"The Spirit of God, like a fire, is burning!
The latter-day glory begins to come forth;
The visions and blessings of old are returning,
The angels are coming to visit the earth."
The beauty and applicability of this hymn will be seen by the Saints, on reading the third and fourth verses, when it is recollected that this was a solemn assembly, and that the ordinance of washing of feet, etc., was just then being attended to.
It was also at this time that Elijah the Prophet appeared, and conferred upon Joseph the keys of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, previous to the re-institution of the ordinance of baptism for the dead.
By this time most of the members of the Pomphret Branch, into which I had been baptized, were gathered up to Kirtland, the first gathering-place of the Saints; and I was left without any one to counsel or direct me as to the way in which I should devote my labors in spreading the principles of truth, when one day the Word of the Lord, by the power of the Spirit, came unto me, saying, "I have fourteen sheep in Portland: go and gather them; then go south, where I have twenty-two more, and gather them also."
I then began to preach for the first time, and for that purpose procured the school-room in Portland, and, through my friends, circulated a notice that I was going to preach. This gathered a small congregation of some thirty or forty people.
At the time appointed I stood up to address them. As soon as I arose on my feet and looked on the congregation, the dream which I had had five years before, but which I had entirely forgotten, flashed across my recollection. There was the identical room I had seen, with the very people and children, just in those positions in the place that I had described them to my wife years before, when I informed her that I dreamed I was called to preach the Gospel! This was summer time.
I continued preaching at Portland until the winter came on, when, having baptized a few out of the place, they met at my house at Pomphret on Sundays, and on the week days I extended my labors in the south.
As I was told, I found just fourteen in Portland willing to obey the gospel, and by no exertion of mine could I get any more! I also obtained, in the south, the twenty-two previously spoken of, but it was a year and a half before I completed the number.
Not long after receiving the office of Elder, I was called to lay hands on a sister named Crowell, in Chautauqua County, New York, who was afflicted with a cancer. Her life was despaired of by herself and her neighbors, when she sent to me, telling me to come that night if I wished to see her alive! Not being able to go then, I prayed the Lord to give her a good night's rest. I visited her in the morning, and found that she had had a better night's rest than usual. I found her head, where the cancer had broken out, a dreadful sight, full of cancer worms, which were eating into the skull, three pieces of which had come out.
I anointed her head with oil, and prayed the Lord on her behalf, and, being obliged, left immediately to attend to my hay.