My extreme youth prevented me from realizing the responsibilities of a mission. Being a beardless boy, it never occurred to me that I would be called upon to preach. Up to that time I never had been upon my feet to say a word in public.
At a meeting which had been advertised for two weeks, at the Methodist camp meeting ground, in a grove, in the County before mentioned, were gathered an assemblage of six or seven hundred men, women and children, priests, doctors and lawyers, the largest meeting I had ever witnessed up to that time.
I came to this meeting from one part of the County, and Elder Shelton was expected to come from another quarter. But the time to commence meeting had arrived, and Elder Shelton had not.
The audience was impatient. A party of three or four of the leading citizens waited upon me, to know if I would not address the meeting. There never had been a "Mormon" meeting in that County before, and they could not afford to be disappointed.
I was sitting near the center of the meeting (not realizing that the stand was my place) when these men made the inquiry.
If a battery of artillery had been discharged in our midst, I do not think it would have so startled me, as did this request.
For the first time I began to realize that it was my duty to try to advocate the religion I professed.
Just as I was going to answer that I would make an effort, Elder Shelton walked upon the stand, and this seemed to lift a mountain from my shoulders.
Brother Shelton looked wearied and sick, but opened the meeting with singing and prayer, and sang again before he discovered me in the audience. Then he immediately called upon me to come to the stand and preach, as he was too sick and feeble to attempt it.
To say I was scared, would scarcely convey a proper idea of my condition. I was in a tremor from head to feet, and shook like a leaf in a storm, scarcely knowing what I did.