"If you please, notice the above in your paper, for the benefit of those friends scattered abroad.
"Yours in the everlasting covenant,
BRIGHAM YOUNG, H. C. KIMBALL.
"MORLEY SETTLEMENT,
September 12, 1842."
Having fulfilled their mission, Brigham and Heber returned together to
Nauvoo on the 4th of November.
The opening of the year 1843 was a period of rejoicing to the Saints at Nauvoo, the Prophet having been honorably discharged from his arrest under the Missouri writ, by the U. S. District Court of Illinois, Judge Pope presiding. Grateful for this, the Twelve issued a proclamation to the Saints to observe the 17th of January as a day of fasting, prayer and thanksgiving for the Prophet's deliverance. On the next day Joseph invited his friends to a feast to commemorate the event, Heber being one of the number.
On the evening of March 7th a meeting was held at the house of Elder Kimball, which was crowded. Heber addressed the assembly, taking for his text, Jeremiah xviii, 2-5, on the figure of the clay in the hands of the potter. Joseph was so pleased with his sermon that he deemed it worthy of special notice in his history. This was the origin of Heber's famous sermon—"the clay in the hands of the potter," so familiar to the Saints, and well worthy of remembrance, not only for the masterly way in which it was presented, but for the depth of the doctrine therein contained.
Probably it was Heber's early profession—it will be remembered that he was by trade a potter—that first impressed him with this important theme, with its train of associate thoughts and images. And herein was shown the thoughtful, observant nature of his mind, which drew from simplest as well as sublimest objects that wealth of simile, the rich fund of metaphor and comparison in which his sayings were so prolific. Thus also was evinced the poet nature of the man, though he probably never wrote a line of verse.
Heber's powers as a speaker—though he never sought the distinction or claimed the title of orator—were well recognized, even at that early day. As a persuader, not with tinkling phrases and flowery rhetoric, to please the ear, but by simple words and the power of the Holy Ghost, to move the heart, he had few equals.
Some days after the meeting referred to, a petition reached Nauvoo from Boston, signed by twelve hundred names, asking for Elders Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde to come and labor in that city. A similar petition was also sent from Salem, Massachusetts, by Elder Erastus Snow. Before going on another mission, however, Heber, in connection with the Prophet, took an active part in creating an organization which has since become famous in the midst of Israel. It was no other than the Relief Society, the preliminary meeting of which was held at the house of Heber C. Kimball in Nauvoo. In view of the scarcely less famous organizations which have sprung up since, known as the Young Men's and Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Associations of the Latter-day Saints, it is interesting to note that the former movement originated among the young people, for whose welfare Heber was at that time specially and zealously laboring. We quote from the Prophet's history: