Report on the Northern States Mission and Growth of the Work

(President of Northern States Mission). ¶

My brothers and sisters, there is a desire in my breast that our Father will bless me with His Spirit the few moments I stand before you to testify of His goodness unto me, and unto the Elders I am privileged to labor with in the Northern States mission. Though my knees tremble under the task of speaking to you, my heart rejoices in the privilege of visiting this conference, and hearing the testimonies of my brethren who have been called upon to speak. I rejoice in their testimonies because it warms my soul, and makes me feel that God has been good to me in giving me also a testimony of His Gospel, .and testifying to my soul that His Son Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I know that for the past six months our Father in heaven has fulfilled His promises upon the heads of the Elders laboring in the Northern States mission, and that they have been inspired in the performance of their duties. Many of them, during the past few months, look as brown as though they had been working in the harvest fields at home. I rejoice in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in the progress of the work in the mission where we are laboring. Our cry to the Presidency of the Church has been, as I understand is the case with presidents of other missions, that we have too few Elders to answer the calls of the people who desire to hear from us. From the northern to the southern part of our mission, we have calls from the people for tracts and books, and for visits from the Elders, so much so that during the last six months we have been compelled to ask the Saints to stand alone, to look to God, to read the Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants, to go to their Father in heaven for wisdom, and permit the Elders to go out among the strangers who have not had the privilege of hearing the gospel. The efforts of the Elders this summer have been blessed, and for the past four months, we have had an average of about fifty baptisms per month; and we have distributed 125,000 tracts, half of which are pamphlets, consisting of thirty-two pages. The Elders have sold hundreds of Books of Mormon in the last two months. Some of the big book stores in our part of the country have kindly consented to put our books upon sale along with others. We appreciate this kindly interest, it is a change ' from what has been in the past, for heretofore our books, if they have been in stores at all, have had a place among the shelfworn and second-hand stock. ¶

There is one incident that has occurred in the Northern States mission which I believe all Latter-day Saints will be interested in, that is the conference that was held in Nauvoo last Saturday and Sunday. If I may be permitted I will relate the circumstances under which the conference was held there. About one month ago the president of the Northern Illinois conference was looking for a suitable place to hold a conference, and, having done missionary work for the past year in Hancock county, and had been blessed by a number of baptisms, and having heard it remarked that the "Reorganized church" people were contemplating holding conference in Nauvoo, he decided to hold the conference there, if possible, for he understood that they had postponed their's for one year, because conditions were not favorable. When he wrote to us about this, we requested the Southern Illinois Elders to join the northern Elders in holding conference there on the 30th of September, and the 1st of October. In accordance with that appointment, forty-eight Elders and twenty Saints gathered at Nauvoo on the 29th of September. The people residing here unitedly opened their homes and welcomed what they termed the constructionist division of the Latter-day Saints. They said that, if the people of Nauvoo had not driven the Latter-day Saints, that beautiful location would now be one of the greatest cities in the United States. They remarked that the people who were driven out of Nauvoo had gone into a desert and had made it a desirable place, and they have not imagination enough to conceive of what would have been done in Nauvoo, had the Saints stayed in that goodly country. Some of the Saints and Elders from the Central States mission, hearing of our conference, visited us, as also some from the Southern States. The Spirit of the Lord was upon every Elder who bore witness to the truthfulness of the gospel, and the hearts of the people rejoiced. We had more houses offered for our accommodation than we could occupy. Eight Elders had the privilege of rooming in President Brigham Young's old home; four, I think, in Heber C. Kimball's house; and eight or ten in the Nauvoo Mansion House. We held our fast meeting in the Riverside or Nauvoo house. The Spirit of the Lord was upon those who bore witness in that meeting, and all present were much affected. We had the pleasure of having Brother Lorin Farr with us, who formerly lived in that city, and who filled a mission to the Eastern States under the call of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Nauvoo people were anxious to have him visit them and talk of old times. Some said they had been praying for years that the Latter-day Saints, the people who had made a desert to blossom as the rose, would come back, and help them build up that city, which is now sixty years behind the times. The residents in the Nauvoo House moved into that place four months ago. They had never met any of the elders before, but the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and we heard that, the day after conference, that family, with others, were baptized in the Mississippi river. ¶

I rejoice that the spirit in that country, once the home of the Latter-day Saints, has changed, and the people there deplore the fact that wicked men drove out people who were gifted with the power to build up a country, and w ho had within their souls a desire to beautify this earth. The mayor told us we would be always welcome. The man who owns the hall that faces east on the temple block said that we could have the use of that hall from this time forth. Heretofore we have had to hold our meetings on the streets. Our Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening meetings were attended by about five hundred people, and they expressed themselves sorry when the meetings closed, for, they said, they had never witnessed anything like it since they lived in that city. The comment was made that, if fifty elders and a few saints could make them feel that good, what would ten thousand, or twenty thousand Latter-day Saints do for them? The spirit manifested in Nauvoo is also exhibited in other parts of Illinois, with the exception that a few people are still fighting the truth. The honest people, the farmers, the working people, those who earn their bread by industry, seem to desire the truth, and though they may be blinded, and feel that in fighting the Latter-day Saints they are engaged in a good cause, yet when they meet our elders and come in contact with their influence, they admire their devotion and respect the sacrifice they make in proclaiming the gospel. People of honest purpose cannot withstand the influence of the men who are out preaching the gospel, young men from eighteen to twenty-four years of age, who go hungry and footsore, who pray by the roadside that they may find the honest in heart, who stop from time to time and hold meetings, laboring faithfully until their souls and their bodies are weary. These young men, filled with the Spirit of God, plead on their knees for' God to bless the people; and they call them to repentance in a voice that would almost soften the heart of a stone. These young men, after they have notified the people of a little town that they are going to hold a meeting, and have labored all day with that end in view, are filled with the Spirit of God when the meeting is held, and the people bless them, take them home, buy their books, and invite them to come again. I know of no one better prepared to preach to the people, and to plead with them to follow Christ, than these young men are after a hard day's work of this kind. I rejoice in the work they are doing. I rejoice in the faithfulness of the Latter-day Saints. I rejoice in the spirit of this conference, and in the spirit of the Saints wherever I go. May God bless them; may He help all of us to fulfill the calling whereunto we have been called, that we may dedicate our all to the service of the Master, that we may spread the truth, to the end that all the world may feel as we do, and rejoice in the name of the Lord for the Gospel that He has restored in our day. And though our knees tremble, may our hearts rejoice in bearing this witness to the inhabitants of the earth, that when we come up in the morning of the resurrection our Master may say "Well done," and the honest in heart of the earth rise up and bless us for our labors and for the time we spent in bringing them to a knowledge of the truth. May the sacrifice and the devotion of the Latter-day Saints draw to them the honest in heart of the earth, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶