"Just as we had become settled in our own new house the saints prepared to leave San Bernardino in the winter of '56-7. We sold our home at great sacrifice, and, six of us in one wagon, with two yoke of Spanish oxen, started for Utah. On the desert our oxen grew weak and our supplies began to give out. We, who at home in India had servants at every turn, now had to walk many weary miles, through desert sands, and in climbing mountains. My sister and I would, in the morning, bind our cashmere scarfs around our waists, take each a staff, and with a small piece of bread each, we would walk ahead of the train. At noon we would rest, ask a blessing upon the bread, and go on. Weary, footsore and hungry, we never regretted leaving our luxurious homes, nor longed to return. We were thankful for the knowledge that had led us away, and trusted God to sustain us in our trials and lead us to a resting-place among the saints. After our journey ended, we began anew to build a home.
"I am, after twenty years among this people, willing to finish my days with them, whatever their lot and trials may be, and I pray God for his holy spirit to continue with me to the end."
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Nor should we omit to mention Mrs. Willmirth East, now in her 64th year, who was converted to Mormonism while residing with her father's family in Texas, in 1853. Her ancestors fought in the Revolutionary war, and her father, Nathaniel H. Greer, was a member of the legislature of Georgia, and also a member of the legislature of Texas, after his removal to that State. She has long resided in Utah, is a living witness of many miracles of healing, and has often manifested in her own person the remarkable gifts of this dispensation. She may be accounted one of the most enthusiastic and steadfast of the saints.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
A LEADER FROM ENGLAND—MRS HANNAH T. KING—A MACDONALD FROM SCOTLAND—THE "WELSH QUEEN"—A REPRESENTATIVE WOMAN FROM IRELAND—SISTER HOWARD—A GALAXY OF THE SISTERHOOD, FROM "MANY NATIONS AND TONGUES"—INCIDENTS AND TESTIMONIALS.
Here the reader meets an illustration of women from many nations baptized into one spirit, and bearing the same testimony.
Mrs. Hannah T. King, a leader from England, shall now speak. She says:
"In 1849, while living in my home in Dernford Dale, Cambridgeshire, England, my attention was first brought to the serious consideration of Mormonism by my seamstress. She was a simple-minded girl, but her tact and respectful ingenuity in presenting the subject won my attention, and I listened, not thinking or even dreaming that her words were about to revolutionize my life.
"I need not follow up the thread of my thoughts thereafter; how I struggled against the conviction that had seized my mind; how my parents and friends marveled at the prospect of my leaving the respectable church associations of a life-time and uniting with 'such a low set'; how I tried to be content with my former belief, and cast the new out of mind, but all to no purpose. Suffice it to say I embraced the gospel, forsook the aristocratic associations of the 'High Church' congregation with which I had long been united, and became an associate with the poor and meek of the earth.