"The Lord did work with me wonderfully, in signs and wonders following them that believed in the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, insomuch that the deaf were made to hear, the blind to see, and the lame were made whole. Fevers, palsies, crooked and withered limbs, and in fact all manner of diseases common to the country, were healed by the power of God, that was manifested through his servants."
Among those visited by him was a blind woman, the wife of Ezra Strong. It was nearly noon when David reached the house. After the usual testimony and questions respecting her faith in the Gospel, David rubbed and anointed her eyes, when immediately she was restored to sight; and so thoroughly was she healed that she prepared dinner for the household.
During this summer, under great hardship and suffering, eighty members were added to the Church under David's administration. Eighteen of these were at Orleans, Jefferson County, New York. At Henderson where eight converts were baptized, great power was manifested at the confirmation, when the members spoke in tongues and prophesied.
With his brother, Ira, David returned in the early autumn of 1833 to Kirtland, where he worked on the temple for a month. Before winter set in that year, David had removed his wife and their effects from Michigan to Florence, Ohio, where he remained till the latter part of November. Having been sickly, five weeks of the seven he spent at home that fall, David commended himself into the hands of the Lord and went into the neighboring country to preach. But there was a field more in need of his labors than this, for he had not been from home more than two weeks when the word of the Lord came to him as follows:
"Depart from your field of labor, and go unto Kirtland, for behold, I will send thee up to the land of Zion, for behold, thou shalt serve thy brethren there."
III.
Condition of Saints in Missouri—Revelation to them—With William D. Pratt, David goes to Missouri—Ministering to the suffering—Freedom from animosity—Mission to Tennessee—Healing of Mrs. Lane.
Greatly were his brethren in Zion in need of whatever services David could render them. About the time of his arrival at Kirtland after receiving the word of the Lord, a letter came to the Prophet from Elder W. W. Phelps, dated Clay County, Missouri, in which among other things he says:
"The situation of the Saints, as scattered, is dubious and affords a gloomy prospect. No regular order can be enforced, nor any usual discipline kept up; among the world, yea, among the most wicked part of it, some commit one sin and some another (I speak of the rebellious, for there are Saints that are as immovable as the everlasting hills,) and what can be done? We are in Clay, Ray, Lafayette, Jackson, Van Buren, etc., and cannot hear from each other oftener than we do from you.
"I know it was right that we should be driven out of the land of Zion, that the rebellious might be sent away. But, brethren, if the Lord will, I should like to know what the honest in heart shall do."