"But my dear friends and breethring-ah, we have a little sister-ah, and she hath no breasts-ah. I am very much afraid, my dear friends and breethring-ah, that in that great day when we shall be spoken for-ah, that some of us will be brought into that awful presence-ah, and there find we have no breasts-ah. And oh, my dear friends and breethring-ah, will not this be an awful condition to be found in-ah?"
Honestly, this is no exaggeration! Thus he held forth for an hour longer, expressing no two sentences without the phrase, "my dear friends and breethring-ah," being sandwiched in between.
I am very sorry I cannot give my readers the music, for it would be a rich treat.
As he was about to close the meeting, I asked for permission to speak for a few minutes.
"Not," said he, "till we dismiss our meeting; then if the people wish to hear you I have no objection."
When he had dismissed his meeting, all the congregation sat down again, thus giving me to understand they wished me to talk to them.
I commenced by stating to the audience that I wished to correct some mistakes made by Mr. Mourning, relative to the name of the Church to which I belonged. We were called the "Mormon" Church, which was a nickname given us by our enemies, the true and legal name being, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; also that there could be no other appropriate name for Christ's church. Churches that are not His, should always be called by some other name than His, illustrating to them that the church of Christ was never called by any man's name. Christ's church in the days of Noah was not called Noah's church. Neither was His church called the church of Abraham in his day, nor the church of Moses when Moses lived. Nor was it ever called the church of John the Baptist in the day that he was upon the earth. I closed by saying that I never in the Bible had read anything about a "Primitive Baptist church."
In the absence of anything better to say, he asked me if I did not like John the Baptist.
I answered "Yes," and that he was called the Baptist because he had baptized the people in all Judea and Jerusalem, and the region round about Jordan, as Mr. Cloud (referring to a man that sat near me) had made shoes for all the people near where he lived, and on that account was called a shoemaker, but it did not follow that those for whom he had made the shoes were also called shoemakers.
I requested him, if there was any evidence in the scriptures to establish the Bible name of his church, to open his Bible and read it to the people.