The Church in the Eastern States

ELDER JAMES H. MOYLE ¶

President of the Eastern States Mission ¶

In view of the necessity for brevity, I trust President Grant will, if necessary, assist me in keeping within my allotted time. ¶

I am pleased to report that the Eastern States Mission is in a healthy, growing condition. The missionaries are enjoying good health, with rare exceptions, and doing splendid work. Although there are few baptisms, I know that there are many friends being made and ¶

converts who are not being baptized. Intelligent, influential men have openly confessed to me that they were converted and believed all that we teach, but that they couldn't break the hearts of their wives and embarrass their relatives socially, and could not make the sacrifice at present and break away from their life-long associations. But they are real friends. One thing is certain, that our young missionaries, though not baptizing many, have a personal development that is invaluable, an accomplishment that will go with and influence for good their lives, and which will be of as much importance to them as if they had spent the same time in a great university. ¶

I was greatly interested in President Roberts'relation of the prophecy of Joseph Smith, that there would be organized in the city of New York a stake of Zion. One year ago, from this stand, I stated that I had been very greatly impressed with the fact that we needed such an organization in greater New York City and its environs. When I entered the mission in January, a year ago, the branch presidency said that there were three hundred members enrolled in the New York City branch alone. That does not include the Brooklyn branch and some small adjacent branches. We have been making a real effort to find the names and residence of the members of the Church, especially those who have come from these valleys east, and who live in that great and populous center. Now the branch presidency say that they believe there are fifteen hundred, where we only had three hundred of record. At our conference held in New York City in February a year ago, we had about two hundred and fifty people present, which was considered a large audience. At the conference held a month ago tomorrow, at which President Grant and Apostle Ballard were present, there were seven hundred and fifty present, and the hall, rented especially for the occasion, couldn't hold all that came. They were standing up and the aisles were filled. A similar condition existed in Washington, where we had about four hundred present, and where there was no organized branch of the Church prior to the great war. On the 9th of March we not only held a meeting in our chapel at Brooklyn, at ten o'clock a. m., into which was crowded something over three hundred people, but at two o'clock in Newark, New Jersey, another meeting was held with over two hundred present. That branch was organized only a few years since. Then in the evening, in New York City, we had the large meeting referred to, which was by far the largest gathering of saints ever held in New York City. ¶

One of the material contributing reasons for the growing interest in the Church there, was the presence there a month or two before of Presidents Ivins and Nibley, who spent a week or ten days studying the needs of our members in Washington and New York City. They were impressed with the necessity for a more appropriate and permanent place in which to assemble. That fact, and the interest which President Grant and his counselors manifested, together with the presence of Apostle Ballard, did arouse a real interest in our conference, which I am sure will be fruitful. ¶

I have been greatly surprised, and deeply impressed, with the ¶

fact that the sentiment in the east toward our people is greatly changed. This is true especially among the financial, industrial, and commercial leaders of the country, who have evidently become acquainted with our people and their accomplishments, and the character and merits of our young people, for they have been selecting a surprising number of them, in view of the small number of our people, as executives in such institutions. And why should they be looking for the kind of young men we are producing in these mountains? Because they have been trained and reared in the homes of Latter-day Saints, where the Word of Wisdom has been observed. They are looking for sober, temperate, industrious, God-fearing men, and there is no place in the world where they can be found more than here. The time has passed, in my opinion, when our Mormon boys should feel that they are discriminated against by the men who stand at the head of these great institutions. I am sure this is true. Men and women developed here under the conditions named, are also successful and active physicians, with a splendid practice; lawyers, occupying places in the leading law offices in New York; professors and teachers in the great universities there, several from the Brigham Young University, others from our state university. In nothing are our mountain boys more conspicuous there than in their success and prominence as engineers, especially electrical engineers. I am more than pleased to say that you can find our boys and girls comfortably and favorably located in practically all the great business institutions such as, banking, merchandising, real estate, and other commendable activities; they are accountants, artists, actors, singers and music teachers. ¶

There is a great change of sentiment coming over the world, and while we do not baptize many we are making friends and arousing interest in our people and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Last Sunday there was doubtless read in the Unitarian church in Reading, Pennsylvania,, by one of our humble elders, the address that President Grant read here. It is the second or third opportunity that we have had ill leading cities in the mission, in Unitarian churches, which are especially broad and liberal. We have one preacher on Long Island, who has had a congregation there for years, who is preaching every Sabbath the Gospel as we understand it, and his people generally do not know it; but he knows it, and believes it, and says he is going to be baptized. ¶

I once more urge upon the fathers, mothers, and bishops throughout the Church the. importance of sending us the names of our people who have left the organized branches of the Church in the west, in order that we may interest them in the work. We believe that there are hundreds of them being lost from lack of contact with the Church. We are finding some constantly who seem to have been practically lost and forgotten, and leaving the Church simply through lack of contact with it. They should formally become members of the branches of the Church there, just the same as when they move from one ward to another here at home, then we could find them and look after them. ¶

A notable instance. I had to go to Florida recently to find a young man. I met his parents there. They gave me his address and expressed ¶

the fear that he was drifting away from the Church. When I returned, I invited him to our home, and to my astonishment he said he had been in the city for over a year and did not know where our place of worship was or our headquarters, or that there was such there. Before he left he promised that he would write his mother and say that he was going to attend church. When I called his attention to what he said as he left us, he replied, "I am not only going to so write her, but I am going to be a regular attendant at church." We had no means of reaching that young man prior to meeting his mother. The church officers, diligent as they are, knew nothing of him. We have many such cases. ¶

There is another thing which has deeply impressed me. Never before has there been such an interest taken in the Book of Mormon as there is now. Think of what President Pond says is going on in his mission. While he is leading in the sale and distribution of copies of the Book of Mormon, the same condition exists more or less throughout all the missions. President Bennion says that they are sending out annually from the Zion's printing office, and actually selling, something like fifty thousand copies of the Book of Mormon in these United States alone. Fifty thousand sold by this one agency, and in addition to those thus sold, there are many more such books lent and placed with readers. ¶

The Book of Mormon has been a subject of deep interest to me from my youth. I was intensely interested in the realities of angels appearing to men on earth, and the marvelous things revealed to Joseph Smith in connection with the introduction of the Book of Mormon to the world. I shall never forget my experience early in July, 1885, as I was returning home from the University of Michigan where I graduated in 1885. I went directly to Richmond, Missouri, for the sole purpose of meeting the then remaining living witness to the divinity of the Book of Mormon, David Whitmer. I inquired of the bus driver, the hotel clerk, and others, as far as possible, as to the character and reputation of David Whitmer. All said he was a fine old man, an excellent citizen, and was highly respected in the community. I introduced myself by presenting him with a book that I thought would please him, and said to him that I had just graduated from college. He was then in the eighties, with his hair and beard white, but in fair health. It was about three years before his death. I said to him: "I was born and reared in the Church and I do pray of you to let me know if there is any possibility of your having been deceived. I am just commencing life as you are preparing to lay it down, and I beg of you to tell me if there is anything connected with the testimony which you have borne to the world that could possibly have been deceptive or misunderstood." I further said, in an earnest youthful appeal, that I did not want to go through life believing a falsehood, that it was in his power to make known the truth to me. He described to me the details of the occasion, of the angel presenting the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. The scene was in the woods, with nothing between the angel and himself except a log that had; ¶

fallen and was lying between them. He declared that he saw the angel who had with him the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated, and that in the presence of the angel he did hear the angel declare that they had been translated correctly. While I am speaking from memory, the foregoing most essential facts to me and which were the sole object of my visit, were so indelibly impressed upon my mind, that they are perfectly clear and unmistakable. I asked him many questions concerning his experiences with the origin of the Book of Mormon, and why he left the Church, all of which he endeavored to answer frankly. We talked for a considerable time. His. mind seemed clear and his mentality above rather than below the average. He said he had never left the Church, that they had maintained a branch of the Church in Richmond, and that he had always been active in it; that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and that the revelations he received up to the year 1835 were from God, but that he accepted none of them subsequent to that time. He appeared to have become embittered against Sidney Rigdon especially, and I fancied turned against the Prophet because of his placing Rigdon ahead of those who had stood by the Prophet in his early work. ¶

He said with seeming pride and much interest, that he had the first copy of the manuscript from which the Book of Mormon was printed, in his humble home. And it was a humble home. That when the great cyclone struck Missouri, and houses were blown about and destroyed, every room in his house was destroyed except that in which the manuscript was kept. He seemed to feel that it was divinely protected. President Joseph F. Smith advised me that the copy of the manuscript was not the original, but one of the three originals. His sincerity was plainly shown when I asked him if he would sell the manuscript and place a price upon it. He replied that he would not. ¶

There is much that might be said on the subject of the Book of Mormon. Even Colonel Lindbergh is arousing interest in the subject as probably no one else is today, through the pictures which he has been able to take from the air while flying over Central America, Mexico and the southwestern part of the United States. Front pages of the leading papers in the east are publishing those pictures, with interesting and instructive articles written by archaeologists. They are attempting to unravel the history of those lost cities. But I must close. ¶

The story of the Book of Mormon which our missionaries are carrying to the people of the world and of which they bear testimony as to its divinity, is accompanied with that clear and unfailing guide like unto that which the Savior presented, when he said, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." In connection therewith our message, as missionaries, to the world is, for them to read and follow the advice found in the last chapter of the Book of Mormon, in which the Prophet Moroni, referring to the contents of the book, gives the sure and unmistakable test, similar to that which the Savior gave, when he said: ¶

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not ¶

true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.'' ¶

That is the test that we are submitting to the world, and that leaven is affecting the world; it is influencing the world. What greater and surer test could there be ? ¶

May the Lord help us to appreciate the blessings that we enjoy in the Gospel of our Redeemer, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶