Show ELDERS IN LOUSIANA MAGNOLIA plantation july loth 1896 we have been in constant receipt of your valuable paper and have read with interest many of the items therein contained among them being the letters received from various missionary fields the fact that we have read imse thase letters with interest has prompted the following way down in the southeastern part of the creole state is a parish named livingston running south through the central part of it is a river called Tick lawso so called by the indians because of the cou adess millions of seed ticks that flourish within the immediate vicinity of its banks the western border ot of the parish is traversed bythe by the amite river the two find a common resting place for their sluggish waters in the beautiful lake maurepas Mau not more than five miles south of our present position they are parallel paral led to each other and about five miles a part our labors of late have been among the people dwelling between the rivers and south of a line joining them at points about six fix miles from their mouths the incident I 1 am about to relate oc cured in this community at a point on the banks of the placid and only i wo two or three miles from the lake here as in some other portions of our country Mormon ss are looked upon by some as being a people who are only a little superior to savages we can only lay this of course to the lack of educational progress in the south and to some who have taken a delight in placing us before the world as monsters promulgating these lies by means of t fiks backed literature of the viles pap paper er I 1 kind owing to its cheapness the people have been able to obtain these while correct histories were inaccessible H we iffe passed through this neighborhood not many days ago and as usual quietly ii d distributed is tributes tri buted our tracts and announced the people some as our ur mission among L had heard aheard of us before and wanted s as a consequence ot of their knowledge nothing more to do with us straightway all the put wi histories stories tories of the should ay he be dead past were cut loose and rudderless floated on the wind that blow K eth where it listeth t the prince and power of the air was not slow to see his big chance and immediately placed his might not mite behind the gale of persecution designed for or all who are in in of or are f promulgators of principles of truth and especially ot of religious truth we we were re soon successful in procuring the promise ot of a building in which to preach and X f left our appointment for sunday june X 2 ai at the appo appointed anted time we were there public bublic clamor in the meantime had fy reached a fever heat some of the loving and law abiding citizens of peace f this section n of our boasted land ot rev legious liberty secured to themselves a number of disciples alter after their own kind each imbued with an avowed de termination to get rid of the mormons cormons Mor mons they are out here for no good said said are the false prophets that are to come in the last days 03 where they go got t the latter idea from I 1 va dont know we were strangers in the community and I 1 am quite sure no prophesies h had ad been uttered uti ered but if such had bad been the case they forfeited their right to a knowledge of the scrip scripture tuie which teaches by their fruits ye shall know the them i in n for we had not yet been tried we held a service in in the morning which was attended with the exception of two souls entirely by men vve e thought nothing of this however as the women are often warned not to go and hear the mormons cormons Mor mons as their doctrine is ie dangerous it was between our two services that Y we received a hint of the conspiracy against us not much attention was anven ven it even then rut but later we found that slat the meant to do something we were apprised of the real facts in the case by avery a very kind and faithful friend mr M C kemp at whose home we were st stopping he had made our acquaintance some few days previous and had been successful in making friends for us where we were unable to make them for ourselves AM all day he had been circulating the news among our friends to be thereat there at our meeting ir prepared to defend us they were there numbered with this courageous band we made special mention of M C kemp B F mitchell line kence gas kemp and mr M C kemp made the emphatic public announcement that if they run Us lis away it would be over his dead body while leMr mr mitchell stoutly declared that he would spill every drop oxblood of blood in his body in our defence mr Sho eders son had declared himself ok iak sympathy with the mob but when hi his father stather told himin him in sucha such a case he would have to fight his father he wisely withdrew his sympathy and so also his md this news was circulated within hearing of the mob and some well disposed friend to them told them that it if they made any attempt at violence some of them would get hurt iv it had the usual effect with this as all other such law breaking bands all was wag peace and tranquility we held our meeting and I 1 think we succeeded in adding some of the would have been to our already long list of friends also many came over to us who before stood on neutral ground at the close of our meeting sim and gas kemp insisted on giving us 2 which we received graciously and with thankful hearts it was their first contribution to any preacher one man who had never in his life attended any other church than that of his own denomination catholic came out to hear us and others who had not seen the inside of a church except perhaps through the window in nine years came out to hear the mormons cormons also and expressed themselves as being pleased with our doctrine too much praise cannot be given those brave and true hearted men who protected us reader if you are disappointed with the climax please consider that a source of great pleasure is our in contemplation of gods goodness in the protection of his very very humble servants R ELMER CALDWELL WILLIAM P PRATT |