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Show MISSIONARY EXPERIENCE This morning we received a visit from Elder C. H. Bliss, of this city, who is just in from a mission to the Southern States. He left here for his field of labor on the 1st of July, 1879, and operated in the ministry in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Brother Bliss, for a young man, being not yet twenty-one years old, has had a somewhat rough missionary experience, having suffered somewhat from the abuse of mobocrats. The first ordeal of that nature he had to pass through occurred on the 4th of January, 1880, when he and Elder Van Netta was decoyed into an out of the way place, that they might fall into the hands of a mob in ambush. Brother Bliss had been shown the matter in a dream previously, in which it was manifested how the brethren could escape. By taking the course indicated the persecutors were baffled. The Elders, had, however, to remain a large portion of the night in the woods, and walk forty miles after the rising of the moon. In February, 1880, in Columbus, Mississippi, mobocrats placed a volatile substance in the meeting house, when Elder Bliss was preaching, that raised such a horrid odor, that the congregation had to disperse. At the same place a Dr. Richards had croton oil put in some water that was placed for Brother Bliss to drink. He unconsciously partook of it, but it did not affect him. The lights were put out and he was followed to the hotel where he put up, by a large crowd. Since that time two of the mobocrats, Sharp and Hatch, quarrelled and shot each other dead, and another committed suicide by poisoning. Rev. Pickings, who was in sympathy with the persecutors, got into some difficulty about a woman, whose husband shot and killed him. At Buttacatchie River, Monroe Co., Miss.. Elders Bliss and McLenahan were mobbed at the instigation of two men who had signified their intention of being baptized, but became bitterly opposed. One of them had been refused baptism, on the ground of his being an unfit subject for that ordinance. The door was closed against the ministrations of the brethren in that place, and they went to another locality and succeeded in opening up a good field. Elder Bliss baptized some and assisted at the baptism of quite a number of others. One year of his mission was spent without a companion. He traveled over 5,000 miles on foot, and never lacked friends, food or clothing. He was released on the 4th of July, and spent the intervening time between that date and his return in obtaining an account of his genealogy, in Indiana and Illinois, in which he was quite successful.-News |