"I would rather bury you in the churchyard than have you join the Mormons."
Too full of grief to make any reply to her remarks, with drooping head and aching heart I slowly went up stairs to my bed chamber and there knelt and prayed humbly and fervently to my Heavenly Father, while the tears rolled down my cheeks.
Restlessly I lay upon my bed. "I would rather bury you in the churchyard than have you join the Mormons." Oh, how these words rang in my ears! I had never been so tried before in my life. The knowledge that "Mormonism" was true was firm in my heart, for I had received a testimony and was very anxious to get baptized; but my hopes now were blighted. What course should I pursue? I was young—just approaching my fifteenth birthday— and still under the control of my parents, whom I desired to obey in all things. But could I give up "Mormonism" and deny the testimony I had received? No, the Lord helping me, I would never do that.
Then, again, my temporal position weighed upon my heart. I had recently been apprenticed in the printing business for seven years; and the laws of the country compelled me to serve out this time.
And thus query after query arose in my mind for some length of time, until at last, tired out, sleep closed my eyelids.
Instead of going to Sunday school on the following morning I went to see W. H. Scott and related to him what had transpired. He sympathized with me in my troubled state, advice to me was:
It afterwards came to my knowledge that my mother had been making inquiries of her minister and members of the Wesleyan Reformers in regard to what kind of people the "Mormons" were and what was their belief; and the false statements she received in reply accounted for the unkind answer she gave me.
I went to the Latter day Saints' meeting whenever opportunity offered, but was very cautious not to inform my parents.
Sometimes I attended meetings at Eston and Stockton (both places being about four miles from home) as well as at Middlesbrough.
I soon left my former Sunday school and began attending another of the same persuasion, but differing on some points of doctrine. Then I attended the Unitarian school, where their exercises partook of a secular as well as of a religious nature. From there I went to the Wesleyans; but wherever I roamed no true spiritual enjoyment could be found as at the meetings of the Latter-day Saints.