Show THE ENGLISH MISSION bristol england aug ath 1897 believing that a few items from this part of the british mission would be of interest to many of your readers especially those who formerly resided tere ere I 1 have ventured to intrude upon your valuable space about ten years ago the headquarters of this conference was removed to 4 cheltenham and since that time there lias has been no active missionary work aone one here until the latter part of june 1896 when elders albert collard of huntington and W T noall of salt make were sent here these brethren arc thren labored together about six months when elders W J mortimer of provo and david bagley of montpelier were sent to assist them A large number of tracts were distributed in our house to house visits and it seemed as if we were making no headway whatever bro mccready who with his family had moved from london to this city very kindly opened his home for meeting purposes about the middle of february elder herbert L james was waa vent sent to us but was afterwards called to the liverpool office and bro collard being released to return home last april left us with only three elders ln jn this large city agreeably to the instructions of prest wells as soon as we had fine weather we commenced to hold open abr meeting gb in various parts of the oty the first two or three meetings did not attract many as various sects of the city hold open air meetings but when it became known that the mor mons were in town again a good sized crowd would collect A great many came came from curiosity to see what a mormon was really like while others came for the purpose of opposing us this latter class was very zealous and have continued so until the present and have announced their intention of opposing us as long as we remain in bristol on sunday evenings especially specially ally we have large audiences as we hold our meetings on prominent treet street corners just as people are going from their places of worship we have leave had from five to eight hundred veople people stop to listen to us at times tout but the opposition has been on the increase and it has drawn m many any that would not come were it not for that we confine ourselves mostly to the first principles of the gospel but after our meetings some of our opp op posers osera would ask questions upon the history of utah and the people and would frequently hold a meeting after ours in which they would vilify the bliar character acter of the mormon people to such an extent that many would want to run us out of town and they have g gone one so far as to entirely break up our meetings we continued as best we could in trying to prach the gospel and made quite guit e a nur number fiber of friends who took our mr part and if there was any an y disturbance they would always call tor for fair play I 1 about three weeks ago some of the people asked us to tell them why we teli believed relieved eved in joseph smith and the book ol of mormon which we ave promised to do the following sunday many collected to hear heap it and elder W M purrington of weber who is p Id laboring boring in bath and who had assisted 4 na ui in a number of open air meetings upon the subject very good atton wits waa paid but before we had proceeded far it began to rain quite heavily but many of the people put up their umbrellas and we did the same and continued the meeting one on of us holding the umbrella over brother pur pj J arington rington while he preached the gospel to the people at the close many questions were asked but our opponents were not satisfied to talk on doctrine and turned to the scandal and un truths told by our enemies we ue withdrew as soon as possible but in spite of the rain our posers op held a meeting giving the history of the mormons cormons as told by our enemies which to say the least was very bad two nights after this at arother ar other meeting while answering a question on our religion some men came up and accused us of all manner of evil calling the speaker brother purrington a liar and everything else they could think of it looked like there would be serious trouble but some fair minded men called for fair play saying we taught bible truths and should not be molested some of those who at first opposed are now more friendly and evince a desire to learn of our doctrine and express their sorrow at the unchristian christian un like treatment accorded us at our meeting our conference convenes at cheltenham august and if sent here again we intend to continue to sow the good seed leaving the issue in the hands of the lord our president brother barber has not had the best of health lately but we earnestly pray that he may receive strength from on higland hig hand wisdom to tb counsel and encourage us in our labors we have just returned from bath where we have been assisting elders purrington and cook to held some open air meetings in that city as we find by uniting occasionally better results are attained 1 there here have been two adult baptisms at bath recently and one at bristol besides two children of brother McCre adys so that the work 1 hough bhough slow is onward just a word of advice to our domig men expecting missions study the gospel and also study music as it will greatly assist an elder if he can sing well out of fifteen elders in this conference only six can sing and some of these cannot carry a tune it left to themselves the news to is greatly appreciated by the elders and when received it is dissected so that each may have a part to read W J MORTIMER |