to be a Latter-day Saint Elder, who had reliable information of the murder of the Prophet Joseph and the Patriarch Hyrum Smith. He also informed us that the Elders who were abroad were all called home.

On the 15th of July, 1844, when taking leave of a small branch of the Church in Lightersburg, one of the sisters offered me some money that she had earned in the harvest field. I took one dollar, and told her that I could get home with that.

After starting, I began to reflect on my situation. I must travel on the river steamers from Pittsburg to Nauvoo, via Cincinnati and St. Louis, and I had only two dollars in my pocket. I had been often surprised, when traveling on foot at the pains people would take to invite me to ride or to step into a grocery and take a lunch, and I had considerable faith that the Lord would soften the heart of some one to assist me, when I was in need.

When I arrived in Pittsburg, I had one dollar left. There were two steamers at the landing about to start for St. Louis. They offered to take passengers very cheap. I told the captain of one of them, that I would give all the money I had for a passage to St. Louis. He took my money and gave me a ticket, but appeared rather cross.

I was soon on my way down the river, but still a long way from home, and without money or anything to eat. I began to feel the want of food.

Nothing special occurred with me until evening, when the lamps were lit in the passengers' cabin. I was then asked by a young married lady, if I was not a "Mormon" Elder. I replied that I was; and she told me that her little child was dying with the scarlet fever, and she wished me to lay hands on it and heal it.

I replied that I could administer to it, and I presumed that the Lord would heal it. I asked her if she believed in such things. She said that she did, and that she belonged to the Church, but her husband did not. I was puzzled in my mind to know what to do, for the boat was crowded with passengers, and all unbelievers excepting the mother of the sick child and myself. It seemed like a special providence that, just then, the lamp in the cabin should fall from its hangings, and leave us all in the dark.

Before another lamp could be lit, I had administered to the child, and rebuked the fever in the name of the Lord Jesus, unobserved by those around. The Lord blessed the administration, and the child was healed.

The mother called her husband, and said to him, "Little Mary is healed; not do not say anything against 'Mormonism.'" The man looked at his child, and said to me, "I am not a believer in any kind of religion, but I am on my way to Iowa, opposite to Nauvoo, where I presume you are going. You are welcome to board with me all the way, and if you want any money I will let you have it."

I arrived in Nauvoo on the 5th of August, 1844.

CHAPTER III

At Nauvoo I found Sidney Rigdon busy among the Saints, trying to establish his claim to the presidency of the Church. He was first Counselor to the Prophet Joseph at the time of the latter's death. The Church was fourteen years old, and he claimed that it was its privilege and duty to appoint a guardian; and he wished the people to sanction his guardianship.

I was much dissatisfied with the course he was taking, and as I could not sustain him, I felt to leave Nauvoo for a season. I went into the country, where I had left my wife and two children with my sister Melissa. When I met my sister, she threw her arms around my neck and thanked the Lord that I had returned. She had seen an account of a man being drowned in the Ohio River, and, from the description, thought that it might have been me.

On the 8th of August, 1844, I attended a general meeting of the Saints. Elder Rigdon was there, urging his claims to the presidency of the Church. His voice did not sound like the voice of the true shepherd. When he was about to call a vote of the congregation to sustain him as President of the Church, Elders Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt and Heber C. Kimball stepped into the stand.

Brigham Young remarked to the congregation: "I will manage this voting for Elder Rigdon. He does not preside here. This child" (meaning himself) "will manage this flock for a season." The voice and gestures of the man were those of the Prophet Joseph.

The people, with few exceptions, visibly saw that the mantle of the Prophet Joseph Smith had fallen upon Brigham Young. To some it seemed as though Joseph again stood before them.

I arose to my feet and said to a man sitting by me, "That is the voice of the true shepherd—the chief of the Apostles."

Our enemies, finding that the death of the Prophet did not break up "Mormonism," as they had expected, began their persecutions again, by burning the houses of the brethren in the outlying settlements.

I joined a company of minute men to assist in protecting the Saints. In one of our scouts we visited Carthage. I examined the jail in which Joseph and Hyrum were assassinated. I noticed that the latches on the two doors that the mob broke in, when they killed the Prophets, had been rendered useless by bending down the catches, so that the latches would clear them. All the entrances to the prison yard appeared to me to have been prepared beforehand for the easy admittance of the mob.

The blood on the floor where the Patriarch fell, had left a black spot about the size and shape of the body. The ball holes in the plastering about the window out of which Joseph leaped, and those in the door and in the wall above where Hyrum had lain, and also where John Taylor had been shot at, denoted that the assailants were desperadoes and well prepared for their work.

When the District Court sat in Hancock County, the judge allowed one of the leaders of the mob to act as an official. He also professed to try to have the murderers indicted, but as several of them were on the grand jury, there were no indictments found against them.

The following winter I assisted in guarding the Saints in and around the city of Nauvoo. My brother Obed lived about thirty miles out in the country. He was taken sick, and sent for me to come and see him.

On arriving at his house, I found that he had been sick nearly three months, and that doubts were entertained of his recovery. I anointed him with holy oil in the name of the Lord Jesus, laid on hands, and prayed for him, and told him that he should recover, which he did immediately.

This occurrence had much influence on my parents. They both attended the following April conference. At its close, my father asked me if I did not wish to baptize him and my mother. As they were both desirous that I should do so, I baptized them in the Mississippi river, on April 11th, 1845.

My father told me that it was not any man's preaching that had convinced him of the truth of the gospel, but the Lord had shown it to him in night visions. Said he, "It is your privilege to baptize your parents, for you have prayed for them in secret and in public; you never gave them up; you will be a Joseph to your father's house."

In 1845, I labored on the Nauvoo temple, doing any work that was required of me. In the autumn, the enemies of the Saints commenced to plunder in the country settlements. Teams were sent from Nauvoo to save and bring in what grain they could. It was necessary to send guards with the teams.

These afflictions, heaped upon the Saints by their enemies when they were struggling to complete the temple, in compliance with the word of the Lord, greatly added to their difficulties.

When winter came, they were instructed to unite their efforts to manufacture wagons, and make preparations for a long journey. I assisted in getting out timber for wagons.

The house of the Lord being far enough completed to give endowments and do other necessary work, I received my blessings in it just before crossing the Mississippi river, in February, 1846.

I labored with the company of pioneers to prepare the way for