I reached Auckland in due time; and on the last Sunday in June, 1880, I preached in Orange Hall, in Newton, Auckland, my farewell sermon in the Australasian Mission. I was greatly moved in delivering this final message of truth; and in the course of my address I bore a sincere testimony to the truth of the gospel, and then the spirit prompted me to give to the people assembled a solemn warning. I said:
"Other Elders will come to you; but you shall reject their testimony as you now reject mine. But after that, and before six years shall pass away other testimonies will be sent by the Almighty, which you can neither reject nor gainsay. These testimonies will be the testimonies of earthquakes and famines and pestilence; and they will continue to afflict you until but few of you shall live."
While uttering these words I felt so strongly impressed, so confident of their truth, that I told the people to write my utterance down, and watch for its fulfillment. But when I had finished and the Spirit had left me to my own thoughts, I felt almost horrified at the nature of the prophecy which I had almost unconsciously made. I felt my humility and my weakness most vividly, and I also felt almost ashamed, and certainly very fearful concerning the fulfillment of what I had said. That feeling of doubt and almost anger with myself came upon me during the years following, whenever the subject recurred to my mind.
In June, 1886, I received a visit from a brother who had recently come from New Zealand. We were talking about the experiences of my mission, and I said to him:
"It is now just six years since I left Auckland on my return."
No sooner were the words uttered than there flashed through my mind a recollection of the strange prediction which the Spirit had uttered through my lips in Orange Hall; and I thought to myself: "I must have been misled. I have watched the papers carefully, and there is no sign of any such disaster as that which I predicted. If those people did as I requested—if they wrote down the prophecy as it was uttered, some of them now will say, 'There is a falsehood which a Mormon Elder told.'"
This thing worried me for a week, but before ten days had elapsed I saw by the newspapers that a few days before the term of six years had expired a mighty and destructive earthquake occurred at Lake Rotomahana. The effects of this earthquake had been to sink the famous pink terraces of Lake Rotomahana; to substitute for the lake itself a mud volcano and five or six vomiting volcanoes sending forth streams of mud, dust, hot water and other debris which covered the country round about for miles in every direction to a prodigious depth; to destroy lives and to extinguish one village with most of its inhabitants.
I sailed from Auckland on the steamer Zealandia, on the 28th day of June, 1880. On this ship I had the pleasure of rejoining my dear friend and companion Elder May, from whom I had been so long separated. He was on his way home from Australia bringing with him a family of Saints.
On board the Zealandia were three members of the new South Wales commission, who were going to England on political business. They were, Hon. Alexander Campbell, Captain St. John and another whose name I did not obtain. Mr. Campbell was a gentleman of great suavity of demeanor, fine appearance and wonderful intelligence and information. As soon as he found that "Mormons" were on board he became deeply interested in them. In conversation with us he said:
"I have given some study to your question for the last thirty years. I have watched the course of your people; and I am satisfied that you are working out great social problems. To grapple with these problems successfully has been puzzling to the wisest of statesmen for centuries. I am not one of those who look with contempt upon people who profess strange beliefs. I understand that your community is largely composed of the Anglo-Saxon race; and I know that you cannot find a place on the face of the earth where an enduring community of this kind has been built up for the purposes of lust. Your enemies say that this is your motive, but I am convinced to the contrary. The Anglo-Saxons never descend to that. When they unite in great movements they have a grand object in view."