In addition to all this, he has for the past five years been a worker on the Temple Block in connection with the Bureau of Information, spending much of his time there, and with good effect if the volunteered opinion of hundreds who have listened to him are a fair criterion by which to judge. Though he never filled a foreign mission, he has enjoyed privileges that seldom come to foreign missionaries. He has explained "Mormon" history and doctrine and borne his testimony to thousands who, as strangers thereto, were seeking the information he had to offer (and many of them willing listeners,) and who could never afterwards deny having heard the truth.
It may be inferred from this that he is working under high pressure, to spare so much time from his own absorbing affairs to devote to this charitable work, as well as to be under the financial tribute that he is in this connection, and indeed he is. He probably inherits from his father (who was a man of unusual energy, mental and physical,) his capacity for work. There is no doubt about his feeling better for the strenuous life that he is leading, and especially for his gratuitous work. He has been heard to remark that he has found no good and safe place to stop at, as any lessening of his efforts in the voluntary work for the good of others that he has undertaken, results in a perceptible diminution in the good spirit that he has enjoyed in recent years, and in his growing worldly-minded in a corresponding degree. His is a nature that is not satisfied with anything mediocre. He craves the best, and is naturally thorough and whole-hearted in that which he does, and has a keen sense of both enjoyment and suffering.
He has learned what many others fail to learn: that happiness depends less upon what we receive than what we give, less upon what we have than upon what we do; less upon what others do for us than upon what we do for them; and that we can adopt no more certain means of securing happiness for ourselves than that of seeking to make others happy. Life never was so full and rich and satisfying to him before as it has been in recent years, for he never did so much for others, and never before exhibited so much unselfishness.
He objects to being classed as a rich man, because, notwithstanding his interests are rather extensive, he has invested a large amount of borrowed money in an industry which involves a good deal of risk, and yet, with good fortune in his favor, may yield a handsome profit.
Well, if he is not rich he is certainly enterprising, and deserves to be rich, and never was in less danger from being rich.
Wealth is a comparative term, anyhow. If he is not rich compared with some who are very wealthy, he is compared with those who have little or none of this world's goods.
If, with the risk he is taking, he still finds time to devote so much unselfish attention to others, dead and living, how much more creditable than if he labored for selfish ends! And how much more of a sacrifice he is making than if he had converted all his surplus property into government bonds, the income from which would insure him a living without care on his part, and then only gave his time to the cause of humanity.
He has again married—this time in God's own appointed way, to one who is full of faith—and two lovely children have come to grace his home—the first living children he has had. He takes an optimistic view of life, and never felt that he had so much to live for.
It may be appropriately mentioned here that six years before his former wife died (a. already related,) she wrote a letter to her husband, with a request that it be opened and read after her death. His present wife chanced to read that letter some time after her marriage, and learned from it that the expressed desire of the deceased wife was that her husband should marry again, and that some time there would be a little Luacine (that being the first wife's name.) The first child was a boy. The second was a girl, and the mother, on her own volition, chose for her the name of Luacine.
Consider this case from whatever angle we may, Brother P . . . is an exception in his class, and a most praiseworthy exception, whose example in recent years is well worthy of emulation.