years. When I was there, the elders had been mobbed so much that open-air meetings had been discontinued.
President Joseph F. Smith wrote me to persist in holding them; but the Saints refused to accompany me, so I went at it alone. Only little Emma Burris went with me, and several times I felt that all that kept the mob from doing violence to me, was the presence of that innocent little girl clinging so trustingly to me, and I loved her for it. I wrote to Mr. Burris, and asked him to let me bring Emma home with me. He consented; and with that ten dollars I emigrated her to Salt Lake City. Upon my arrival at father's, her uncles, Joseph and Thomas Morgan, came to see her. They begged me to let her stav with them. I consented on condition that they would bring the family to Zion. They promised to do so, and they kept their covenant.
Upon reaching Zion, Emma's father and Brother Absalom joined the Church and Brother Burris died a faithful worker in the Logan temple. At this writing, 1916, Appie's son is filling a mission in the southern states. What a rich harvest from so small a sowing! And the end of the fruitage is not yet.
How much good I have done, I leave to the Lord. My life has been humble, but active. Starting in for myself without a second coat to my back, I have supported a large family and given much of my time to preaching the Gospel and doing pioneer work.
To my wives and children, for their loyalty to me, I owe much,—more indeed than I may ever repay. In this brief writing, I have endeavored to show that they suffered much, and yet always did a noble, sacrificing part. No man ever had a better family. My father, in his declining years, helped me liberally, and I love his memory. Upon my return from England, I received a hearty welcome from my parents, my family, and my brothers, sisters, and friends.
My wife Albina, and son Silas, met me at Salt Lake City with a team. On our arrival at Orderville, the band came out and gave us a serenade and welcome. I associated with the Orderville organization seven years; laboring to the best of my ability for the good of all, and there was joy in that labor.
After the death of President Brigham Young, the Order was left to stand upon its own merits. At least President Taylor seemed to take but little interest in our affairs. The Orderville people were emerging from the deep poverty they at first had to contend with, and prosperity was coming to them. But with plenty came a spirit of speculation, and speculation brought disunion. I therefore withdrew from them, careful not to do them any wrong.
I moved next to Loa, where my home should be today, 1888; but because I will not put away wives that I married twenty years ago, when there was no law making it a crime, I am compelled to seek the "underground," or else be humiliated by imprisonment, which I will not submit to, if I can possibly avoid it.
One day, while sitting under a tree, writing this journal and watching my sheep, I found in an old newspaper that my dinner was wrapped in, the following verse, with the heading:
"THE MASTER'S QUESTION."
"Have ye looked for sheep in the desert,
For those that have missed their way?
Have ye been in the wild, waste places
Where the lost and wandering stray?
Have ye trodden the lonely highway—
The foul and darksome street?
It may be ye'd see in the gloaming,
The prints of my wounded feet."
To this I made answer in the following verses, which may not unfitly conclude the account of my missionary labors:
Yes, I have sought in the desert
For the sheep that have wandered afar.
I have followed the trail o'er the mountain
By the light of the polar star.
I have climbed the steep wild pali,
Thousands of miles away;
I have sought in rain and sunshine,
For the sheep that have gone astray.With footsteps faint and weary,
I have threaded the darksome street,
I have entered the lowly dwelling,
Asking for a crust to eat.
I have walked from eve till morning,
Facing a pelting storm,
Earnestly seeking to gather the sheep
Into the Master's barn.I have folded home to my bosom,
The tender, trembling lamb.
I have carried on my shoulder,
The weak and helpless dam.
I have cried with a voice of kindness
To the wayward, heedless throng;
I have checked the dogs that in blindness
Were worrying the wild and strong.I have left my home and loved ones—
The mother who gave me birth—
And wandered, weak and lonely,
Half way round the earth.
From Hawaii's shore to London,
My voice by night and day,
Has called, as a shepherd's warning
To the sheep that had gone astray.I have used my strength and substance,
I have given the little I had,
Ever willing to lend a hand
To the sinning, and the sad.
And though my strength is failing,
And I often stumble and fall,
Yet would I hunt the desert again,
At the blessed Savior's call.
For I have seen the prints of His feet,
When the spirit rested on me;
And when the sheep are gathered, I trust,
In the Master's fold to be.