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Show Today's Story T The Smith Family In New York XXV. Missionary Work Is Begun B? PRESTON N( BLEY Jg "X A PACE FOR Here he found the were busy with their proselytProphet's"1 mother and his brother ing work. While on a visit to Hyrum, who sat up the whole the Knight family at Colesville festations. that are FROM all accounts It Is evident that, the spirit of missionary work of the Smith took, possession family and the Saints immediately after the Church was orSamuel Smit- h- made ganized. three trips into the region of Livonia, where, as we stated in a previous issue, he was kindly received by members of Brig- hamYoung's Tamil jVand .was. successful in introducing the "gospel among them.. .Sometime during the summer of 1830, Joseph's father and his youngest brother, Don Carlos, (fourteen years of age at the time) undertook a long missionary journey, perhaps by team and vragon, to visit Grandfather AsaeliSmith and his sons, who resided in the region ot Potsdam and Stockholm, New York. They took with them a number of eopies of the Book of Mormon, with the purpose of making . known-the-gla- d tidings to '811 who would hear them. 'he brothers visited "Wgre John, Silas, Asael and Jesse, together with the good father and mother. ..Jesse was the only one Who would not hear the subject f" of Mormonism. For some he was very bitter in his opposition to the Book of Mormon. John and Silas both accepted the message brought to them by their brother and their descendants in the Church today number many hundreds. Another convert to Mormonism "during"" the summer of 1830 was Parley P. Pratt He was twenty-thr- ee years old at the time, and had resided near Mentor, Ohio, .where he had taken up land. On a visit to his family in New York, he had been shown a copy of the Book of Mormon by a This book he read friend. eagerly and believed with all his heart On his way through Palmyra he decided to stop off and seek out the young Prdphet who had had such'marvelous mani rea-sor- I to - consider their craft In Here again numerous, witnesses danger and took this plan to were heard, but no charge could be sustained against him stop the progress of the truth. night with him, explaining the they held, meetings and. seveial once more set free. the brethren were However, The honest r believers applied for not to be dismayed nor hinprinciple? of the gospel. . Thus we were persecuted, next day Parley journeyed to the baptism. The brethren preparedlJered in tJielr labors. 'writes Joseph, on account of Whitmer home, where a few of a place in. a nearby stream to our religious faith in a counThe Sabbath arrived and the Saints Resided, "'and where, try, the Constitution of which of us bore testimony 'to others several davs later, he was bapguarantees to everv man the of the Book of Mortruth the tized. indefeasible right to worship the doctrine of repentance, mon, He theij fmYtinued his jour- for of the remission sins, God according to the dictates baptism and laying on of hands for the ofTiis"own conscience and by men, too, w ho w ere professors gift of the Holy Ghost, etc. Amongst' our" audience were Immediately afte benig freed tho'e who' .had Torn down our Oliver dam. and yho seemed desirous by the court Joseph apd " to give us trouble, but did not made their way to Joseph's until after the meeting was dis- small farm in Harmony It was missed, when they immediately there, during' July, thaj; the commenced talking x to those Prophet received several imporwhom they considered our tant revelations In one of them friends and tried to turn them (section 24) directed to both himself and Oliver, there is the against us and our doctrines. i ' j followingEarly on Monday .morning Thou shalt continue in railwe were on the alert, and being upon God in my name, and -fore our enemies were aware the things which shall writing of our proceedings we had rebe thee by the Com- given . lhe.Iol-and Jhe .dam,, paired and forter expounding all thirteen lowing persons were scriptures ulito the Church; baptized by Oliver Cowdery, And it shall be given thee viz., Emma Smith, Hezikah In the very moment what thou Peck and wife, Joseph Knight shalt speak and write, and Sr. and wife, William String-- , they shall hear it, or I will ham and wife, Joseph Knight, send them a cursing instead of JutW Aaron Culver and-wia blessing. , Levi Hale. Polly Knight and For thou shalt devote all Julia Stringham. It will be noted that among thy service in Zion; and In this those baptized this day were thou shalt have strength. Be patient in afflictions, for Emma Smith, the young Proph'-et-s enwife, and his 'faithful friends, thou shalt have many; but dure them, for lo, I am with Sen. Joseph. Knight thee, even unto the end of thy The ministersin the neighborhood were nottcrbe' thwarted And in temporal matters in their purpose to haiass the thou shalt not have strength, young Prophet.A few days later he was arrested on the for this is not thy calling. Attend to thy calling and thou charge of being a disorderly shalt have wherewith to magj person and setting the county in thine office and to exORSON PRATT, one of the earliest converts to Mormonism, who an uproar by preaching the nify all scriptures, and conpound Book of Mormon, and was was baptized Sept. 19, 1830, on his nineteenth birthday. taken to South Bainbridge for tinue' in laying on of tho tho trial. After" a "Trial ,ln which hands and confirming ney to his home in Canaan, New - We afterwards found out, Churches. York, and shortly- - afterwards, Joseph tells us in his History, every effort was' made to subThen there was this advice stantiate the charges against him, that this mobhad been instibaptized his brother, Orson, nineto Oliver; 4 . was he act freed of to molestation teen years of age. this by the court, but gated And thy brother, Oliver, Meantime, Joseph, Oliver and by certain sectarian priests of was immediately arrested again Continued On Page Sixteen) the other elders of the Church, the neighborhood, who began and taken to Colesville foLtrial. and-he-w- - fe, and-Juni- . or. i jf le as , Lit 1- - es lis or st ie. nt it e n it is i- iy in s- . r- ss - ri- ir- - is VEXT WEEK or - GOD SPEAKS THRU SAMUEL I'- - k. Dec. 16, 1944 Poge 15 r |