"Excuse me, sir; but do you know of anyone by the name of Shreeve on board this vessel?"
I dropped my luggage, reached out my hand, and said:
"You are Brother Nordstrand!"
He replied:
"Yes; and you are Brother Shreeve! Allow me to welcome you to New Zealand."
I did not know at the time why I said "Brother Nordstrand." Of course I had never seen the man before, and the only possible acquaintance I could have had with his name, was, that I had glanced once or twice, some weeks previous, at a report which contained the names of the New Zealand Saints. Paying but little attention to this matter at the time, I did not remember that Nordstrand was among these names, even if I saw it. I had no idea that any person would come to meet me. And yet I spoke his name and reached out my hand to him with as much confidence as if we had been old acquaintances, only separated for a year or two.
If this experience on my own part seemed marvelous to me, upon reflection, I was still more surprised when Brother Nordstrand related the events which caused him to meet the Wakatipu at Port Littleton. He said:
"I live at Styx. This morning in a dream, a personage—a young man of pleasing appearance, clothed in a white robe—visited me and instructed me to go to Port Littleton this morning and meet the steamer Wakatipu, and find among her passengers a man named Shreeve, who was a "Mormon" Elder coming to visit the Saints in New Zealand. The vision was so vivid that I was roused from my sleep; and, when it was ended, I sprang out of bed and looked at the clock. I found the hour to be 4 A. M. Two hours later I saddled my horse and rode to Christchurch, a distance of six or seven miles. There I took train for Port Littleton, nine miles away, and arrived here to meet you."
The sole information and instruction upon which Brother Nordstrand acted was that conveyed to him in this dream. In a later conversation I learned that in the same vision he had been shown all the consequences which would attend upon my ministration in New Zealand. The event proved that this dream to Brother Nordstrand was one of the greatest blessings of my life. I encountered much tribulation in New Zealand; no more from the bigotry of the world than from the perfidy of my own brethren. But through all the trouble Brother Nordstrand was my devoted friend. He had never a moment of doubt, because all which happened had been by him foreseen.