"On the l0th of May, 1836, my husband again went East on a mission, and I made a visit to my friends in Victor, where Heber and I met, and after spending a few days, returned to Ohio, journeying to Buffalo, where a magistrate came forward and paid five dollars for our passage to Fairport.
"The passengers were chiefly Swiss emigrants. After sitting and hearing them some time, the spirit of the Lord came upon my husband so that he was enabled to preach to them in their own language, though of himself he knew not a word of their language. They seemed much pleased, and treated him with great kindness.
"We returned to Kirtland to find a spirit of speculation in the church, and apostacy growing among some of the apostles and leading elders. These were perilous times indeed.
"In the midst of this my husband was called on his mission to Great Britain, this being the first foreign mission.
"One day while Heber was seated in the front stand in the Kirtland temple, the prophet Joseph opened the door and came and whispered in his ear, 'Brother Heber, the spirit of the Lord has whispered to me, let my servant Heber go to England and proclaim the gospel, and open the door of salvation.'"
Here we may digress a moment from Sister Vilate's story, to illustrate the view of the apostles "opening the door of salvation to the nations," and preaching the gospel in foreign lands without purse or scrip.
At a later period the Mormon apostles and elders have deemed it as nothing to take missions to foreign lands, but in 1837, before the age of railroads and steamships had fairly come, going to Great Britain on mission was very like embarking for another world; and the apostolic proposition to gather a people from foreign lands and many nations to form a latter-day Israel, and with these disciples to build up a Zion on this continent, was in seeming the maddest undertaking possible in human events. This marvelous scheme of the Mormon prophet, with many others equally bold and strangely uncommon for modern times, shall be fully treated in the book of his own life, but it is proper to throw into prominence the wondrous apostolic picture of Heber C. Kimball "opening the door of salvation to the nations that sat in darkness;" and for the gathering of an Israel from every people and from every tongue. Relative to this, by far the greatest event in' his life, Heber says, in his family journals:
"The idea of being appointed to such an important mission was almost more than I could bear up under. I felt my weakness and was nearly ready to sink under it, but the moment I understood the will of my heavenly Father, I felt a determination to go at all hazards, believing that he would support me by his almighty power, and although my family were dear to me, and I should have to leave them almost destitute, I felt that the cause of truth, the gospel of Christ, outweighed every other consideration. At this time many faltered in their faith, some of the twelve were in rebellion against the prophet of God. John Boynton said to me, if you are such a d—d fool as to go at the call of the fallen prophet, I will not help you a dime, and if you are cast on Van Dieman's Land I will not make an effort to help you. Lyman E. Johnson said he did not want me to go on my mission, but if I was determined to go, he would help me all he could; he took his cloak from off his back and put it on mine. Brother Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith, Sr., Brigham Young, Newel K. Whitney and others said go and do as the prophet has told you and you shall prosper and be blessed with power to do a glorious work. Hyrum, seeing the condition of the church, when he talked about my mission wept like a little child; he was continually blessing and encouraging me, and pouring out his soul in prophesies upon my head; he said go and you shall prosper as not many have prospered."
"A short time previous to my husband's starting," continues Sister Vilate, "he was prostrated on his bed from a stitch in his back, which suddenly seized him while chopping and drawing wood for his family, so that he could not stir a limb without exclaiming, from the severeness of the pain. Joseph Smith hearing of it came to see him, bringing Oliver Cowdery and Bishop Partridge with him. They prayed for and blessed him, Joseph being mouth, beseeching God to raise him up, &c. He then took him by the right hand and said, 'Brother Heber, I take you by your right hand, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and by virtue of the holy priesthood vested in me, I command you, in the name of Jesus Christ, to rise, and be thou made whole.' He arose from his bed, put on his clothes, and started with them, and went up to the temple, and felt no more of the pain afterwards.
"At length the day for the departure of my husband arrived. It was June 13th, 1837. He was in the midst of his family, blessing them, when Brother R. B. Thompson, who was to accompany him two or three hundred miles, came in to ascertain when Heber would start. Brother Thompson, in after years, writing an account in Heber's journal of his first mission to Great Britain, in its preface thus describes that solemn family scene: 'The door being partly open I entered and felt struck with the sight which presented itself to my view. I would have retired, thinking I was intruding, but I felt riveted to the spot. The father was pouring out his soul to