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Title: Treasures in Heaven
Fifteenth Book of the Faith Promoting Series
Author: Various
Release Date: August 31, 2015 [EBook #49830]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREASURES IN HEAVEN ***
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TREASURES IN HEAVEN
FIFTEENTH BOOK OF THE
FAITH PROMOTING SERIES
DESIGNED FOR THE INSTRUCTION
AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF YOUNG
LATTER-DAY SAINTS
COMPILED AND PUBLISHED BY
GEO. C. LAMBERT
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
1914
OFFICIAL SANCTION
April 8, 1914
To the First Presidency, City.
Dear Brethren:
I have had a desire for a long time past to resume the publication
of the Faith Promoting Series that I originated and published
something like thirty-five years ago, but which has been suspended
for almost thirty years.
I received the sanction of the Church authorities when the
publication of this series was commenced, and had ample evidence
afterwards of the popularity of the volumes issued, and of the
general benefit resulting therefrom. I now desire your sanction
in what I may do in publishing additional volumes; and hope to
subserve the interests of the Church and promote true faith only in
what I publish.
If you deem it necessary to appoint a committee to whom I may
refer any matter concerning which there may be a question as to
propriety, etc., I shall be glad to have you do so.
I am prepared to assume all financial responsibility, and believe,
with the experience I have had, I shall be able to do effective
work in the selection and preparation of the matter.
I intend to make the volumes about one hundred pages each, and hope
to be able to sell them at twenty-five cents per volume.
I have the matter partially prepared for two volumes, the first to
relate to Temple work, and to be called "Treasures in Heaven," the
second to contain a variety of incidents and experiences, and to be
called "Choice Memories."
A waiting your kind consideration and reply, and with kindest
regards, I remain
Your Brother,
GEO. C. LAMBERT.
April 30, 1914
Elder George C. Lambert, City.
Dear Brother:
We learn by yours of the 28th inst. that you desire to resume the
publication of the "Faith Promoting Series," discontinued some
thirty years ago, and we take pleasure in informing you that you
have our sanction to do this, and that we have appointed Elders
George F. Richards, A. W. Ivins and Joseph F. Smith, Jr. as a
committee to read the manuscript.
With kind regards,
Your Brethren,
JOSEPH F. SMITH, ANTHON H. LUND, CHARLES W. PENROSE,
First Presidency.
PREFACE
No lesson taught by the Savior during his ministry in mortality was
more frequently and thoroughly impressed than that of unselfish
service. Of those who labored solely for the things of this world,
or for praise or the honors that men can bestow, He had a habit of
saying: "They have their reward." If they obtained that which they
strove for they were already repaid: they were entitled to nothing
more. Of the rich He said, "Ye have received your consolation." It
was not sufficient that man should seek to benefit or bring happiness
alone to those they loved. Even that He evidently regarded as a species
of selfishness, as implied by the saying: "For if ye love them which
love you, what reward have ye?" "For sinners do even the same." His
exhortation was: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where
moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal;
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal."
All this was not intended to imply that wealth itself was intrinsically
bad, or that poverty had any essential virtue, except as a means to
an end. The rule was, as expressed by the great Teacher, that "where
the treasure is, there will the heart be also." A sublime test upon
this point was that made of the young man who applied to the Savior
upon one occasion to know what good thing he could do to gain eternal
life. Though he was able to say that he had kept all the commandments
from his youth up, it was apparent to the Master that his heart was
set upon the wealth he possessed, as evidence of which he turned away
sorrowfully when required by the Savior to surrender his possessions,
for the benefit of the poor, and follow Him.
The Gospel as revealed anew in our day has shed a flood of light
upon the subject of salvation, and the conditions upon which it is
predicated. The glorious principle of salvation for the dead, as
revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, has awakened a desire in the
hearts of thousands of earnest seekers after truth to do a vicarious
work for the benefit of their dead relatives and friends, that they may
share in all the blessings and privileges of the Gospel. In this work,
as well as in the preaching of the Gospel to the living, have avenues
been opened up for unselfish work, which, as it involves no earthly
reward, is clearly in the line of laying up treasures in heaven, as
distinguished from the work of amassing treasures upon earth which
absorbs the attention of so many of the earth's inhabitants. That the
recital of some typical examples of sacrifices unselfishly made in
the interest of others, and the joy experienced therein, may tend to
promote faith in those who read the same and incite them also to lay
up treasures in heaven, this volume is published in continuation of
the "Faith Promoting Series," originated and published by the present
author about thirty-five years ago.
CONTENTS
A MODERN STOIC
CHAPTER I.
Birth of Niels--Obscure Childhood--Crippled, Helpless Condition--Gospel
Preached--Taught Needlework--Training in Bible and Lutheran Creed--A
Prophetic Priest--Remarkable Prediction Concerning Niels. Page 7.
CHAPTER II.
Death of his Mother--Life in Aalborg--Conversion to Mormonism--Heavenly
Message to Elder Kempe--His Obedience thereto--Baptism of Niels--His
Relatives Ashamed of Him--Proposition to Make Him a Lutheran Preacher.
Page 12.
CHAPTER III.
Desire to Migrate--Discouraging Prospects--Help From an Unexpected
Source--Religious Discrimination--Contends for His Rights--Effects
a Compromise--Characteristics of Niels--Spiritual Impressions and
Premonitions. Page 17.
CHAPTER IV.
A Vision and its Pre-Mortal Counterpart--Beset by Evil
Spirits--Deliverance Therefrom--Preparations to Migrate--Long
Voyage--Toilsome Journey--Lost on the Plains--Help from the Lord. Page
21.
CHAPTER V.
Feat as a Pedestrian--Lessons Learned and Ambition Developed
While Traveling--Arrival in Salt Lake City--Employment Diligently
Sought--Precarious Success--Miraculously Fed. Page 27.
CHAPTER VI
Invests in Real Estate--Acquires a Home--Vicarious Work in Logan
Temple--Consequent Elation--Promise to a Dying Friend--Gratuitous
Fulfillment in Manti Temple. Page 33.
CHAPTER VII.
Completion of Salt Lake Temple--His Work Therein--Sister Corradi
Inspired to Apply to Him--Devoted Work for her Kindred--His Severe
Afflictions--Saving Work for 2200--Graceful Old Age. Page 37.
CHAPTER VIII. Modern Stoic--His Modest Obscurity--What Religion Has
Done for Niels--Philosophic Way in Which He Views Death. Page 40.
A WOMAN WITH A PURPOSE
Purpose Essential to Success--Birth and Parentage of Carolina
Corradi--Her Mother's Prescience--Preparation for Future
Career--Devoted Work in Behalf of Dead Kindred. Page 47.
AN EXCEPTION
A Rich Man's Handicap--Wealth Not Essentially Bad--But Qualities its
Possession Develops a Bar to Salvation--Typical Case of a Man Reared in
Affluence--Unpromising Start in Married Life--How He Became Interested
in Temple Work--Worthy Example in Recent Years. Page 55.
MY MOTHER
CHAPTER I.
Prediction from Malachi Fulfilled--Birth and Childhood of Mary Alice
Cannon--Cannon Family Embrace the Gospel--Migrate--Mother's Death at
Sea--Arrival at Nauvoo--Father's Death--Her Marriage. Page 65.
CHAPTER II.
Strenuous Life in Nauvoo--City Besieged--Thrilling Experience--Miracle
of Quails--Run Over by Wagon--Wagon Sinks to Bottom of River--Life in
Utah--Mission Abroad--Her Posterity. Page 74.
EXAMPLES OF RIGHTEOUS ZEAL
Night Workers Who Serve in the Temple During the Day--Many Women Serve
at Great Personal Sacrifice--Temple Work a Boon to the Blind. Page 89.
A MODERN STOIC
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH OF NIELS--OBSCURE CHILDHOOD--CRIPPLED, HELPLESS CONDITION--GOSPEL
PREACHED--TAUGHT NEEDLEWORK--TRAINING IN BIBLE AND LUTHERAN CREED--A
PROPHETIC PRIEST--REMARKABLE PREDICTION CONCERNING NIELS.
Perhaps no better example of unselfish service in the interest of
others, of patience and forbearance under the burden of a serious
physical handicap and courage and persistence in a labor of love and
sacrifice can be found than is afforded in the life of the hero whose
portrait is herewith presented.
Niels P. L. Eskildz was born May 31, 1836, at Lindholm, County of
Aalborg, Denmark, only a few miles from the city of Aalborg, which
is celebrated as being the birthplace of President Anthon H. Lund.
The parents of Niels were unassuming, country folks, with nothing to
distinguish them from their industrious and respectable neighbors
except their rather unusual size and a certain pride of bearing and
correctness of speech, due to their superior education, and the fact
that they were both descendants in a direct line from noble, titled
families.
They had a small farm, the cultivation of which furnished them little
more than a modest living, and the father combined the occupation of
butcher with that of farmer, by slaughtering animals and selling meat
in the village market place every Wednesday and Saturday.
[Image: Niels P.L. Eskildz]
Niels was the youngest of the family, having two brothers of almost
gigantic stature and a sister who, when grown, was the largest woman
in that part of Denmark. Niels also, would doubtless have grown to be
an unusually large man had he not met with an awful accident when ten
years of age.
Denmark is a country almost without fences, the farms being separated
one from another by imaginary lines. Instead of the cows and sheep
owned by the farmers being allowed to range at will in pastures, the
custom was and still is to stake them out individually, and lead them
in at night. As a rule the cows are models of decorum, and one of the
prettiest as well as commonest sights of the country is to see a boy or
girl marching a number of cows, like so many soldiers, in double file
and close rank from the pasture to the barn.
Niels, having been sent by his parents to thus bring a cow in from the
field, the creature, though usually docile, suddenly became fractious
and, running around the boy, tangled him up in the rope, and then
frantically dragged him through a grain field and against numerous
obstructions before she could be stopped. When released the poor boy
was found to have a broken thigh and other serious injuries, from the
effects of which he was bedfast for more than three years. It was
feared he never would recover, but his patient mother gave him the
most devoted attention and relieved the tedium of his helplessness by
teaching him needlework, at which she was an adept, and by reading to
him. In course on time he grew strong enough to be propped up in a
chair and thus carried into the open air, but the exertion was probably
too much for him, as he soon had a relapse, and during the ensuing two
years spent most of his time in bed. His spine by degrees became so
curved and deformed that, while his legs were nearly of normal length,
his body had the appearance of having been crumpled down thereon, and
his large, well-shaped head crowded down between his shoulders.
In the year 1850 Apostle Erastus Snow arrived in Denmark as a
missionary. He had not been there long when the Gospel influence began
to be felt and converts to flock to his standard. One family among the
residents of Lindholm embraced the Gospel, and soon found themselves
somewhat notorious because of the attention they received from the
local Lutheran priest, near whose chapel the family lived, and his
frequent public comments on their abandonment of the Lutheran faith and
acceptance of the unpopular doctrines of "Mormonism."
In those days the Lutheran church held almost undisputed sway
throughout Denmark, and the invariable rule was for children to be
diligently taught the Bible and drilled in a knowledge of the Lutheran
creed from their infancy. When the children attain the age of about
thirteen years they are required to appear before the priest for a
series of examinations, as to their knowledge of these subjects before
being confirmed as members of the Lutheran church.
When Niels was fourteen years old, and was barely able to hobble about
a little on crutches, he was cited to appear with a class of dozen or
more children before the priest, to be catechised. This they did many
times until they were able to answer satisfactorily all the questions
propounded to them. At about the first of these meetings a young girl
asked to be excused from the examinations, because her parents had
joined the "Mormons," and she expected to. She cited in support of
her plea, that the King of Denmark had granted religious liberty. Her
request was complied with by the priest, who proceeded to comment
on "Mormonism" then and at every subsequent meeting in a way that
indicated that he must have been studying "Mormon" literature, and
Niels very strongly suspected that the priest was really converted to
"Mormonism," although he either lacked the courage to embrace it, or
considered it impolitic to do so. Whether this surmise was correct or
not, the priest seemed to have "Mormonism" constantly in his mind, and
his frequent allusions to its doctrines and the scripture supporting
the same had the effect of converting Niels to "Mormonism." Though he
did not then declare his belief in the Gospel, he had not from that
time a doubt of its truth.
That priest, whose name was Holger Christopher Kongslev Thryde, was a
very peculiar man, a thorough scriptorian, a keen reasoner and withal
quite inspirational. When the class of which Niels was a member had
received sufficient training by him to appear for public examination
and confirmation as members of the Lutheran church, they were all
notified to be present at the regular Sunday service in the chapel.
There they were separately catechised by the priest in presence of the
congregation. Their answers being satisfactory, he asked each in turn
as to his willingness to enter into covenant to serve God. On being
told that he was, the priest said "then give your heart to God and
your hand to me." Holding the child by the right hand, he then placed
his left hand upon the youthful head, confirmed him as a member of
the Lutheran church and exhorted him to faithfulness or indulged in
predictions concerning his future, apparently as the spirit prompted
him. Of one boy he expressed regret that he had been confirmed a
Lutheran, for he would soon abandon the faith. The sequel proved this
prediction to be true, for the boy soon left his birthplace to live
among relatives who were Baptists, and accordingly became a Baptist.
When Niels was confirmed, the priest proceeded to say: "The Lord has
laid a heavy hand upon you in your youth, which will be a hard cross
for you to bear through life; but it was for a wise purpose--to prepare
you for a great work that you do not understand now. After you have
traveled thousands of miles to a strange land you know not, you will
there eventually have a chance to go into the sanctuary of the Lord to
do a work for your father's family and your ancestors that they did not
understand or know anything about."
This prediction made a deep impression upon the mind of Niels, who
remembered every word of it, and felt that somehow it would be
fulfilled, though he could not then conceive how or when. That he, a
helpless cripple and confirmed invalid; without money or influential
friends, should ever travel thousands of miles over land and sea,
seemed very improbable; indeed, it seemed very unlikely that he would
live long enough to make such a journey if he were financially able.
CHAPTER II.
DEATH OF HIS MOTHER--LIFE IN AALBORG--CONVERSION TO MORMONISM--HEAVENLY
MESSAGE TO ELDER KEMPE--HIS OBEDIENCE THERETO--BAPTISM OF NIELS--HIS
RELATIVES ASHAMED OF HIM--PROPOSITION TO MAKE HIM A LUTHERAN PREACHER.
If the details of the life of Niels for the next six years were written
it would be a record of helpless dependence and privation. To the
surprise of all who knew him, he continued to live, and even gain a
little strength. Life at home had become unbearable since the death of
his mother, which occurred December 6, 1854.
In the fall of 1856, when he was twenty years of age, Niels left home
and went to live among relatives in Aalborg, where he had a checkered
experience, often being made to feel that he was in the way and that
his welcome was worn out, but occasionally encouraged by real kindness
and genuine charity. One lady in particular took a great interest in
him, and, finding that he had some skill in needle work, encouraged him
to practice a kind that was much in vogue among ladies, and through
her kindly efforts he obtained considerable profitable work from many
aristocratic women.
Soon after removing to Aalborg he met and became somewhat acquainted
with some "Mormons," a family of Saints being close neighbors to his
aunt. His partial investigation of the Gospel then confirmed his early
conviction that it was the truth, but his dependent condition, and the
opposition of his relatives to such an unpopular religion, led him to
defer embracing it.
It was not until November 1, 1862, six years after he first attended a
"Mormon" meeting, that he embraced the Gospel, and then under peculiar
circumstances. Christoffer Jensen Kempe, who afterwards became well
known in Utah and Arizona, was laboring as a "Mormon" missionary in
that part of Denmark. One very stormy night he had found lodgings in
a barn, about forty-two miles from Aalborg. Some time after retiring
to rest he was aroused by feeling a hand laid upon his shoulder and
hearing a voice tell him to get up and go to Aalborg and baptize the
cripple, Larsen, whom he had seen at the Saints' meetings--that if he
ever joined the church he would have to be baptized the next evening.
Obedient to the voice of the spirit, he arose and set out afoot in the
storm. He walked the entire distance, and on his arrival in Aalborg he
called upon Niels at his lodgings and informed him that he had come to
baptize him. Niels immediately asked what prompted him to come, as he
had not even announced his intention of joining the church. Elder Kempe
related the visitation he had received forty-two miles distant, and
told of his journey for the special purpose, and added that he would
like while he was at it to baptize Niels' brother and sister-in-law who
were then living in Aalborg, and whom he had met and talked with on the
subject of religion. Niels ventured the opinion that neither of the
relatives mentioned had any serious intention of embracing "Mormonism,"
and that he was sure they would not if they learned their crippled
brother intended to do so. "However," he said, "you may try them, and
if you succeed in getting their consent you may call back for me, and I
will be ready."
The Elder promptly repaired to the brother's house and broached the
subject of baptism to the couple, saying he was going to do some
baptizing that night, and if they wished he would baptize them. They at
first favored the proposition, but when he, hoping to hasten and make
certain their decision, mentioned that Niels was going to be baptized
they lost all interest in the subject and refused to be baptized.
Returning to Niels, the Elder informed him of his failure and
disappointment. Niels was not at all surprised, and told the Elder he
should not be disappointed in him, as he was ready. They accordingly
made their way that very night a considerable distance out of town, to
find a suitable place for the performance of the ordinance, and Niels
was initiated into the Church by baptism November 1, 1862.
Some circumstances of which Niels was in ignorance at the time of his
baptism, but which he afterwards learned of, may furnish the sequel to
what was meant by the heavenly warning to Elder Kempe that Niels would
have to be baptized that very evening if he ever joined the church at
all.
Something like consternation had prevailed among the aristocratic
members of the Lutheran church in and around Aalborg about that
time, in consequence of so many of the members being converted to
"Mormonism." As a rule they were not the wealthy members who accepted
of the Gospel, as taught by the "Mormon" missionaries, but they
included those who had been regarded as among the very best and most
faithful members of the church, and they were joining the "Mormon"
ranks in such numbers that they seemed for awhile to threaten the very
existence of some of the Lutheran congregations.
The priests and their influential, loyal supporters held numerous
meetings, to discuss measures for checking this defection and restoring
the waning fealty of their flocks. Among other schemes resorted to was
that of organizing a society or club among the wealthy women of the
Church, and the collecting by them of a large sum of money, to effect
a kind of revival in the church. The lady mentioned as having taken
such an interest in procuring work for Niels was one of the leaders
in this movement. She had discovered that Niels was a very observant
individual, was a logical reasoner, had a most retentive memory and
a very thorough knowledge of the scriptures. It had been her habit
while Niels was employed at her home to test him upon these points.
Occasionally she would ask him what the preacher had talked about at
the service on the previous Sabbath, or to relate some particular thing
that he had heard or read. He would not only be able to repeat, almost
verbatim what he had heard or read, but to mimic the gestures of the
speakers as well.
Possibly she and her aristocratic associates had been impressed with
his mental vigor and been led to think that he might be utilized
in some way in arousing an interest in church affairs. Possibly it
may have been sympathy for him and the kindness of their hearts
that prompted them to think of him in connection with their revival
project. What they did was to get up a numerously signed petition to
the bishop of the diocese, to appoint Niels to act as a lay preacher
or exhorter--a kind of home missionary--to visit the members at their
homes, hold semi-private services, etc., and to be paid a regular
stipend therefor out of the funds they had collected. It could not
have been anything attractive about his personality that suggested him
for such a position, for in appearance he was repellant rather than
attractive. Even the very dogs on the street shunned him or snarled at
him and refused to be friendly or sociable with him. It could not have
been any zeal that he manifested in the Lutheran church that caused
him to be thought of, for although he frequently attended the Lutheran
service (more as a matter of policy than otherwise, for he obtained
his employment chiefly from the Lutheran ladies) he even more commonly
attended the Latter-day Saint services, and had several times been
chided by his Lutheran acquaintances for doing so. Of course Niels was
not consulted in regard to the plans of the Lutheran ladies concerning
him. His projected appointment was intended to be a surprise to him.
The bishop announced to the ladies' society that he had complied with
their petition and appointed Niels to act as lay preacher on the very
day of the latter's baptism, as already mentioned, and that evening a
meeting was held in the local Lutheran church, and the announcement
was made public. The inquiry was then made of the congregation as to
where Niels lived, so that the news might be sent to him, but no person
present seemed to know. One man, however, arose in the congregation and
volunteered the information that he was acquainted with the brother of
Niels (the same one whom Elder Kempe had hoped to baptize,) and that he
could carry the news to him of the honor that had come to Niels. He was
accordingly commissioned to do so, but when he went to the brother the
following day he learned to his surprise that he was just one day too
late; Niels had embraced "Mormonism" the night before. He knew it, for
he had witnessed the baptism.
Niels learned, soon after he was confirmed a Latter-day Saint, of
the proposition to make him a preacher of the Lutheran religion, and
of course was surprised thereat. He didn't regret having missed the
opportunity. Being sure (as he had been ever since he was a child) that
"Mormonism" was true, he would have had to stultify himself to advocate
any other creed. He was glad, however, that the temptation never was
squarely presented to him, lest in his weakness and poverty he might
have yielded to it.
CHAPTER III.
DESIRE TO MIGRATE--DISCOURAGING PROSPECTS--HELP FROM AN UNEXPECTED
SOURCE--RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION--CONTENDS FOR HIS RIGHTS--EFFECTS
A COMPROMISE--CHARACTERISTICS OF NIELS--SPIRITUAL IMPRESSIONS AND
PREMONITIONS.
In common with all the Saints in Scandinavia at that period, Niels had
a strong desire to migrate to Zion, and was as ready as any of his
countrymen to accomplish that end by rigid economy and self denial; but
how he was ever going to obtain the price of his fare was a problem
for which he could see no solution. His income from charity and his
own earnings had been so meagre and precarious for years that it had
been his habit from necessity to test how little it required to sustain
life. To accumulate anything honestly had practically been out of the
question. How then could he ever hope to save so large an amount as his
fare to Utah would cost?
In the face of this discouraging prospect help came to him from a most
unexpected source, which Niels has ever since regarded as providential.
He had become acquainted with a kind hearted Lutheran priest, whose
sympathy was doubtless excited by his helpless, dependent condition.
One day when they chanced to meet, the priest mentioned the fact that
a person had recently died who for several years previous had been
enjoying a legacy bequeathed to the parish many years before by a
charitable person, when about to die. One of the conditions of this
bequest was that it should be held for the support of some worthy
person who was physically helpless and dependent. Niels was reminded
that he was physically and morally qualified to benefit by that legacy,
and encouraged by the suggestion that he might possibly succeed as
its beneficiary if he made application to the parish officers. He did
so without delay, and to his great gratification he was granted the
benefit of the legacy. It was not very much--it only amounted to about
ten dollars per quarter, or $40.00 per year--but by maintaining the
same system of economy he had previously practiced, he managed to save
the greater part of it, and began to look forward to the time when his
savings would be sufficient to pay for his emigration.
Niels had not enjoyed this legacy very long, however, when the parish
officers learned that he was a "Mormon," and stopped payment of the
stipend. They soon found, though, that Niels was not to be disposed of
so easily. Friendless and helpless and cripple though he was, he was
not lacking in courage and a sense of the justice of his cause. Boldly
he went before the parish officers and demanded the payment of the
stipend that had been withheld, and its continuance while he lived.
Assuming that the person who made the bequest had not stipulated that
it should be held exclusively for Lutherans, he charged that they had
no right to apply any religious test to him, and defended his cause
so well that his hearers were forced to admit that he was right.
After a very lengthly parley they reluctantly offered to compromise
by allowing him the benefit of the legacy for a limited time. He
refused the offer and contended for his life interest, and reminded
them that notwithstanding his weakly condition he was liable to live
a long time, as his ancestors had been noted for their longevity.
When they were thoroughly impressed with this possibility, he offered
a compromise--proposing that the amount of twelve quarterly payments
be advanced to him from the funds of the legacy, on condition that he
surrender his right to any more, and migrate to Utah. This they finally
agreed to, and thus Niels was enabled to come to Utah with a company of
Saints which left Copenhagen May 17, 1866.
Before mentioning the details of the journey or his life in Utah it
may be appropriate to revert to some things that tend to illustrate
the character of Niels. He is possessed of a strong and independent
mind, fixed convictions and marvelous will power for one whose body is
so frail. His spirituality is highly developed; but one would not know
it from his manner. He is never exuberant, enthusiastic or talkative,
but sedate, reserved and self-possessed. He is a keen observer, a
good listener, a logical and discriminating thinker and a thoughtful
and discreet talker. He has a high sense of honor, a respect for
others' rights and feelings, charity for the weaknesses and failings
of others, and for one who has been so helplessly dependent the
greater part of his life, is wonderfully free from servility. He is
grateful for kindness and favors shown him, but never truculent or even
obsequious. He has reasons satisfactory to himself for his actions,
but these reasons are not always apparent to others, and because of
this his motives have often been misconstrued, even by his friends
and co-religionists. He has few confidants, and lives as it were in
a world of his own, being reticent to a marked degree, but confident
and self-reliant as to his course in life. Though diffident about
admitting it, his spiritual impressions have largely controlled his
actions throughout his life. When only ten years old the premonition
of impending disaster was so strong within him, that just prior to the
dreadful accident which left him maimed for life, he plead with his
parents not to send him for the cow, and when they persisted in doing
so, warned them that they would be sorry for if all their lives. They
did not mean to be unkind or heartless; indeed, they had great love
for their children, and the father was especially indulgent; but they
had strict ideas in regard to family discipline, and when once the
word of either one was passed as to any requirement on the part of
the children, both were unyielding in demanding compliance. They saw
no danger in his bringing the cow in from the pasture. He had done so
many times before, without any harm resulting therefrom, and they saw
no reason why he should not do so again, with impunity. The sequel,
however, proved that his premonition was correct.
CHAPTER IV.
A VISION AND ITS PRE-MORTAL COUNTERPART--BESET BY EVIL
SPIRITS--DELIVERANCE THEREFROM--PREPARATIONS TO MIGRATE--LONG
VOYAGE--TOILSOME JOURNEY--LOST ON THE PLAINS--HELP FROM THE LORD.
His crippled, helpless condition was a great source of sorrow to Niels,
and instead of his becoming gradually reconciled thereto, as it might
be supposed that he would, he seemed to brood over it more the older
he grew. He belonged to a proud and rather dignified family, and was
naturally very proud himself, but realized that he did not present
a dignified appearance. He was constantly reminded that people were
repelled rather than attracted by him, and this of course wounded his
pride and made him miserable.
During the summer preceding his baptism, after a day of extreme
melancholy, an incident occurred that produced an entire change in his
feelings. While engaged preparing his evening meal a glorious vision
burst upon his view. It was not a single scene that he beheld, but a
series of them. He compares them to the modern moving pictures, for
want of a better illustration. He beheld as with his natural sight,
but he realized afterwards that it was with the eye of the spirit
that he saw what he did. His understanding was appealed to as well
as his sight. What was shown him related to his existence in the
spirit world, mortal experience and future rewards. He comprehended,
as if by intuition, that he had witnessed a somewhat similar scene
in his pre-mortal state, and been given the opportunity of choosing
the class of reward he would like to attain to. He knew that he had
deliberately made his choice. He realized which of the rewards he had
selected, and understood that such a reward was only to be gained by
mortal suffering--that, in fact, he must be a cripple and endure severe
physical pain, privation and ignominy. He was conscious too that he
still insisted upon having that reward, and accepted and agreed to the
conditions.
He emerged from the vision with a settled conviction that to rebel
against or even to repine at his fate, was not only a reproach to
an Alwise Father whose care had been over him notwithstanding his
seeming abandonment, but a base violation of the deliberate promise and
agreement he had entered into, and upon the observance of which his
future reward depended.
Whatever opinion others may entertain concerning the philosophy
involved in this theory, is a matter of absolute indifference to
Niels. He does not advocate it; he does not seek to apply it to any
other case; but he has unshaken faith in it so far as his own case is
concerned. Whether true or not, the fact remains that he has derived
comfort, satisfaction, resolution and fortitude from it. He has ever
since been resigned to his affliction, and, though never mirthful,
is serene and composed and uncomplaining. He has always felt that
the vision was granted to him by the Lord for a wise and merciful
purpose--that he might, through a better understanding of his duty, be
able to remain steadfast thereto.
In striking contrast to this experience was that which occurred during
the night following his baptism. Evil spirits seemed to fill the room
in which he had retired to sleep. They were not only terribly visible,
but he heard voices also, taunting him with having acted foolishly in
submitting to baptism and joining the Latter-day Saints. He was told
that he had deserted the only friends he ever had, and would find no
more among the "Mormons," who would allow him to die of starvation
rather than assist him. That he had no means of earning a livlihood
in the far western land to which the Saints all hoped to migrate, and
he would never cease to regret it if he ever went there. This torment
was kept up incessantly until he sought relief in prayer, and three
times he got out of bed and tried to pray before he succeeded in doing
so. Then his fervent pleading unto the Lord for power to withstand
the temptation of the evil one, and to hold fast to the truth,
brought relief to him. The evil spirits gradually, and with apparent
reluctance, withdrew, and peace came to his soul, with the assurance
that the Lord approved of his embracing the Gospel, and that he could
safely rely upon the Lord for future guidance.
Preparations were soon made to migrate to Utah, although Niels was
seriously ill. In addition to his other troubles, he had for years been
afflicted with asthma, and he had such difficulty in breathing that for
a long time he had not been able to recline, having to sleep, if at
all, in a sitting posture. He was also so frail and weak at the time
that many of his acquaintances expressed a fear that he would not live
to make the journey, and some even predicted that he would die while
crossing the ocean. Not at all daunted, however, by these pessimists,
he determined to start with the very first company of migrating Saints,
and soon arranged with a newly-married couple and a young single man
who were ambitious to migrate, to care for him on the journey, carry
and look after his luggage, etc., in return for certain financial aid
which he was able and willing to afford them. He realized that it would
be a long and tiresome trip, and his natural independence was exhibited
in thus arranging beforehand for the help he might require, lest he
might be regarded as a public burden. The journey, as planned, was not
as direct as those commonly pursued in more recent years, nor nearly so
expeditious. The company assembled at Copenhagen, whence they proceeded
by steamer to Kiel, in Germany, and from there took train for Altonia.
At Hamburg, on the river Elbe, they boarded an ocean sailing vessel,
the "Kenilworth," bound for New York. The voyage lasted eight weeks,
long enough for the passengers to get well acquainted with one another.
They had expected to proceed westward from New York, (or rather
from the New Jersey side of the Hudson river) by rail, but Thomas
Taylor, who was the Church Immigration Agent in New York at that
time, had learned before their arrival that all the lines of railway
extending westward from that point had entered into a combine to
demand a higher rate for transporting companies of Latter-day Saints
than those previously prevailing. Determined not to submit to their
extortion, he discovered before the company arrived that one line of
railway extending westward from New Haven, Connecticut, was not in
the combine, and would transport the company at the old rate, and he
decided to patronize it. The road was either poorly equipped with cars
or lacked time before the arrival of the company to make the necessary
arrangements for convenient transportation.
The accommodations on the train as it was made up were rather meager;
in fact, it was a cattle car that Niels rode in, and the passengers had
to sit or he on the floor. The road bed appeared to lack ballast, and
the ride was a jolty, tiresome one--particularly hard on Niels, who was
so painfully affected by the jolting that he sought relief by bracing
his hands against the floor on either side of him, thereby partially
sustaining the weight of his body and easing the jar. The shaking was
so great that both doors fell off the car, and, to cap the climax, some
of the cars ran off the track, the one in which Niels rode standing
crosswise of the track, and with two of the wheels broken off it, when
the train came to a halt. This occurred on the bank of a river in
Southern Canada, and the passengers breathed a sigh of relief when they
discovered what a narrow escape they had from being plunged into the
river.
From New York the company therefore proceeded by coast steamer to New
Haven, and from there by train to St. Joseph Missouri, where they were
transferred to a river boat that during the next two days took them up
the Missouri to Wyoming Hills, a few miles from Nebraska City, from
which point they were to be conveyed by ox train to Salt Lake City,
more than a thousand miles distant.
Before leaving Denmark, he had not been able to walk as much as two
hundred yards without stopping to rest, but he gradually improved while
crossing the sea, and, though temporarily prostrated with the heat
while on the river steamer, he rallied before the overland journey was
undertaken. Before starting from the Missouri river the able-bodied
passengers were requested to walk as much as possible on the journey,
as the wagons were heavily loaded and the strength of the oxen had to
be conserved, as they had an eight weeks trip before them.
Though far from being able-bodied, Niels determined to do his best at
walking. He accordingly set out bravely with the other pedestrians,
with whom, however, he was unable to keep up, as his gait was like
that of a snail. His habit was to walk until overtaken by the train,
or until he was so fatigued that he could not proceed further, when
he would get into a wagon and ride. Occasionally he succeeded by
perseverance in walking all day long, and was necessarily most of the
time alone. By starting early, as soon as breakfast was over, and
before the teams had been hitched up, he would be able to keep ahead of
the train, and yet soon be outdistanced by his more able companions.
Upon one occasion he got lost as a result of being alone. He arrived
at a point where the road which he was following diverged into two.
Not knowing which of the two he should take, he happened to choose
the wrong one, and traveled for a long distance without being able
to see those who had preceded him or the wagons in the rear. Without
apprehension, he trudged along until he arrived at a river which was
too deep and swift for him to wade, and which was spanned by a rude
foot bridge, consisting of two or three lengths of a single round pole,
supported where the ends joined amid-stream by two poles set up in the
form of a cross, with the lower ends firmly imbedded in the stream, and
securely lashed with rawhide at the intersection. The swiftness of the
current and the distance from the foot bridge down to the stream made
him dizzy when he looked down, so that he despaired of being able to
cross the bridge, and yet felt that he must do so to overtake the train
that he supposed must have forded at a point much lower down stream. In
his emergency he knelt in prayer on the river bank, reminding the Lord
of his dependence upon Him and appealing unto Him for help. He arose
with a feeling of confidence, and without any trepidation or dizziness
set out and walked along the pole as steadily as if he had been a
tight-rope performer. Then, following his impression as to the course
he ought to take, he walked on until he overtook the train, encamped,
some time after nightfall, and when men were about to be dispatched to
search for him.
CHAPTER V.
FEAT AS A PEDESTRIAN--LESSONS LEARNED AND AMBITION DEVELOPED
WHILE TRAVELING--ARRIVAL IN SALT LAKE CITY--EMPLOYMENT DILIGENTLY
SOUGHT--PRECARIOUS SUCCESS--MIRACULOUSLY FED.
The journey on the whole, though tiresome, was not otherwise
unpleasant. He enjoyed the society of his fellow emigrants, and felt
that he had been blessed of the Lord beyond his most sanguine hopes;
for notwithstanding his feeble condition when starting, he succeeded
in walking more than three fourths of the way across the plains. He
had also been cured of the asthma with which he had been so long
afflicted--not suddenly, but so gradually that he hardly realized that
he was outgrowing it.
He had also been benefited otherwise by the experience gained on the
journey. His views of life had become broadened by travel, and by the
evidences of thrift and enterprise which he witnessed on his journey
through the states, as well as by the possibilities of development
he could forsee in the great and boundless west. He felt like a bird
released from a cage after a lengthy confinement therein. He enjoyed
his freedom and learned to commune with Nature as he never had done
before. His knowledge of human nature had also been very materially
added to since leaving his native land. There are few conditions
under which human nature can be studied to better advantage than
while making such a journey over sea and land as that which he had
passed through. The crowding together of a large company in the hold
of a ship for eight long weeks, with meagre accommodations and food
generally insufficient and frequently bad, is certain to develop
selfishness, impatience and irritability where these qualities exist
even in latent form. His fellow passengers were actuated by the noblest
motives in migrating. They had accepted the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, some of them at the sacrifice of material comforts, and most
of them at the cost of friends and prestige. Some of them had been
sneered at and persecuted in their native land, and had their former
friends and relatives turn to be their bitter enemies, solely because
of their accepting of and adhering to such an unpopular creed. They
had withstood all that, and, with faith still unshaken, were willing
to brave other trials and face the hardships of this long voyage and
journey, and the problems incident to life in a new and wild country,
to gain religious freedom, and because they regarded it as a divine
requirement. But human nature, even though tempered by religious
convictions, is apt to assert itself sometimes, and the helpless,
dependent condition of Niels placed him in the position of a spectator,
with ample opportunity to observe all that passed, and to study human
nature during the voyage as he never had done before.
Disputes occasionally arose among the passengers, which sometimes waxed
warm and developed into angry quarrels, all of which Niels noticed but
never took part in. Possibly because he was always an observer of but
never a participant in these affairs, he was several times appealed
to as an arbitrator, to decide between the disputants and effect a
reconciliation. Without making any pretentions to judicial wisdom,
he was, through strict impartiality, and tact in offering reproof
without giving offense, and especially by appealing to the religious
obligations of the parties to the strife, enabled to do effective work
as a peace-maker, and to gain respect therefor. He couldn't refrain
from indulging in a little mental philosophy on such occasions, and
making note of the fact that the tongue is a dangerous member if
allowed to wag too freely.
Three times during the voyage the ship had taken fire, always at night,
as a result of the cook's carelessness, and a general panic among the
passengers, if nothing worse, was narrowly averted. Upon the first
of these occasions the fire had gained sufficient headway before it
was discovered for a rather large bole to be burned through the floor
almost directly above where Niels had his bunk, and when the first
alarm was sounded Niels looked upward and saw the fire and noticed
the presence of smoke in the hold. He was able to "keep his head" and
helped in some measure in quelling the excitement of his fellows, many
of whom became almost frantic when they learned that the ship was on
fire, and that the hatches were fastened down, so that the passengers
were shut up in the hold like rats in a trap.
It occurred to Niels that the hatches had been closed by order of the
ship's officers to prevent a panic. He saw the futility of rebelling
against the measure, and counseled calmness and patience; and was so
calm and self-possessed himself that some of the more excited ones
listened to him, made a strong effort to control themselves, and seemed
ashamed at having been overcome by alarm.
The overland journey on the cars and the eight weeks' trip by ox train
in crossing the plains were not less fruitful in opportunities to
study character under trying conditions, and for the personal display
of those amenities that distinguish gentility from boorishness and
Christian charity from heartless selfishness. It was alike creditable
to the restraining influence of the Gospel upon the company in general,
and to the fine discernment and keen discrimination of Niels, that
he did not lose faith in his fellows because of the weakness they
exhibited under trying conditions--that he arrived in Utah with a
keener appreciation of the Gospel's power to mold human character to
conform to the divine pattern. He too had been tried as never before in
his life, and the consciousness of his own failings made him charitable
for those of others.
Some of his experiences on the plains had a peculiarly western flavor.
Although the company of which he was a member never actually came in
conflict with the Indians, they had a number of thrills due to rumors
of Indian hostilities before or behind them. One night the ox train
emigrant company camped on one side of a river which they expected
to cross early the next morning, while a mule train loaded with
merchandise camped on the opposite bank of the same stream. During the
night a marauding band of Indians stole and ran off about ninety head
of mules from the train last mentioned, driving them all right past the
camp of the passenger train, and so close to it that Niels heard them
galloping by, and wondered at first whether the noise was caused by the
oxen stampeding. Another experience that was new and strange to him was
seeing a rattle snake dart into a hole over which he was about to make
his bed. It didn't produce a very comfortable feeling, but the bed was
made right over the hole and the snake created no disturbance during
the night.
Before the journey ended Niels began to feel almost as if he were a
western man himself, so thoroughly had he entered into the spirit of
all that pertained to it. He had engaged in a struggle with a large
number of fellows for a common goal, and had developed ability that he
had never before known himself to be possessed of, and now, on reaching
it, he was ambitious to be a factor in the further unfolding of God's
purposes.
On his arrival in Salt Lake City Niels sought employment by which to
earn a subsistence, for he could not bear the thought of being always
dependent upon others. He found, however, that such work as he was
capable of doing was neither remunerative nor easily obtained. His
first job was at glove-making. He found two of his fellow country women
engaged in the business of making and selling buckskin gloves, their
customers in the main being overland travelers. He persuaded them to
let him learn the business from them, and then furnish him employment
when they had more work than they could do themselves. The work was
precarious at best, and not at all lucrative, but he appreciated
having anything to do, and being able to earn ever so little. After
attaining to some skill in that line, the demand for buckskin gloves
fell off until there was no longer any encouragement to make them. Then
he learned to sew uppers for ladies' shoes, and obtained a limited
amount of work in that line, but machines soon displaced hand sewing
of shoes. His means of earning a livelihood seemed to be diminishing
rather than increasing, but with independence unabated, he sought
work at whatever he could do (which was almost exclusively limited
to sewing) and went without what he could not earn, or which did not
come to him voluntarily, without making his wants known. In a land of
plenty, surrounded by people who were amply able to help him, and who
would willingly have shared with him their last meal, he lived almost
like a recluse, and sometimes actually suffered for want of food. Two
or three instances of uncharitableness and lack of sympathy sealed his
lips against any admission of his real condition or complaint, and
nerved him up to go without what he could not earn, or die trying. How
little he subsisted upon for certain extended periods is almost beyond
belief, and he probably would not have lived to tell it had not the
Lord mercifully and miraculously replenished his larder as He did in
the case of the widow of old who fed the prophet Elijah. Many times he
scraped up the last saucerful of flour to make a cake, only to find as
much more in the sack when hunger again impelled him to search for it.
And so it happened that while his faith in mankind sometimes wavered,
his faith in the Almighty grew stronger.
It must not be supposed from this that he was wholly without friends,
or that his existence was a cheerless one; but he had an aversion to
testing the friendship of his fellows by making known his wants, and
a feeling that his friends would last longer if not used too much. He
had entirely too much independence for a pauper, and too little bodily
strength to competently make his way in the world without help. His
circumstances varied. Sometimes for a considerable period fortune would
favor him to a limited extent, his health being such that he could
search for and obtain work and accumulate a little. He had the thrifty
disposition that characterized the Scandinavian race, and his natural
bent was to save some portion of it, however little he might earn.
He had the "home-making" instinct as it would be termed if he were a
bird--the disposition to build or acquire a nest of his own, however
humble it might be, and so he labored to that end. In this, however,
he met with many reverses. Illness would occasionally befall him, and
his petty hoard would be exhausted before he could again resume his
earning and saving. At quite an early stage of his Utah existence he
invested five dollars, the savings of a long period, in a city lot in
what is now the Twenty-seventh Ward of Salt Lake City, at a time when
lots on the north bench, away above the inhabited district, could be
had for the price of surveying. He could not afford to build upon it;
in fact, it was only by heroic effort that he succeeded in paying the
small tax upon it from year to year; but at the inception of the boom
in real estate in 1888 he succeeded in selling that lot for $500.00.
The possibility of owning a home loomed up before him as it never had
done before, and from that time he began looking for a bargain in real
estate.
CHAPTER VI.
INVESTS IN REAL ESTATE--ACQUIRES A HOME--VICARIOUS WORK IN LOGAN
TEMPLE--CONSEQUENT ELATION--PROMISE TO A DYING FRIEND--GRATUITOUS
FULFILLMENT IN MANTI TEMPLE.
In the course of a few years he found an opportunity of buying a small
city lot north west of the capital grounds, with a rather old house
upon it, for the modest sum which his capital represented, and he
actually became a landlord. He rented part of it to the former owner,
who had lost the property through mortgaging it and being unable to
meet the payments when his notes fell due. His income from the rental
was only $5.00 per month, and it required half of that to pay the taxes
upon the property; but he had a shelter for himself as well--not very
comfortable it was true, but much more so than some of the houses he
had occupied--and it was his own. It was all the more appreciated when
he thought of the improbability of his ever owning a home of any kind
had he remained in his native land. He could now look forward with
more hope to his declining years, when age would naturally add to his
decrepitude.
When Niels accepted of the Gospel in his native land, no feature of
it was more attractive to him than the promise of salvation for the
dead contained therein. He found comfort in the assurance he obtained
of personal salvation through compliance with the Gospel principles,
and he was anxious to do something if possible that his ancestors and
friends who had died without a knowledge of the Gospel should share
in the Gospel privileges. When the Temple in Logan was completed and
opened for ordinance work, he joyfully journeyed thither and spent
eight weeks in receiving ordinances for the benefit of dead relatives.
He felt that he was coming into his own, that he was accomplishing
something that made life desirable. There was something exalting about
the thought that he, deformed and weak and frail though he was, could
do all for the salvation of his dead kindred and friends that the most
able-bodied man in the community could do. He had long admired the
missionaries who left their homes in Utah and the surrounding states,
and, at infinite sacrifice, went forth into the various nations of the
earth to proclaim the Gospel message, without hope of earthly reward.
The sole reason for their doing so was that they had been called by
those whom they regarded as the Lord's earthly representatives to so
labor, and because they regarded the Gospel as so priceless that they
were anxious to have its benefits extended to all humanity. He, too,
appreciated the Gospel, and his love for his fellows would have enabled
him to find joy in laboring as a missionary, but, alas! he could never
hope to engage in that labor because of his physical disabilities. But
here was a labor which had for its object the same purpose, in which in
point of ability he measured up to the full stature of the best of his
fellows; and who should say that the work done in behalf of the dead is
not just as important as that done for the living? He had never engaged
in anything that so increased his self respect and made him feel that
he was of some consequence in the world as this work in the Temple,
and he regretted when necessity compelled him to abandon this labor
which had such a savor of heaven about it and "come down to earth,"
figuratively speaking, by seeking such employment as he could engage in
to earn the meagre necessaries of his subsistence.
[Image: Niels and his home]
A considerable period passed afterward with little to relieve the
monotony of his existence, during which, however, he again succeeded in
accumulating something. In the meantime the Temple at Manti had been
completed and ordinance work was being performed therein.
It happened that an old gentleman named Nielsen with whom Niels had
years before, (while he was a resident of Salt Lake City,) been
somewhat acquainted, had located at Manti while the Temple was in
course of construction, and indulged in the hope of spending his
declining years in laboring therein for the benefit of his dead
kindred. Before being able or ready so to do, however, he had been
stricken with sickness, and, at the solicitation of a daughter who
was living in Salt Lake City, and who was the wife of a Catholic,
had come up to reside with her and be nursed back to health. Instead
of recovering, however, he continued to grow worse until his life
was despaired of. During his illness he worried constantly over the
fact that the work in the Temple which his heart had been so set upon
performing for his dead kindred had never been done, and there now
seemed no hope of his doing it, for he felt that he must soon die. In
his emergency he thought about Niels as a friend whose services he
might enlist, and induced his daughter to send for him to come and
listen to her father's dying request. Niels came, and found his old
friend almost in the throes of death. Being asked if he would do the
work in the Temple which his friend had neglected, he consented without
hesitancy, to pacify the dying man, and wrote down at his dictation the
names of about seventy of his dead relatives, in whose behalf he wished
the work performed. He was told that a certain sister living in Manti
had promised to perform the work for the females, and could be relied
upon to do so, and that it would only be necessary for him to see that
she did it, and to do himself the work for the males.
After receiving the promise from Niels that he would attend to the
matter, the old gentleman seemed satisfied, and soon died in peace.
Niels then realized, as he had not done before, the responsibility
that rested upon him, in consequence of his promise. He had never made
a promise even to a person who was well without faithfully fulfilling
it, and his promise made to a dying man seemed doubly binding. He must
fulfill that if he never lived to do anything else. With this impressed
upon his mind he soon journeyed to Manti and called upon the sister
who had promised his dead friend to serve in the Temple for the female
relatives. He found her so ill that there was little hope of her ever
being able to keep her promise, and so he conscientiously applied
himself to the task of fulfilling completely the commission assigned
him. He hired sisters to do the work for the female dead, and he spent
ten weeks in the Manti Temple, in constant labor for the male dead
kindred of his friend Nielsen, and felt satisfaction in having done all
that duty and honor could require of him in the matter.
CHAPTER VII.
COMPLETION OF SALT LAKE TEMPLE--HIS WORK THEREIN--SISTER CORRADI
INSPIRED TO APPLY TO HIM--DEVOTED WORK FOR HER KINDRED--HIS SEVERE
AFFLICTIONS--SAVING WORK FOR 2200--GRACEFUL OLD AGE.
Niels looked forward with fond anticipation to the completion of
the Salt Lake Temple. He felt that now, that he had found his true
vocation, he would like to devote all the time to Temple work that his
health and means would permit, and he could do this to much better
advantage in his home city than if he had to travel a long distance to
reach a Temple, and then make special arrangements for his board and
lodging. He commenced his labors three weeks after the Temple opened
for ordinance work. He not only found great comfort and satisfaction in
the work, (which he scrupulously devoted his time to whenever able to
do so,) but, through the acquaintances he formed there, he obtained a
considerable amount of employment in the sewing line, especially in the
making of temple clothing, at which he became quite an expert. He was
not able to work continuously; indeed, he had many spells of illness
that confined him to the house and occasionally to his bed for days and
weeks at a time, but he has long been known as one of the most earnest
and devoted workers in the Temple. When he had officiated for all his
dead kindred and friends concerning whom he had sufficiently definite
information, he found others who were anxious to have him officiate
for their dead kindred on the usual terms when men are so employed,
(seventy-five cents per day,) and he so labored whenever able to do
so. He has, however, officiated gratuitously for hundreds of people at
the instance of friends or relatives who were unable to pay therefor.
A case in point was that of a poor Scandinavian sister who died a few
years since in this city. She left a list of fifty dead relatives for
whom she had been unable to officiate, and he took up the work for the
males and hunted up women acquaintances who were willing to officiate
for the females.
A few years since he was called upon by a Sister Corradi, whom he only
knew by sight, who desired to employ him to officiate for her male
kindred dead, saying the Spirit had manifested to her that he was the
person to whom she should apply. He consented, and has worked almost
exclusively for her list since, and has enough names left to keep
him occupied for about another year. Having a spell of illness some
time since, he told Sister Corradi she had better find some one else
to finish her work, as he feared he might not be able to do so. She,
however, refused to believe that he was going to die soon, or fail
to finish her work, and said she knew he was going to live to do it.
She may be right. Now that he has lived so long (he was seventy-eight
years old in May) there is reason to hope that he has several years
yet to remain in mortality. It will soon be forty-eight years since
he arrived in Utah, notwithstanding the predictions that he would not
live to make the journey. It is nearly sixty-eight years since he met
with the accident that left him deformed and crippled for life, and
during that time he has never been free from pain, though it has varied
in degree, being much more intense at some times than others. For many
years hernia was added to his other afflictions, but he was healed
of that in answer to prayer. About four years ago he lost the use of
his voice, and has not since been able to speak above a whisper. In
spite, however, of all these handicaps he has accomplished a work of
self-sacrifice for the salvation of others that any able-bodied man
of his age, desiring the welfare of his fellows, might well be proud
of. He has officiated for fully twenty-two hundred persons in all the
temple ordinances necessary to place them on a par with the living
who have received these ordinances in their own behalf. All this in
addition to the work he has had done in behalf of numerous female dead.
Truly he has earned for himself the distinction of being a "Savior
upon Mount Zion." The crucible of suffering to which he has been so
long subjected has had a sanctifying and exalting effect upon him, and
eliminated from his character all semblance of sordidness. His struggle
for existence has developed the strong traits of his character that
otherwise might have remained dormant, and his beneficent concern for
others has helped him to bear with equanimity, if not to forget his
own troubles. Even age seems to sit lightly upon him. Few who see him
ever suspect his advanced age. The peevish, crabbed disposition that so
frequently characterizes old age is never manifested by him. Instead,
he wears the patient, serene expression of one who lives for a noble
purpose, and indulges only in clean and wholesome thoughts.
CHAPTER VIII.
A MODERN STOIC--HIS MODEST OBSCURITY--WHAT RELIGION HAS DONE FOR
NIELS--PHILOSOPHIC WAY IN WHICH HE VIEWS DEATH.
Of the many who have witnessed Niels pursuing his toilsome way between
his home and the Temple--a distance of about a mile--leaning upon his
crutch and moving along at a slow but steady gait, perhaps not one has
had a definite idea of what a heroic effort it has required for him to
walk at all, and how his constant pain has been increased thereby.
Perhaps none of his fellow workers in the temple, who are in the daily
habit of gazing upon his sphinx-like countenance as he silently passes
among them, ever even dream that he is the best modern example of the
stoic that this region has ever known, the physical agony that he
suffers being never betrayed by word or facial expression.
Though casually known to many, he has scarcely been intimate with any.
Even the facts pertaining to his life that are herein divulged, had to
be fairly pried out of him by degrees, and they will doubtless be a
revelation to many of his acquaintances when they read this recital. If
his real condition had been generally known in the past, his every want
would have been anticipated and supplied by his kind-hearted neighbors
or the relief society. The chivalrous boy scouts might have adopted him
as their protege, and done what they could to make his home cheerful,
or otherwise lighten his burdens, and dyspeptics and other victims of
luxurious living might have been making pilgrimages to his house to
learn the secret of his long and useful life under such unfavorable
conditions.
Possibly it is as well that he has been allowed to make his own way
in the world. If he had been petted and pampered, and not had the
incentive of want to spur him to exertion, he probably would never
have accomplished anything worth mentioning, or that would have
distinguished him from the great number of unfortunates that only
excite our pity.
Niels acknowledges his indebtedness to the Gospel for all the comfort
he has experienced in life. Indeed, without its sustaining power, it is
doubtful whether he could have lived as long as he has, or retained his
reason, if he had so lived. Without it, he could have had no desire to
live; and, failing to find relief in death, his bodily suffering would
probably have made of him a raving maniac or a driveling imbecile. As
already mentioned, he was converted to the Gospel some time before
he was baptized. He has never since entertained a doubt as to its
truth. One might as well try to convince him that the sun does not
shine, as that the Gospel is not true. Since his baptism he has been
unwavering in his devotion to his religion. He has doubtless got more
out of his religion than most adherents do. It has been the controlling
inspiration of his life. He has been zealous, without being fanatical;
devout, without outward expression. He has been a regular attendant
at meetings (until he became in recent years too deaf to hear the
preaching,) but never ambitious to take part therein. He feels amply
repaid in the joy and satisfaction that have come to him for all the
labors he has performed, and all the sufferings he has endured. He has
no fear of death, but does not court it. He is content to live as long
as the Lord is willing to have him do so [1]. He seeks no notoriety. He
is the very personification of modesty. He is willing to be regarded as
a grain of dust, an insignificant atom, and plod on in obscurity during
the remainder of his mortal existence, as he has done in the past,
without attracting any attention.
The author of this sketch has known Niels casually for years, but
never discovered his real character until quite recently. For aught
he knows, he may be the original discoverer. He regards as a very
great compliment from Niels, the statement that he understood his
character and motives as no one else had done before. He sought the
acquaintance and confidence of Niels--was not sought by him. He it
was, and not Niels, who conceived the idea of reducing to writing some
of the incidents of his eventful life, and who surprised him later
with a proposition to publish the same. The author is responsible for
all deductions expressed herein, the facts alone having been somewhat
reluctantly mentioned by Niels, but he has perused the story and
endorsed it as correct, with some evident misgiving as to the possible
resultant notoriety.
[Image: His Tombstone]
If benefits to the many constitute the true standard by which success
should be gauged, the life of Niels has certainly been a successful
one; and the record herein set forth of the adverse conditions which
have surrounded him, and his wonderful accomplishments in view thereof,
should be an inspiration to every person who feels that his life's
burden is heavy, and who is privileged to read this simple recital.
If the unselfish work to which Niels has devoted such a large part
of his life had no other beneficial effect than to sweeten the lives
and render lovable the characters of those who engage therein; to
develop in them genuine love for their fellows and true charity--a
willingness to benefit others without hope of reward therefor--and to
make them cheerful, and hopeful and buoyant when otherwise they might
be despondent and gloomy, surely that work is not in vain. Indeed it
would even then compare favorably with almost any other that claims the
attention of mankind.
If the "Mormon" theory be correct, the Gospel ordinances absolutely
essential to the salvation and exaltation of mankind may be received
by the living vicariously for the benefit of the dead. The dead, too,
through an intelligent acceptance in the spirit world of the conditions
of salvation, including the vicarious work voluntarily undertaken in
their behalf on earth, may enjoy all the Gospel privileges.
Assuming that this theory is correct, what more important labor could
a person engage in than that performed in the Temples? Is there any
work on earth more free from the taint of selfishness? Is there
anything a person could engage in that savors more of true Christian
charity? Is not the satisfaction experienced by such earnest, sincere,
conscientious people as Niels a strong evidence of the truth and
efficacy of the work? Is not the assurance that Niels and thousands
of others have received through the testimony of the Spirit, as to
the work being acceptable to the dead in whose behalf it is done, and
agreeable to the will of the Almighty, worthy of consideration?
The work done in the temple in behalf of the dead differs in this
respect from other forms of charity--there is no danger of it making
the one who performs it vainglorious. He is not open to the suspicion
that the Pharisees of old were, in their giving of alms--a desire
for applause, or "to be seen of men." Niels has not become puffed up
because of what he has accomplished. He does not pose as anybody's
benefactor. He assumes no heroic airs. There is no halo surrounding him
such as "limners give to be the beloved disciple." He is just a modest,
humble, obscure cripple, known to his neighbors, who are sufficiently
acquainted with him to call him by name as Niels Larsen [2]; who is
content to live and die without attaining to any distinction, who
is advertised for the first time in this recital, and this without
any desire or request on his part. He was the most insignificant and
unpromising (not to say despised) of all his kindred, the tag end, as
it were, of the aristocratic and once powerful families from which he
had descended. He is the only one of a numerous kindred (so far as
known) who has accepted of the Gospel. Possibly others of them, as well
as the brother and sister-in-law already mentioned, have rejected the
Gospel because of their shame of him.
Is it not possible that this stone which these builders of the family's
reputation rejected may yet become the chief corner? That this despised
of all his race may yet become the head of it? In view of the vast
work that he has accomplished in behalf of his progenitors, may we
not anticipate the grateful homage that he will receive from them
in the next world, when he, as a resurrected being, will stand in
their midst--not as a cripple, deformed, and dwarfed, and weak, and
racked with pain, as he has been during most of his mortal career, but
resplendent in all the glory of a perfected manhood, his physical body
conforming in stature and appearance to his spiritual body, a very
king among his fellows! Imagine, too, the joyful acclaim with which he
will then be greeted by the numerous host who are not of his immediate
kindred, for whose salvation he has unselfishly labored in mortality.
Then will the pain and suffering and fatigue and humiliation which
he endured in this life seem as nothing compared with the treasures
in heaven which he will receive, and the limits and besetments of
mortality be forgotten and swallowed up in its fruition--the joys and
glories of an endless immortality.
Footnotes:
1. Niels has a very confident feeling that he will live to be 82 years
of age, but whether the call comes to quit this mortal life sooner or
later he intends to be prepared for it, and the completeness of his
arrangements for his burial and for perpetuating a knowledge of his
burial place indicates the complacency with which he regards death.
Some time since he purchased a quarter of a lot in the cemetery, and
had a very substantial granite monument made to his order and erected
thereon. An inscription upon it gives his name, date and place of
his birth, his parentage, and Salt Lake City as the place of his
death, with blank space below upon which to chisel in the date of his
passing away. He also keeps his burial clothes, made by himself, all
nicely laundried, in readiness to place upon his body when death shall
overtake him. This too is another illustration of his independence, and
disposition to do things himself rather than trust to others.
Since the erection of his tombstone, a lady who was somewhat acquainted
with him happened to be in the cemetery and saw it. She read the
inscription with surprise and sorrow. She failed to notice that the
date of his death was lacking, and very naturally concluded that he had
died and been buried, and was surprised that it could have happened
without the news of it having reached her. She mourned to think she
would never see him again, and that she had not even attended his
funeral and manifested the respect she had for one whose suffering and
inoffensiveness had so strongly appealed to her. In a pensive mood she
returned home and told her friends how shocked and sorrow stricken she
was at learning for the first time on seeing his monument of the death
of her friend.
A few days later she was tripping across Main Street without any
thought of death in her mind, when she suddenly beheld his familiar
figure slowly moving down the side walk. She was so startled at sight
of what she thought must be an apparition that she stood transfixed
until she was aroused by the hoot of an approaching automobile, and
narrowly escaped being knocked down and run over.
2. A custom prevails very generally among the peasantry throughout
Scandinavia of changing the surname from generation to generation,
while among the aristocracy the rule is to maintain the same surname
in a family as one generation succeeds another. An exception to this
latter rule sometimes occurs when a branch of an aristocratic family
does not inherit wealth, or through some misfortune becomes financially
reduced, and has to take rank per force with the peasantry. Then,
notwithstanding the aristocratic lineage, the peasant method of
changing the surname of the progeny from father to son is followed.
As already mentioned in this narrative, Niels was of aristocratic
lineage on both his father's and mother's side. They were, however,
of minor branches that did not inherit much wealth. The father,
though given in infancy the family surname of Eskildz, was known more
generally throughout his lifetime by his given name of Lars Nielsen,
and called Eskildz more as a nickname than otherwise, or as a means
of distinguishing him from others having the name of Lars Nielsen.
When Niels was born he was named Niels Larsen, in accordance with the
peasant custom, and it was not until he commenced his work in the house
of the Lord that he assumed his rightful ancestral name, and is even
now scarcely known outside of the Temple by the name of Eskildz.
Niels' father and mother were second cousins. His mother's maiden
name was Marie Olesen Myre. As may be inferred from the relationship
existing between them before marriage, theirs was not the first
marriage between the Eskildz and Myre families. Some branches of these
two families were very wealthy and influential when Niels was a boy,
which fact, however, was of no advantage to their poorer relatives,
among whom were Niels and his parents.
A WOMAN WITH A PURPOSE.
PURPOSE ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS--BIRTH AND PARENTAGE OF CAROLINA
CORRADI--HER MOTHER'S PRESCIENCE--PREPARATION FOR FUTURE
CAREER--DEVOTED WORK IN BEHALF OF DEAD KINDRED.
Few people have accomplished anything in this life worth mentioning
who have not had a definite purpose in view, to which every faculty of
their mind and body is made to bend. People without a purpose abound on
every hand, with nothing in appearance to distinguish them from their
fellows except a kind of mental or physical inertia or a fickleness of
disposition, causing them to flit about from one pursuit to another, as
a butterfly does from flower to flower. Their personal lack of purpose
may not be apparent to the casual observer, especially if they be
sufficiently under the influence of strong-minded, decisive friends,
who furnish the purpose for them, and manipulate them as if they were
human automatons.
Some people seem to be born with a purpose, or--more properly
speaking--with a disposition to form a purpose, and adhere to it. They
are not only possessed of energy, but of the power of concentration,
the ability to apply themselves to the one particular purpose before
them until they succeed.
Lacking a purpose--either innate or acquired--people are apt to drift
aimlessly through life, like an abandoned boat upon the ocean, subject
to every wind that blows and every current that flows. With conditions
favorable, they may float on indefinitely, even as derelicts at sea
have been known to do for years without meeting with any serious
obstruction. Their course may be so serene, and so attended with good
fortune, that observers may be almost forced to the conclusion that
they have a charmed existence. The real test of their constancy and
endurance comes to the mechanical derelicts when storms beset them
and breakers loom up before them, and to their human prototypes when
obstacles are encountered that only a strong mind can cope with,
and when no friendly support is at hand, to lean upon. The weak and
vacillating then flounder in uncertainty, so lacking in self-confidence
as to be absolutely unable to formulate and execute any purposeful
plan, while the strong-minded, resolute, self-reliant people carefully
lay their plans, and then proceed to fulfill them.
Of course the majority of human derelicts are unwilling to admit that
their failure to succeed is due to any fault of theirs. They prefer to
believe that they are the victims of chance, or ill-luck, or lack of
opportunity. Many of them have no desire to work, and others, if not
really lazy, have no pride or interest in the work they do, and are
therefore very indifferent workmen, and seldom retain a job long after
getting it.
Occasionally a person is found who has sufficient mental grasp to
devise, and executive ability to carry out a number of purposes
simultaneously, and those who are specially successful in material
affairs are sometimes called "Napoleons of finance." More frequently,
however, the diffusion of energy due to following too many purposes
results in failure. Many of the more conspicuous financial failures
are made by persons who fairly bristle with purposes. They are like
the ambitious but unwise blacksmith who had so many irons in the fire
at once that he either had to slight his work on all or allow some to
become overheated and spoiled.
It is infinitely more creditable to have one purpose, and accomplish it
successfully, than a number and succeed only indifferently.
The story of which the foregoing is a prelude is not that of a
"Napoleon of finance" or even of a Hetty Green in success in material
matters, but of that of a very humble, but altogether worthy woman,
whose aspirations are spiritual rather than material.
Examples from the ranks of the humble are more apt to be helpful to
the great mass of the people than those taken from other classes, as
what the wealthy and highly educated classes accomplish is apt to be
attributed to their more favored station in life, and therefore not to
be emulated by the poor, illiterate and obscure.
It will be observed that the example which follows is one that may be
profitably emulated by any, regardless of rank in life.
Carolina Corradi was born September 1, 1856, in Mastetlen, Canton
Thurgau, Switzerland. She was the youngest but one of eleven children,
born of parents who were only in moderate circumstances, and therefore
the help of all the children able to work was required to maintain the
reputation for thrift which the family had always enjoyed.
The parents were honest, industrious, intelligent, but not specially
pious people. Her father, Johannes Corradi, was a rather ingenious man,
able to turn his hand to almost any kind of work, and as kind-hearted
and self-sacrificing a man as could be found anywhere, and generous
almost to a fault. He was greatly beloved by all who knew him, and
especially by his children. The mother was an exceptionally good
housekeeper, and possessed rare tact as a manager, and developed into
quite a business woman, especially after her husband's death, when
it became her duty to manage the material affairs of the family. She
was also known by her intimates to possess a gift of prescience, or
the ability to see things before they actually transpired. By this
gift she evidently foresaw something of the future of her daughter
Carolina while she was yet a young child, and insisted that she learn
the French laundry business, as the time would come when she would find
it an advantage to work at it. Carolina was the only child concerning
whom the mother had this impression, although the other daughters were
apparently as well adapted for that kind of work as she was, and there
was nothing about her to indicate that she, any more than the others,
would ever need to work at it. Like many other branches of knowledge
or craft, the secrets of French laundry work were only to be obtained
by sacrifice, and so the parents of Carolina paid a considerable sum
of money for the privilege, and bound her to serve without pay for a
certain period to have her learn from those who were skilled in that
line.
She was apt at learning, became a very proficient hand, and followed
that line of employment for about three years while her mother still
lived, (her father having died when she was fourteen years of age.) The
mother died in 1883, leaving the children, who, however, were all grown
to maturity by that time, to shift for themselves. Her last words to
Carolina were that she must not mourn or despair because of her death,
as there was something great prepared for her, of which she was then in
ignorance, but of which she would learn in due time. She said nothing
of the kind about the other children, and the family talked about the
fact after the mother's death and decided among themselves that it
meant that Carolina was somehow going to become possessed of wealth.
They had faith in their mother's ability to see things that were coming
to pass, and they couldn't think of anything quite so desirable in
their estimation as wealth.
Carolina went out to service, and was mostly engaged in general
housework. While the parents lived the family never learned of the
Gospel as taught by the Latter-day Saints, but some years later it was
brought directly to the attention of some of the surviving members of
the family, and Carolina alone of all of them was attracted by it.
She joined the Church in the year 1889, and was so impressed with the
doctrine of salvation for the dead, that she soon afterwards wrote
a letter to the clerk of the parish in which her parents were born,
to obtain information in regard to their ancestors. This was done
in the hope that she might, at some time in the future, be able to
have a vicarious work done in their behalf. To her gratification,
the parish officer proved to be a distant relative, by the name of
Corradi, and he supplied her with the names of her ancestors for a few
generations--thirty-five or thirty-six names in all. They were all she
was able to obtain, or knew where to obtain, before she migrated to
Utah (which she did in the year 1891,) and she came here with a strong
desire that they should have all the privileges of the Gospel that they
might have enjoyed had they accepted of it in mortality.
She inherited enough from her parents' estate to pay for her emigration
to Utah and leave $35.00 in her pocket when she landed here. That
was the amount of her capital at the inception of her career here in
Utah, less than twenty-three years ago. She had no relatives, and few
acquaintances, in this land, and was unfamiliar with the language of
the country.
She obtained work in a laundry at the lowest price paid to
inexperienced hands, and was glad to get it. She was devoted to her
religion, was faithful in attending meetings, paying her tithes and
fast offerings, and never lost sight of the duty that she so early
felt to be resting upon her, to do all that was in her power for the
salvation of her dead kindred. In the meantime she had been acquiring
a knowledge of the English language, but it was six years after she
arrived in Utah before she began her vicarious work in the Temple.
She was not able to follow this work up continuously--only to spend a
day at a time, but the spirit of the work grew upon her. She was able
to officiate for the females of her kindred, but she was in doubt as
to how to proceed to get the work done for her male kindred. While in
this state of anxiety the Spirit prompted her to apply to Niels P.L.
Eskildz, with the assurance that he would faithfully serve, and be
of great assistance to her. She accordingly applied to him, and, as
already related, obtained his consent. When all those whose names she
had were officiated for, she was favored with an open vision, in which
a person appeared to her and told her that she had a great work yet to
perform in behalf of her dead kindred--that she would do the work for
more than a thousand.
At that time she did not know where she could get another name, and
earned so little by her work (she never was paid more than $1.10 per
day at the laundry, and much of the time only received $1.00 per day)
that she couldn't foresee how she could ever afford to pay for having
her genealogy traced up and obtain more names. She had recently been
trying to obtain laundry work (ironing) in private families, with a
view to earning more than she had been able to at the laundries, but
had not yet succeeded to any great extent. She felt, however, that the
Lord had inspired the promise made to her, and that He could and would
provide a way for its fulfillment, but how she could not forsee.
Soon afterwards she obtained work in her line in a private wealthy
family, where she was able to earn $2.00 per day, and also learned
of a man who was engaged in the business of tracing up genealogies,
whom she employed to obtain the names of her ancestors. She has since
obtained several extensive lists of names, including several lines of
her ancestors, and has now had Brother Eskildz regularly employed for
several years, whenever he has been able to do so, officiating for
her dead male kindred, while she has employed women, and occasionally
spends a day in the Temple herself, laboring for her female kindred.
She has thus done herself, or hired others to do the work, for almost
1800, and by the time she completes the work for all the names she has,
the number will be increased to fully 1900.
She has done this as a labor of love, and found great joy and
satisfaction in so doing--in fact, feeling repaid as she has proceeded
by the enjoyment the work has afforded her, for all the labor and
sacrifice it has involved. While her earnings have never been
munificent, she has maintained a decent, respectable appearance,
keeping house in from one to three rented rooms, and honestly paid her
way and done her duty as a church member--all from her own earnings.
She feels that the Lord has been specially kind to her, in providing a
way for the gratification of her earnest desire in behalf of her dead
kindred. She expresses also her gratitude to Brother Eskildz, to whom
great credit is due for classifying the names and providing for the
orderly and complete performance of the work, so that no names have
been duplicated, and none omitted. She says she doesn't know how she
could have accomplished what she has without his help. Her genealogical
records are in fine shape, and are a credit to her.
When asked how much money she had spent for genealogical research, for
books in which to keep a record of the work done and for the payment of
people she had hired to officiate for her kindred, she replied she did
not know, and she did not care to know. She was content to know that it
had been spent in a worthy cause, gave the Lord the credit for it and
did not even seek any personal recognition.
She has felt sure since embracing the Gospel that her mother must have
had a foreknowledge that she would labor in this cause, and she has had
many assurances since she first engaged in the Temple work that her
parents are aware of the vicarious work she has done or caused to be
done in behalf of the dead, and heartily approve of the same.
She has sought no notoriety in what she has done; in fact, was
rather reluctant about admitting it or giving any information
concerning it, but the consciousness of it affords her a great deal
of satisfaction--infinitely more, she says that the possession of a
million dollars could.
Some women have doubtless done more than she in laboring for the
salvation of the dead, numbers considered, but her record offers a
specially fine example of a holy purpose faithfully pursued, and
Carolina Corradi will doubtless stand throughout eternity as the
personification of self-sacrifice and filial devotion.
AN EXCEPTION.
A RICH MAN'S HANDICAP--WEALTH NOT ESSENTIALLY BAD--BUT QUALITIES ITS
POSSESSION DEVELOPS A BAR TO SALVATION--TYPICAL CASE OF A MAN REARED IN
AFFLUENCE--UNPROMISING START IN MARRIED LIFE--HOW HE BECAME INTERESTED
IN TEMPLE WORK--WORTHY EXAMPLE IN RECENT YEARS.
It is not an uncommon thing for a poor person to look with envy upon
the possessions of the wealthy, and remark how easy it would be for
him to be generous, and make sacrifices for a righteous cause, if he
were only wealthy. It is hard--perhaps impossible--for such a person
to realize it (never having been possessed of wealth,) but wealth is
more frequently a bar to the service of the Lord than a help therein.
We are informed in the gospel according to Matthew that the Savior said
"a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven;" and again, "it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Whether we understand from
this that the Savior was indulging in hyperbole--the grossest kind of
exaggeration, or that the eye of the needle referred to was a specially
low gateway in the wall of Jerusalem, through which camels could
only pass by crouching down, we must conclude that the rich are less
susceptible to the saving influence of the Gospel than the poor. This
is confirmed by the declaration that "Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," and numerous passages about the
deceitfulness of riches, and of "the love of money," being "the root of
all evil."
When we come to analyze the question, it is not the wealth itself that
is evil, but the avarice and arrogance that its possession is apt to
develop, for the more one has the more he is apt to want. The person
who in his youth is eager to acquire wealth is apt to grow intensely
avaricious if not miserly in his old age. The person who manifests
pride and slight regard for others' rights in youth is apt to become
unbearably arrogant as he grows older.
Humility is a pre-requisite to the acceptance and practice of those
principles upon which salvation depends, and humility is the very
opposite of arrogance. Treasures in heaven are apt to look most
attractive to the person whose view thereof is not obstructed by
treasures upon earth; for "where the treasure is, there will the heart
be also." A poor person, seeking salvation, is not so apt to have
his attention distracted therefrom, as is one who is full of care
concerning his earthly possessions.
Inasmuch as the work done in the Temple is clearly in the nature
of seeking treasures in heaven, it is really refreshing to find a
wealthy person, and especially one who has been reared in affluence,
manifesting much devotion in that line.
One of the most striking examples of this kind noticeable in the Salt
Lake Temple in recent years is that of Brother P . . .
His parents were descended from aristocratic families of Old Virginia.
His father was the owner of two large mercantile establishments and
other valuable property in his native town before the war, but the war
broke him up, and left him comparatively poor. However, he was of that
class who cannot be kept down. He was ambitious and enterprising, and
soon began to accumulate. Coming to Utah in the year 1864, he engaged
in school teaching, farming, ran a threshing machine, clerked in,
managed and then owned a store, engaged in banking, etc., wringing
success out of everything he turned his hand to. By the time the
subject if this sketch (who was born in Utah,) was old enough to
receive impressions, his was regarded as among the most wealthy,
influential and aggressive families in the state.
None of the sons (of whom there were several in the family) ever
served as a missionary, until recently, when one of the younger sons
filled a creditable mission to Germany. This fact is mentioned because
the calling of one son from a household to fill a mission frequently
arouses more or less zeal in the whole family.
Nor were they conspicuous workers in the quorum and auxiliary
organizations in the church. This fact is mentioned for the same
reason. When young people take an active part in these organizations
they frequently develop into enthusiastic church members, and
occasionally arouse an interest in spiritual matters throughout the
whole family.
The eldest son was a successful mining broker, and prominent in
political and business affairs, and the second, (the subject of this
sketch) studied law, with the intention of becoming a practicing
attorney. These facts are mentioned also for the reason that they
are generally understood to tend from rather than towards religious
devotion.
Another circumstance that would rather indicate backsliding than a
growing zeal, was his disregard for the scriptural injunction: "Be ye
not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." He married a girl who
was not a member of the Church.
In extenuation, it may be said that he indulged in the hope of
converting her; in fact, during the days of their courtship they
read and discussed "Mormon" literature together, and she manifested
an interest therein; but she hadn't faith enough to join the Church
before her marriage; nor, indeed, for four years afterwards, the fact
of her parents and most of her relatives being non-"Mormons" possibly
accounting for her hesitancy.
With this introduction the story may now be given as told by Brother
P..., of how he became interested in Temple work:
"On July 20, 1908, Miss H . . . and I were married by an Elder of
the Church. Four years later my wife was stricken with hemorrhage of
the brain, and her life was despaired of. She was healed in answer
to prayer, and the faith exercised by herself and others, and gladly
joined the Church soon afterwards. Later on, she was dying of organic
Brights disease, and the physician in attendance said there was no
possibility of her living. However, after an administration of the
Elders, she improved immediately, and lived in peace for four years
longer. On April 27, 1908, she died.
"We had not been to the Temple to receive our endowments, and to have
the important ceremony performed whereby we could be united for time
and all eternity.
"About one month after my wife's death I was impressed to go to the
20th Ward sacrament service; although I did not live in that ward,
and it was my first attendance at a meeting there. Brother Samuel W.
Jenkinson, a blind man, who was a Temple worker, was the speaker.
Twelve years prior to that time Brother Jenkinson had done endowment
work in the Temple for some of my wife's relatives, but he and I were
not acquainted. I was so much impressed with his remarks, that I
inquired and learned his name, and the following morning wrote a letter
to this blind brother, telling him how pleased I was with his testimony.
"On receiving the letter, Brother Jenkinson telephoned to me a request
to come up and see him. My telephone number was 5279.
"A month passed. One afternoon, on the very day the Temple closed for
the summer vacation, as I was sitting at my desk, the telephone rang.
Taking down the receiver, I heard the voice of Samuel W. Jenkinson,
saying `Your telephone number has been coming to me for a week,
especially while I was in the Temple. I did not call you up, as I did
not wish to disturb you; but today the number '5279, 5279' came to me
so many times that, on leaving the Temple, I have come to a phone. Now
I do not know what to say to you.'
"That evening I called at the home of the blind brother, and talked to
him awhile, mainly in regard to my departed wife.
"Six weeks passed. Three days before the Temple opened, after the
vacation, Brother Jenkinson telephoned to me, saying: 'I am impressed
that your wife wants her Temple work done.'
"'All right,' I replied, 'I will see to it.'
"I called upon President Winder, the presiding officer of the Temple,
and told him what had occurred. He advised that I wait until a year
had passed after the death of my wife. This agreed with my feelings
exactly, and I remarked, `I think so too, President Winder. Besides, I
would rather take the rest of the year to prepare to enter the Temple.'
"Three days later President Winder sent for me, and, when I responded
to the call, said: `I have taken that matter up with President Smith,
and we have made an exception in your case; and you can now do the work
for your wife any time.'
"I thanked President Winder, but added that I thought there was no
hurry, and preferred to wait for awhile.
"However, my wife knew the great importance of attending to this
most sacred work without delay. In her life her rule was, not to
procrastinate. She used to say, 'Tomorrow has enough duties of its
own to attend to. So don't crowd the duties of today on tomorrow.'
Besides, being in the spirit world, she had a livelier appreciation of
Temple work than I had, with my earthly environment. She knew there
was great danger in delaying to do the vicarious work--a fact that all
Latter-day Saints should understand who are familiar with the teachings
of the Prophet Joseph Smith upon the subject. He impressed upon the
Saints in the strongest terms that there was none too much time left
in which to do the work for the dead; and one of the strongest desires
that he manifested during the last few weeks of his life was, that the
Saints should proceed to get their genealogies and perform the sacred
ordinances in behalf of their dead kindred without delay. Delays are
dangerous, and the adversary will always give us abundant reasons for
procrastination if we are willing to listen to such counsel.
"Ten days more passed. I was sitting at my desk when the telephone
rang. Samuel W. Jenkinson's voice sounded in my ear; `You have let ten
days go by, and haven't done that work for your wife yet.'
"My answer was: `No, I thought I would wait awhile; but I have
permission from the First Presidency to do the work any time now.'
"Then came a short and vigorous sermon from the blind Temple worker,
that has since proven to be the moving cause in my life in the matter
of Temple work. Brother Jenkinson in plainness and earnestness said:
'I am impressed with the feeling that your wife wants her Temple work
done, and I always act on my impressions. If her Temple work is done
she will have more happiness and greater freedom, can progress faster
and further, and can accomplish much more for herself and for others,
and for you right here on earth. But you can do what you want. I hereby
clear myself from all responsibility, and leave it wholly to you.'
"'I am convinced, Brother Jenkinson, and will see to it at once.' I
answered, and took the next train for Ogden, where I saw my sister and
asked her to be proxy for my wife.
"On seeing me, she exclaimed: 'I have been wanting to see you, and was
going to write to you. I had a wonderful dream about your wife this
morning.' She then proceeded to relate the dream, which was in line
with my wife's wish, as expressed by Brother Jenkinson, that her Temple
work should be done.
"Two days thereafter the Temple work was done, and it was the most
glorious day of my life. No joy that I had previously felt could
compare with the heavenly happiness that I experienced. Tears came to
my eyes, and I rejoiced in a spirit of thanksgiving to my Heavenly
Father for being permitted to enter His holy house and partake of the
blessings therein bestowed.
"Since then I have felt that my main mission on earth is to have
Temple work done for as many spirits as possible; thereby aiding in
the release of those departed spirits from their prison houses. I have
also taken the opportunity to encourage others to search out their
genealogies and do Temple work for their kindred dead."
That is his story, briefly told. Others can testify to the fidelity
with which he has fulfilled what he conceived to be his mission. He
frequently goes to the Temple himself and receives ordinances in behalf
of his dead kindred, and he is constantly employing others to do
likewise, so that the work for his kindred dead goes on apace. Being
asked how many he had now had the work done for, he replied that he did
not know--he had not taken time to count--but some thousands.
In addition to all this, he has for the past five years been a worker
on the Temple Block in connection with the Bureau of Information,
spending much of his time there, and with good effect if the
volunteered opinion of hundreds who have listened to him are a fair
criterion by which to judge. Though he never filled a foreign mission,
he has enjoyed privileges that seldom come to foreign missionaries. He
has explained "Mormon" history and doctrine and borne his testimony to
thousands who, as strangers thereto, were seeking the information he
had to offer (and many of them willing listeners,) and who could never
afterwards deny having heard the truth.
It may be inferred from this that he is working under high pressure,
to spare so much time from his own absorbing affairs to devote to this
charitable work, as well as to be under the financial tribute that he
is in this connection, and indeed he is. He probably inherits from his
father (who was a man of unusual energy, mental and physical,) his
capacity for work. There is no doubt about his feeling better for the
strenuous life that he is leading, and especially for his gratuitous
work. He has been heard to remark that he has found no good and safe
place to stop at, as any lessening of his efforts in the voluntary work
for the good of others that he has undertaken, results in a perceptible
diminution in the good spirit that he has enjoyed in recent years,
and in his growing worldly-minded in a corresponding degree. His is
a nature that is not satisfied with anything mediocre. He craves the
best, and is naturally thorough and whole-hearted in that which he
does, and has a keen sense of both enjoyment and suffering.
He has learned what many others fail to learn: that happiness depends
less upon what we receive than what we give, less upon what we have
than upon what we do; less upon what others do for us than upon what we
do for them; and that we can adopt no more certain means of securing
happiness for ourselves than that of seeking to make others happy. Life
never was so full and rich and satisfying to him before as it has been
in recent years, for he never did so much for others, and never before
exhibited so much unselfishness.
He objects to being classed as a rich man, because, notwithstanding
his interests are rather extensive, he has invested a large amount of
borrowed money in an industry which involves a good deal of risk, and
yet, with good fortune in his favor, may yield a handsome profit.
Well, if he is not rich he is certainly enterprising, and deserves to
be rich, and never was in less danger from being rich.
Wealth is a comparative term, anyhow. If he is not rich compared with
some who are very wealthy, he is compared with those who have little or
none of this world's goods.
If, with the risk he is taking, he still finds time to devote so
much unselfish attention to others, dead and living, how much more
creditable than if he labored for selfish ends! And how much more of
a sacrifice he is making than if he had converted all his surplus
property into government bonds, the income from which would insure him
a living without care on his part, and then only gave his time to the
cause of humanity.
He has again married--this time in God's own appointed way, to one
who is full of faith--and two lovely children have come to grace his
home--the first living children he has had. He takes an optimistic view
of life, and never felt that he had so much to live for.
It may be appropriately mentioned here that six years before his former
wife died (a. already related,) she wrote a letter to her husband, with
a request that it be opened and read after her death. His present wife
chanced to read that letter some time after her marriage, and learned
from it that the expressed desire of the deceased wife was that her
husband should marry again, and that some time there would be a little
Luacine (that being the first wife's name.) The first child was a boy.
The second was a girl, and the mother, on her own volition, chose for
her the name of Luacine.
Consider this case from whatever angle we may, Brother P . . . is
an exception in his class, and a most praiseworthy exception, whose
example in recent years is well worthy of emulation.
MY MOTHER.
CHAPTER I.
PREDICTION FROM MALACHI FULFILLED--BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF MARY ALICE
CANNON--CANNON FAMILY EMBRACE THE GOSPEL--MIGRATE--MOTHER'S DEATH AT
SEA--ARRIVAL AT NAUVOO--FATHER'S DEATH--HER MARRIAGE.
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the
great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of
the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their
fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
Thus spake the Lord through Malachi, the prophet; but just what was
meant by turning the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart
of the children to the fathers, has been a matter of speculation among
bible students since time was young. Of course, many have supposed that
this prediction was fulfilled in the coming of John the Baptist; but
wherein John the Baptist accomplished any such work as that indicated
is not clear. Whatever the work was that Elijah was to do, there must
be something potential about it, to have the effect of appeasing the
wrath of the Almighty and averting the curse with which the earth (or
possibly the inhabitants of the earth) would otherwise be smitten.
Not until the doctrine of salvation for the dead had been revealed was
the full import of the declaration quoted from Malachi understood even
by the Latter-day Saints. The anxiety they immediately experienced
for the salvation of their kindred who had died without conforming to
the Gospel requirements, when they learned that the living might do
a vicarious work in behalf of the dead, that would place the latter
upon an equal footing with the most favored of the living, was an
illustration of its effects upon the children.
The interest that was awakened about that same time in the matter of
genealogical research, without any apparent cause for it, more than
had existed for ages, may reasonably be considered an evidence that
the "heart of the fathers" was being turned to the children. Nor was
this interest in the tracing of genealogies, and the connecting of one
generation or age to another by kindred links, limited to Latter-day
Saints, or those familiar with the doctrine of salvation for the dead,
as newly revealed. It seemed to be a spontaneous feeling, specially
noticeable in the more enlightened countries of that age and since. The
disposition to engage in this research was not limited to any class or
creed. It was manifested alike by people of various religious beliefs
and by those also of infidel tendencies. Sometimes pride of ancestry
furnished the excuse, and at other times the hope of inheritance was
the incentive. Whatever the causes that led to the compiling and
publishing of genealogical works, it is easy for Latter-day Saints to
believe that men so actuated were inspired of the Lord, whether they
realized it or not, and that the grand and ultimate purpose of the Lord
was that the living believers in that doctrine might do a vicarious
work for the salvation of individual dead, and thus connect the present
generation with those of the past.
[Image: Mrs. Mary Alice C. Lambert]
A desire to learn as much as possible about one's ancestors, and
then go into the Temple and labor for their salvation, may be really
accepted as the normal feeling among faithful, sincere Latter-day
Saints. So generally is it understood to be their duty to labor for
their dead kindred, that it seems quite the natural thing that they
should do so. Their obligation in this respect is comparable to that of
providing for dependent members of their households.
One must have a broader feeling of philanthropy or a higher sense
of duty, to labor as a general worker or officiator in the Temple
for extended periods, without hope of earthly reward. Among the more
conspicuous examples of this kind in the Salt Lake Temple is Mrs. Mary
Alice C. Lambert, the dean of the women workers, if such a term may
be applied to a woman. She was one of those called to so labor when
the Salt Lake Temple was completed, and has so served faithfully and
gratuitously ever since, being still active and efficient, although in
her eighty-sixth year. Hers is as fine an example of a busy, well-spent
life, as could readily be found, and a perusal of the following sketch
can hardly fail to be faith promoting:
On the 9th day of December, 1828, a young married couple, George and
Ann Cannon, then living in the city of Liverpool, England, rejoiced
in the birth of their second child--a daughter--whom they named Mary
Alice. There was nothing about the child or her brother, George Q.,
who was two years her senior, or their parents, to distinguish them
from the many thousands of other families who lived in that great city.
The father was an intelligent and industrious tradesman--an expert
carpenter, or joiner--and the mother a thoroughly domestic woman, whose
love for her husband and children was only equalled by the strength of
her religious fervor. Though England had been the adopted home of this
branch of the Cannon family since many years before their marriage,
the most of their relatives lived in the Isle of Man, and thither
the family went on occasional visits. On one of these visits, at the
earnest solicitation of her maternal grandmother, little Mary Alice was
left to bear her company, and spent five years of her childhood in the
quaint old town of Peel, for this purpose.
In course of time the Cannon family was enlarged by the successive
births of other children--Ann, Angus, John, David and Leonora. John,
however, died when three and a half years of age. Prosperity had
attended the father's labors, the family had a comfortable and happy
home, the older children were acquiring an education, and gave promise
of being like other children among the better class in England--no
worse than the majority, and not much if any better.
When Mary Alice was about 11 years of age, an event occurred that
was destined to change the whole current of the family life. If
there is any truth in the theory of heredity, it was well for the
Cannon family that their ancestors, for generations, had been hardy
sea-faring men--some of them captains, conspicuous for their courage
and adventurous disposition. It was well that their ancestral home
was in the Isle of Man, where the inhabitants, largely fishermen, are
inured to hardship and used to battling with the waves and braving the
tempest. If any of the traits possessed by their ancestors had been
inherited by the present generation, and especially strength of will
and endurance, two of the most prominent characteristics of the Manx
people--they must certainly be called into action in the strenuous life
that lay before the Cannon family, thenceforward.
Some years previously Leonora Cannon, a sister of George Cannon, had
migrated to Canada, and there met and married a young Englishman named
John Taylor. Parley P. Pratt, as a Latter-day Saint missionary, soon
afterwards visited the part of Canada where the Taylors lived, and
they were converted and joined their fortunes with the Saints in Ohio.
From Nauvoo John Taylor was sent on a mission to Great Britain, and
immediately upon landing called upon his wife's brother and family.
A profound impression was made by this visit. The visitor had scarcely
left the house, after a brief call, when the mother expressed the firm
conviction she felt that he was a servant of God, although he had not
then made known the fact that he was a missionary or explained the
Gospel. After a very short time spent investigating the Gospel, the
parents were baptized. Little Mary Alice, though so young, greatly
desired baptism at the same time, but was too timid to ask for it.
From the time she listened to the first conversation on the Gospel she
had felt greatly exercised in regard to it, and earnestly prayed to
the Lord for a testimony as to its truth. As a result, she obtained
a strong assurance from the Lord of its truth, that has never since
admitted of a doubt.
The parents had been members of the Church four months when, in June
1840, Elder Parley P. Pratt visited them in company with Elder Taylor.
They had just finished eating breakfast, with the whole family present,
when Elder Pratt, as if moved by a sudden inspiration, said: "Elder
Taylor, have you preached the Gospel to these children? Some of them
want to be baptized now. Don't you?" he asked looking straight at Mary
Alice. "Yes, sir," she promptly replied, her heart so full of gratitude
to the Lord for the opportunity she had prayed for of having her desire
made known, that she could hardly speak. Further questioning resulted
in immediate arrangements being made for the baptism of George Q., Mary
Alice and Ann--all the children of the family then old enough for the
ordinance.
It didn't take the family long to discover that there was no fellowship
or tolerance for them among their relatives, or indeed among their
former friends. Though formerly popular, they were now pitied or
denounced, if not thoroughly hated. Whether this fact tended to create
a desire to migrate to America or not, true it was that they soon
obtained the spirit of gathering. The only social enjoyment the family
found was in mingling with members of the church, and the desire soon
grew strong to go where the majority of the members could be found. The
mother especially revolted at the thought of her children growing up in
an atmosphere of unbelief, and, although she was in delicate health,
and had a premonition that amounted almost if not quite to an absolute
fore-knowledge that she would not live to reach America, she insisted
upon going, and was impatient to start. The father, too, after having
a dream of his wife dying at sea, feared that it might prove true, and
would have hesitated about going had the Lord not made known to him, in
answer to prayer, that it was his duty to do so.
The family embarked on a sailing vessel bound for New Orleans in
September, 1842, and the mother died and was buried at sea six weeks
later, after suffering from sea sickness almost if not quite every day
of the voyage up to that time. The forlorn condition of the family can
more easily be imagined than described. The promises held out by the
Gospel seemed to be their only comfort and support. For Mary Alice,
mere child that she was, there was too much to do in caring for the
younger brothers and sisters to admit of her yielding to grief. The new
responsibility suddenly thrust upon her had the effect of merging her
childhood into womanhood without any interim for youth.
The sea voyage ended at New Orleans, eight weeks after it commenced,
the intention being to proceed immediately by river steamboat to
Nauvoo; but obstacles were soon encountered, the first being the
grounding of the boat on a sandbar, resulting in such a tedious delay
that severe frost set in and the boat was unable to proceed farther
north than St. Louis because of the river being frozen over. The Cannon
family accordingly spent the winter in St. Louis, the father providing
homes and support for two other families, whom he had charitably
immigrated from England, besides his own.
Nauvoo was finally reached in April, 1843, seven months after the
departure from England. A cordial greeting by the Prophet Joseph Smith
and a hearty welcome from Aunt Leonora Taylor and family helped to
reconcile them, and the peaceful home obtained in Nauvoo was all the
more appreciated because of the difficulties experienced on the way.
In February, 1844, the father married a second time, the motherless
condition of his children and a desire on his part for their welfare
doubtless hastening the event.
This was a crucial period in the Church's history. Disaffection was
rife, and the allegiance of many who had formerly been considered
stalwarts in the faith had become very uncertain. Apostates, secret
and outspoken, were conspiring with former enemies of the church
to overthrow the work of the Lord and encompass the death of the
Prophet. The martyrdom of the Prophet and Patriarch and the very
serious wounding of Apostle John Taylor occurred, as a result of these
diabolical plots, in June.
During all these trying times the Church had no more loyal supporters
than the Cannon family. The father was among those who cared for the
bodies of the martyrs when returned to Nauvoo, and he it was who (with
the assistance of his friend, Ariar Brower,) made the plaster casts of
the faces and heads of the Prophet and Patriarch when the bodies were
washed and prepared for burial.
In the August following, having gone to St. Louis to obtain employment,
George Cannon suddenly died there. If the children's condition was
forlorn when their mother died, it was doubly so now. The one fact,
that they were located with the body of the Church, rendered their
condition more tolerable. What might have been the result, so far as
the children were concerned, of their being thus early left orphans if
they had remained in England, can only be conjectured. The one supreme
desire of the mother, to hasten the departure from England that the
children might be with the body of the Church before being left without
their natural protectors, was now justified.
George Q. and Ann found a home with their Aunt Leonora, the former,
being already in the employ of Elder Taylor as a printer, and Mary
Alice, though lacking two weeks of being sixteen years old at the
time, married in November following, and provided a home for Angus,
David and Leonora. Charles Lambert, the husband, was a thoroughly
congenial companion, though twelve years the senior of his wife, and
was willing as well as qualified to provide for the three orphans of
whom he became the lawful guardian. He was an expert mechanic who, for
the Gospel's sake, had given up a lucrative position and sacrificed
worldly advantages in England to migrate to Nauvoo, where he landed in
the early part of 1844. He had offered his services to help build the
Temple without hope of payment therefor, and remained so employed up to
the time the Temple was dedicated and he and his wife received their
blessings therein, though his devotion thereto involved many hardships
and severe privations, and almost superhuman self denial.
In all these trials Mother Lambert, as we now call her, and as she then
was too, though not so called, (for her first child, Charles J., was
born in Nauvoo in November, 1845, when she lacked one month of being
17 years old) was a true partner, patient, cheerful, industrious and
self-sacrificing, and as loyal to the cause of God as the needle to the
pole.
CHAPTER II.
STRENUOUS LIFE IN NAUVOO--CITY BESIEGED--THRILLING EXPERIENCE--MIRACLE
OF QUAILS--RUN OVER BY WAGON--WAGON SINKS TO BOTTOM OF RIVER--LIFE IN
UTAH--MISSION ABROAD--HER POSTERITY.
They succeeded in acquiring a fairly comfortable home in Nauvoo, and a
farm a short distance outside of the city, but they were not destined
to long enjoy their possessions. The enemies of the Church were not
content with having killed the Prophet and Patriarch; they were
determined to drive the Saints from the state of Illinois, as they had
previously been driven from Missouri. The Saints, especially in the
outlying settlements, were continually being harassed by the lawless
mob. Farms were frequently pillaged or their crops burned. Domestic
animals were driven off, and the inhabitants in some instances severely
beaten and compelled to flee from their homes to save their lives. Many
of their houses were also set fire to before the owners' sight.
Not only were the Saints the victims of these ruthless depredations,
but they were actually accused of being the perpetrators of the same,
and this made the pretext by the mob for demanding that the Saints
remove from the state or abandon their religion. Is it any wonder that
some of the more weak and faithless of the members chose the latter
alternative?
An agreement was finally entered into, between the Saints on one
side, and state officials and leaders of the mob on the other, that
the Saints should leave the state as soon as they could sell their
possessions. It soon became apparent, however, that they would have to
abandon their homes instead of selling them, as their enemies, though
anxious to secure them, showed little disposition to pay for them.
The majority of the Saints living in Nauvoo left there to journey
westward in the early part of the year 1846, leaving those whose
services to work upon the Temple were required, or who lacked the
necessary equipment for the journey, to follow on afterwards. When the
Apostles returned later to Nauvoo to dedicate the Temple they exacted a
promise from those yet remaining there, and who possessed the necessary
outfits to undertake the journey, that they would not abandon any of
the less fortunate Saints who might desire to accompany them, but help
them out of the state. Before they were ready to depart, however, the
mobocrats, in far superior numbers, surrounded and besieged the city.
Charles Lambert took a prominent part in the city's defense, helping to
manipulate one of the cannons, which, in the emergency, he and others
had improvised from an old steamboat shaft, and which had been mounted
upon a part of the running gear of a wagon.
Mother Lambert was an interested and anxious spectator of the battle.
In addition to having her own small family to care for, a Mrs. Haines,
a neighbor, who was very ill, had been brought to her home to be
nursed, her husband being absent from the city. During the bombardment,
which continued for several days, some of the cannon balls fired by the
mob passed close by, but none of them actually struck the house. In one
instance an old gentleman, who felt too feeble to be among the city's
defenders, but whose anxiety to see how the battle waged led him to
ascend to the top of the roof of the Lambert house to get a good view,
was so alarmed by a cannon ball passing close by his head, that he
rolled from the roof to the ground.
A flag of truce was finally raised by the mob and a treaty effected,
one of the provisions of which was that the Saints would vacate the
city within three days. Such of the household goods possessed by the
Lambert family as could be, were loaded into a wagon box and an attempt
made to remove across the river. As they approached the Mississippi,
however, in the lower part of the town, so many other wagons were found
to be ahead of theirs, waiting to be ferried over, that a temporary
camp was made near an abandoned home.
While on the way from their home to this point the family had been
surrounded by a large posse of the mob and compelled to give up to them
such fire arms as they possessed. Soon after reaching the temporary
camp, and while Father Lambert was absent with his team for the purpose
of hauling John Haines' wagon, with his household goods and his sick
wife in it, down to the same point, a second mob appeared and demanded
that Mother Lambert give up to them whatever fire arms were in the
wagon. In vain she told them the weapons had already been surrendered,
and that she did not have the keys to unlock the boxes in the wagon.
They used a hammer to forcibly break open the boxes, and proceeded
to ransack all that the wagon contained, with the result that they
obtained possession of a sword and bowie knife. These they brandished
before the frightened mother and panic-stricken children, accusing her
of lying to them when she said she had no fire arms, and threatening to
cut her head off.
A sister of the Prophet Joseph Smith was a witness of this scene, she
having proffered to remain with Mother Lambert for company while her
husband was absent, and expressed regret that she didn't have some
weapon to shoot the men with while threatening her friend.
In course of time they succeeded in getting ferried over the river and
formed a camp on the Iowa side until Father Lambert could fulfill his
pledge to help the poor Saints who had no means of conveyance, across
the river, where they would be free from the power of the mob.
While engaged in this mission of charity, a party of mobocrats
recognized him as one who had been conspicuous in the fight, and, with
guns aimed at him, ordered his surrender. Then, while the two largest
men of the party took him down into the the river and held him under
the water three times in succession until his breath was gone, fourteen
others, with their guns cocked and ready for action, threatened to
shoot him if he attempted to resist.
Of course, he did not resist, neither did two brethren who were with
him at the time--Thomas Harrington and Daniel Hill--for they were
unarmed and knew it would be folly to do so. They were silent witnesses
of the scene, and neither they nor Father Lambert made any response
to the oaths of their persecutors, nor to the threat that if they
ventured upon that side of the river again they would be shot on sight.
Notwithstanding the threat, however, Father Lambert was in Nauvoo the
following day, and continued to go over there until all the poor Saints
who cared to be helped across the river had abandoned the city.
On one of these occasions he was detained in Nauvoo, because of the
pressing nature of what he had in hand, and Mother Lambert, fearing
the mob had caught him and executed their threat, walked the bank of
the river all night in the greatest agony of suspense, and inquired
anxiously about her husband of every passenger that crossed on the
ferry boat, but all in vain. However, he showed up the next morning,
with an additional yoke of cattle which he had secured on an account
due him.
While encamped on the bank of the river on the Iowa side, a rain storm
occurred, which continued without cessation for three days and nights,
until the wagons and their contents, as well as the clothing worn, were
thoroughly soaked. The sick woman, Mrs. Haines, was placed on a bed
under the wagon, that being the most sheltered place available, and
there Mother Lambert and others waited upon her as best they could,
even holding milk pans over her bed to catch the water as it dripped
through the wagon box, until she died--a martyr to the persecution to
which the Saints were subjected.
It was while encamped on the bank of this river that the Saints, many
of them suffering for want of food as well as otherwise ailing, were
visited by a flock of quails, miraculously rendered so tame that some
of them alighted on the beds occupied by the sick and were caught by
their hands, and others allowed themselves to be killed with sticks.
Those persecuted and suffering Saints, the Lambert family among the
rest, accepted the birds as sent of the Lord, considering themselves
as much the objects of divine favor as were the Israelites of old when
fed with manna, and cooked the quail and ate them with the greatest
possible relish.
The journey through Iowa was a very difficult one, and not entirely
devoid of danger. The country was very sparsely settled, there were no
really good roads except occasional stretches of natural prairie, and
the numerous streams encountered generally had to be forded because of
the absence of bridges. However, they did not travel continuously, a
stop of some weeks being made at Bonaparte, and employment obtained by
which supplies were earned.
It was while traveling westward from that point that a very serious
accident occurred. Mother Lambert was very nervous about riding over
bad places, preferring to walk when allowed to do so. The fact that
the team animals, which consisted of two yoke of steers and one yoke
of cows, were not well broken--in fact, quite wild when they left
Nauvoo--rendered her more chary about riding. When approaching Soap
Creek, which she had learned was a difficult stream to cross, she
alighted from the wagon, and soon afterwards, by some accident, fell in
front of the wagon wheel, and, before the team could be stopped, two
wheels had passed over the small of her back. In addition to the weight
of the wagon itself, its load amounted to fully 3500 pounds, making
a combined weight sufficient to crush the life out of a person under
ordinary circumstances. Indeed, it was supposed when she was picked up
that she was dead. Father Lambert, however, was not willing to admit
such a possibility, and called upon as many of his fellow travelers as
had any faith to join with him in administering to her. His wife was
miraculously spared, and the journey resumed the following day, but she
has suffered more or less ever since from the effects of the accident.
Winter Quarters, on the west bank of the Missouri river, where the
main body of the Saints had encamped, was reached late in November,
and, as soon as Father Lambert had constructed a log house to shelter
his family during the winter, he made his way to Missouri and found
employment by which he earned supplies, and sent to his wife and
children. He and his family were ambitious to journey westward with the
pioneers in the spring. They were prevented, however, from doing so
by the Indians killing their team animals after they had been brought
through the winter in good condition, and shortly before the journey
was to be undertaken.
It was a sad disappointment, but only a temporary set back. With
courage unabated, the family removed to St. Joseph, Mo., where living
was cheap and work abundant, and in February of the following year,
with a new team and supplies earned in Missouri, Mother Lambert and the
children were sent forward to Winter Quarters, to be ready to undertake
the journey westward, while Father Lambert remained in Missouri to work
as long as possible before rejoining them.
That journey of 150 miles in that inclement season was a terrible one,
but it was bravely accomplished. In crossing the river from Ferry Point
to Winter Quarters, however, a new misfortune occurred. The river had
been frozen over for a considerable period, and teams had passed over
it on the ice with impunity. Even that very morning two heavily loaded
wagons had gone over. Yet, when the Lambert wagon was being taken
across, although the precaution had been resorted to of taking the team
over first and drawing the wagon over from a distance with a rope, the
ice gave way. There, in that bleak March weather, six weeks before
her son George was born, Mother Lambert stood upon the bank of the
Missouri river, with her child in her arms and her two young brothers
and younger sister clinging to her skirts, and saw the wagon containing
all the family's earthly substance sink through the ice to the bottom
of the stream. Sister Jane Dutson, (afterwards Mrs. Alexander Melville,
of Fillmore) who had accompanied Mother Lambert from Missouri, stood
beside her when the wagon disappeared, and the catastrophe almost made
their hearts cease beating.
They never expected to see the wagon or its contents again. The
accident, however, didn't prove so serious as that. The occasion served
to illustrate how spontaneously kind, sympathetic and resourceful
Latter-day Saints are. Though Mother Lambert had few acquaintances in
Winter Quarters, the news of her misfortune soon spread, and proffers
of help and expressions of sympathy came from all quarters. Volunteers
soon plunged into the ice-cold water and readily reappeared bearing
in their hands articles recovered from the wagon, which in turn were
seized by others standing near the edge of the ice and then loaded
upon hand sleds and conveyed to the shore. Before night set in most
of the contents of the wagon had been recovered--damaged, of course,
but not completely spoiled, and all done without any intimation of a
favor being conferred thereby, much less any kind of remuneration being
expected. Depend upon it, though, Mother Lambert was not lacking in
gratitude, and in her prayers that night as she enjoyed the shelter
of Brother Harrington's hospitable roof, she thanked God with all the
fervency of which she was capable that she was a Latter-day Saint, and
for the fraternal spirit that abounded among her fellow members.
The next day, by some method not now remembered, the wagon also was
recovered.
Very soon afterwards President Young, who was then at Winter Quarters,
preparing to start on his second trip to the Salt Lake Valley,
accompanied by his family, wrote to Father Lambert in Missouri,
advising that he remain there another year, promising, as a condition
of his doing so, that he should lose nothing, but be able to go with
a much better outfit than he otherwise could. Mother Lambert and the
children accordingly returned thither, and awaited the arrival of the
spring of 1849.
The journey to the valley, which occupied six months, was full of
vicissitudes and rich in the experience that tends most to develop
character. The goal for which the family had longed and prayed, though
a wild region, forbidding in appearance, was hailed with joy, as
promising exemption from contact with a sinful world, and freedom from
persecution.
One thing that was specially disappointing to Mother Lambert and her
three proteges was, that their brother George Q., who, with his sister
Ann had reached the valley in 1847, soon after the pioneers landed,
had only the day before started on a mission to California, thence
to proceed to the Sandwich Islands. This involved a separation, as
it afterwards proved (counting from the time they parted in Winter
Quarters,) of almost eight years. He had, in anticipation of the
family's arrival, arranged for the purchase of a lot--the same lot
which was the family's home for so many years, and still in their
possession, and made some adobes from which they might construct a
house.
As illustrative of Father Lambert's disposition to follow the counsel
of the church leaders, it may here be mentioned that President Willard
Richards, one of the pioneers, and second counselor to President Young,
who entertained a very strong friendship for Father Lambert, had saved
a corner lot on Main Street--that which Walker Bros. bank occupied for
so many years--for his friend, and so informed him on his arrival.
Father Lambert expressed his gratitude for the kindness, but said, as
President Young's counsel was that no family should have more than one
city lot, and his brother-in-law, George Q., had bargained for a lot
for him a couple of blocks distant from Main Street (the price of which
must be paid) and made some adobes with which to build thereon, he felt
that he ought to decline Brother Richards' kind offer. One has only to
recall the almost fabulous value of that Main Street lot at the present
time to realize what he lost by that declination, and yet, if its
possession would have made the family become worldly-minded and think
less of their religion, Father Lambert must even now, if permitted to
know anything of mundane affairs, thank God that he did not accept it.
Those early years in Salt Lake Valley were years of desperate toil,
hardship and privation, of which the Lambert family had their full
share--perhaps more than their share; not however, from want of effort
on their part, for none were more industrious or frugal, but largely
because of their willingness to help others.
A more generous man than Charles Lambert probably never lived. He found
more pleasure in relieving the wants of others who were in need than
self gratification ever could have afforded him, and his wife was a
worthy partner in that same respect. The needy did not have to apply
to them to obtain assistance; they were sought for and their wants
relieved without ostentation. No family ever bore privation with less
complaining. When the crops failed through the ravages of grasshoppers,
weeks passed without even the children of the household and served
first the were they and bread, tasting the last to go without.
No woman in Utah probably had the faculty of preparing for her family a
more palatable meal from herbs and roots than Mother Lambert, nor more
wholesome and enjoyable fare when food was more plentiful and varied.
How she accomplished the herculean tasks which came to her, and which
she performed uncomplainingly, is incomprehensible to the present
generation. Her first three children being boys, and their services
being otherwise required, she had very little help in the household
the greater part of the time she was bearing children, and she was the
mother of fourteen. (She didn't shirk the duties of motherhood.) She
was the dressmaker and tailoress for the family, even to the carding
and spinning of the wool some of the time. Hers also was the task of
cooking for the family, and not with the present facilities either. The
open fireplace with its bake kettle and skillet and frying pan, and the
adobe oven, were her early culinary conveniences in Utah. These were
succeeded by the sheet iron stove, and that by the cast iron stove,
and so on up to the range. She did the butter making and washing and
ironing and mending for the family too, and it was always a big family,
frequently including hired male help. She was the housekeeper also,
and a good housekeeper too, the house being seldom out of order. It
presented a cheery welcome to friends and acquaintances from far and
near, and many availed themselves of it.
Hers was no stinted hospitality. The best she had was at the disposal
of all who called, and frequently even the floors were taxed to their
capacity to find room for the beds of those she entertained.
She was a good disciplinarian too. All her children as they grew up
were taught to work, and in turn bore their share of the burden. She
was also a famous nurse, and possessed of considerable skill in the use
of the simple remedies that served so well to maintain a standard of
health that has not been equaled in more recent years, notwithstanding
our numerous and high-priced doctors. In these latter respects her
services were not limited to members of her own household by any means.
Her own health was never especially robust, though she must have
inherited a strong constitution and possessed naturally an indomitable
will. She was seldom free from pain in her back, as a result of the
accident before mentioned. Her powers were taxed too, upon numerous
occasions, and for extended periods, in caring for an ailing husband,
although he was a man who would bear any amount of pain without
complaint. He was a great sufferer from inflammatory rheumatism, which
caused a partial loss or his eyesight several times, and for more than
six months at one time he was without the use of one arm, through
having his shoulder dislocated.
The death of her husband, which occurred more than twenty-two years
since, added an additional burden to her, but it also called forth her
self-reliance, and proved that she possessed considerable executive
ability.
In addition to all the labors and cares and duties mentioned, Mother
Lambert found time throughout a very large part of her career for
a great deal of charity work. For fifteen and a half years she was
secretary of the relief society of the 7th ward, and for the succeeding
twenty-two years was its president. She filled the last named office
up to the time she removed from the ward, and her removal was for the
purpose of being near the Temple, having been called to be one of its
regular workers at the time that edifice was completed in 1893.
She filled a mission to England with her husband in 1882-3 and spent
several months visiting different countries in Europe in 1906, mainly
for the purpose of obtaining genealogical data. She has performed
ordinances in the Temple for hundreds of her relatives and friends
who died without the privilege of accepting the Gospel. She has also
labored to a considerable extent as a missionary from the general board
of the Relief Society, her travels in this capacity extending from
Idaho in the north to Mexico in the south.
As an indication of the devotion of Mother Lambert and her family to
the cause of truth, it may be said that the missionary work performed
by herself and direct progeny (including the general work in the
Temple, by direct call of the Church authorities) amounts in the
aggregate to more than fifty-eight years.
Hers has been an unusually busy and useful life, and, according to
her opinion, a rather happy one. She feels that she has had more real
joy during her eighty-five and a half years upon earth than usually
falls to the lot of mortals. And why not? A faithful adherence to
duty throughout her life has left her comparatively little to regret,
and unhappiness is largely the result of regret and remorse for sins
committed and opportunities lost. Happiness depends less upon worldly
possessions and a life of ease than upon a pure heart and a clear
conscience. Her present joy is all the more complete for the sorrow she
has felt; the peace of her recent years all the more enjoyable for the
trials and turmoil of the past, and the comfortable competence she now
enjoys is all the more appreciated because of her early privations.
If happiness is at all dependent upon the love of kindred, she ought
to be supremely happy; for she has a numerous posterity, who almost
idolize her. She is not able to wholly gratify the wishes of her
several sons and daughters, because of her inability to spend her
remaining days in mortality as a member of the household of each; so
until recently she maintained her own modest but comfortable home and
enjoyed a hearty welcome at the home of any of them as often and as
long as she chose to visit.
During recent years the infirmity of age has led her to give up
housekeeping and take up her residence with her eldest daughter. She
receives every attention that love and duty can suggest, and is happy
and contented. She is still a model of industry, seldom being seated
for many minutes without having some kind of needlework, writing or
reading to give her attention to.
In this connection it may be mentioned that for a great many years
past it has been her habit to exhibit specimens of her needle work
produced during the previous year at the annual State Fair, and has
always received recognition, and sometimes the highest prizes, for the
excellence of her productions.
As an indication of her methodical habits, it may be mentioned that
she keeps a diary, or journal, in which she daily records, with her
own hand, passing events of local or general interest, and especially
happenings among her own family or progeny, and her financial
transactions, as well as how she spends her time and the condition of
her health. This has been her daily practice ever since shortly after
her husband's death, and is a continuation of the journal which he kept
during the greater part of his life.
It may be mentioned that Mother Lambert's personal accidents during
her later years have been somewhat numerous, mainly because of her
independence and disposition to do things herself rather than ask
anyone else to do them for her. She has suffered from broken ribs no
less than six different times, but she has always rallied wonderfully
quick from any injury or ailment.
She takes a great interest in all of her progeny, remembers their names
and quite generally their birthdays, and frequently visits among them.
Her children appreciate her wise counsel and motherly interest, and
feel, one and all, that whatever of merit they have accomplished in
life has been due to the inspiring example and wholesome precepts set
before them by her and their revered father.
To him not less than to her do they feel indebted, and forever shall
be though they become the best and most dutiful of sons and daughters,
for he was a model father, as loving, kind, self-sacrificing, honest,
industrious and faithful as mortal father ever was. He alone of all his
father's family embraced the Gospel as revealed anew, but from him and
Mother Lambert, through the blessing of the Lord, a direct progeny has
resulted (including three generations) to the number of 201, all of
whom are living except 29, and all in the faith for which he sacrificed
so much, and which was his guiding star through life.
Scarcely less remarkable has been the increase from the Cannon family
generally, although the posterity of Mother Lambert outnumbers those of
any one of her brothers or sisters. The direct descendants of George
Cannon (including the six children already mentioned as having been
left orphans, and their sister Elizabeth, born as a product of the
second marriage six months after her father's death) who are living
number almost 700, to say nothing of those who have died. In view of
the fact that their numerous relatives left in England and the Isle
of Man have actually decreased until their known descendents scarcely
outnumber the fingers on one's two hands, we may well exclaim, "What
hath God wrought!"
EXAMPLES OF RIGHTEOUS ZEAL.
NIGHT WORKERS WHO SERVE IN THE TEMPLE DURING THE DAY--MANY WOMEN SERVE
AT GREAT PERSONAL SACRIFICE--TEMPLE WORK A BOON TO THE BLIND.
Among those who are in daily attendance at the Salt Lake Temple,
officiating for the dead, are quite a number of men who are deserving
of special credit, because of the personal sacrifice the service
involves. Allusion is made to those who earn their living by working at
night, and then deny themselves the sleep and rest their tired natures
crave, by devoting a good half day's service to Temple work, either
for their own kindred dead or others. Indeed, it occasionally amounts
to considerably more than half a day. They usually form part of the
morning company, all the members of which are supposed to be present
and seated before 9 a. m., when the introductory service commences.
Under ordinary conditions, they may expect to emerge from the Temple
about two o'clock; but if the company be unusually large, (as it is
quite frequently,) it may be nearer 4 p. m. before they get out.
Most men object strongly to being deprived of ample and regular hours
of rest and sleep, and many persons would rather make a financial
sacrifice than forego the sleep and rest they feel that they require.
If they had to work all night they would feel that any kind of service
during the day, to which they would have to give strict attention for
several successive hours, would be absolutely out of the question.
The examples in mind are men in humble or moderate circumstances, who
possibly couldn't very well afford to hire others to officiate for
them; so if they failed to do it themselves, by sheer self denial, it
would probably not be done.
August Roth is employed at the car barn in this city, cleaning out cars
(which is very tiresome work,) from 6 p. m. to 6. a. m., every night in
the week, yet is almost invariably at the Temple two days a week, and
sometimes three. He and his wife (and a lady friend who occasionally
comes with them) have, during the past six years, done the work for
about 800 persons, mostly his or his wife's relatives. For a poor
man, he has also been very generous in his free will offerings to the
Temple. It has been his habit to contribute fifty cents every time he
comes to the Temple.
Karl Niemelka has also been employed at the car barn at night for
several years past, and done a good deal of work in the Temple (though
not as much as Brother Roth) for his dead kindred, and has just left to
fill a mission to his native land. While absent he hopes to engage in
genealogical research, and be the better prepared for Temple work on
his return.
John C. Hoggan is employed as a nightwatchman, having the care of a
large amount of business property, and is required to be on duty and
generally moving about from 8 p. m. until 6:15 a. m. every night in
the week. Notwithstanding this, he has averaged fully two days a week
at the Temple for the past eight years, working mostly for his own and
his wife's kindred, but occasionally for others, and all that he has
received for his service in behalf of others he has contributed to the
missionary fund, in the ward in which he resides.
Albert A. Quellmalz is janitor in a large office building and a number
of stores, to which he has to devote eight hours work between the
time business closes at night and opens in the morning. Yet he never
fails to serve in the Temple on Tuesday, the day devoted to baptisms,
as well as the three succeeding days of the week. He has during the
past eight years officiated for about 650 dead relatives and friends.
Brother Quellmalz is a very studious, methodical man, and enjoys quite
a reputation for efficient service in other capacities in the Church.
John N. Swift is employed as a janitor by one of the railway companies
every night in the week, being on duty from 5 p. m. until 8 a. m. In
addition to this, he has served regularly in the Temple during the past
six years on Thursday and Friday. Some indication of the sacrifice this
service involves is conveyed in the statement that, although his home
is in Sugar House Ward, not a great distance away, he is necessarily
absent therefrom continuously from Wednesday at 4:30 p. m. until
Saturday at 9 a. m. His service in the Temple has been entirely in the
interest of his own relatives.
John S. Muir has been employed by the Church for twenty years past as
nightwatchman, formerly at the tithing office and yards, but since its
erection at the Bishop's Building, every night in the week. During
the past twelve years he has spent from one to two days a week in the
Temple, having done the work for rather more than 600 persons.
Jedediah M. Brown, of South Bountiful, has been janitor at the large
public school building in that region for the past twenty years, and
during six years of that time was also nightwatchman at the Deseret
Live Stock Co. Store. Yet during all that period, with the exception of
fourteen months while he was absent on a mission, he has spent on an
average two days a week in the Temple. For a number of years past his
health has been quite poor, having contracted chills and fever while
on his mission, which later developed into chronic rheumatism, from
which he has suffered ever since. Whatever the condition of his health,
however, he has never yet felt willing to give up his service in behalf
of the dead. In addition to the service mentioned, he is under the
necessity of traveling about twenty miles by train or otherwise every
day he serves in the Temple.
Ernest R. S. Schnelle is also employed as a nightwatchman, in an
outlying business district, and is responsible for a great deal of
valuable property, some of which tramps are specially liable to prey
upon, so that he has to be constantly wide awake and alert for twelve
hours at a stretch every night, but he is among the most regular and
devoted of the Temple workers.
Robert Hunter, who is nightwatchman at Z. C. M. I., is a frequent
attendant at the Temple, mostly laboring for others, because of lacking
names of his own kindred dead, and is in the habit of voluntarily
contributing to the Temple expense fund all that he receives for his
service.
Doubtless many of the women who are in daily attendance at the Temple,
so serve at very great personal sacrifice. Self denying women seldom
expect or receive full credit in this life for what they do in the
way of service. Perhaps only the All-seeing Father or recording
angels know all of the heroism involved in the nightly toil and rigid
self-denial with which many, possibly most, of the sisters patiently
and uncomplainingly serve in the Temple for the benefit of those who
are powerless to repay them in this life. It would be difficult to find
a more devoted and truly charitable class of women than those laboring
in the Salt Lake Temple.
The women in attendance at the Temple almost invariably far outnumber
the men--sometimes two to one. Another characteristic of the regular
attendants is that there is a preponderance of foreigners. A very large
proportion of the regular workers are Scandinavians. The Swiss and
Germans are also quite largely represented.
One of the most self-denying and devoted women who ever served in
the Salt Lake Temple was Sister Berger, or (as she was known in the
Temple, by the name of her first husband) Catherina B. Moosheer. She
was a native of Zurich, Switzerland, being born January 25, 1823. From
the time she embraced the Gospel she was very much concerned about
the salvation of her dead kindred, and took care to obtain all the
information possible about her ancestors.
She arrived in Utah July 4, 1872, accompanied by her son and daughter.
She purchased a home and exerted herself to the utmost to make her
own way in the world by engaging as a nurse, by which she accumulated
considerable property. She had the work done for her immediate
ancestors as early as 1876, in the Endowment House. After that she
found an opportunity of having her genealogy traced up by a party who
was engaged in that line, and spent money very freely for that purpose.
She worked in the Temple almost from the time it opened. In 1895 she
was partially paralyzed, and never fully recovered therefrom. This made
her if possible more anxious than ever to hasten the work for her dead
kindred. She sold her home to obtain the means necessary to secure
as many names as possible of her dead kindred, and to employ men and
women to help her in doing the work for them. Her records show that
in all sixty-five different people were employed to assist her. For a
period of two and a half years she had twelve persons--six men and six
women--constantly employed in helping her in the Temple. She had the
work fully done for 1,748 of her dead kindred, and sacrificed all that
she possessed in order to accomplish it.
It may be of interest to note that Sister Moosheer was the first Temple
worker to complete a record of 1,000 names.
She died in Salt Lake City June 9, 1899, shortly after completing the
work for the last name she had of her dead kindred.
Her son and daughter and their families gave her every possible
encouragement in the Temple work while she lived, and are now more
proud of what she accomplished therein than they would be if she had
left them fortunes.
Another very devoted woman in the Temple work is Sister Catherina Z.
Schuler. She is also a native of Switzerland, having been born in
Glarus, May 22, 1834. She not only sacrificed her home there for the
Gospel's sake, but left her husband also because of his determined
opposition to her religion.
Bringing her son with her, she came to Utah and located first at Logan,
where she remained for several years, and where her son subsequently
died. She was present at the dedication of the Logan Temple, and did
a good deal of work there for her dead kindred, of whom she had or
subsequently obtained a very extensive list.
She removed to Salt Lake City in 1892, and witnessed also the
dedication of the Temple in this city. She was dependent entirely
upon her own earnings, and went out sewing as she found opportunity,
and did Temple work occasionally. Since 1898 she has devoted herself
exclusively to her Temple work, in which she has been assisted by many
friends, and devoted every cent she could save to hiring men to work
for her male kindred. In all, she has done, or had done, the work for
fully 2,400 of her kindred dead.
A look at Sister Schuler's face is sufficient to convince any person
that hers is a joyful work. Though she is now past eighty years of
age, and has always been used to hard work, she is well preserved and
active, and, though not mirthful, she is ever good natured, patient
and contented. As in the case of many others who are active in Temple
work, that labor has doubtless added years to her life, and rendered
her declining days in mortality about the happiest she has ever spent.
The consciousness of being a savior of others has brought her more joy
than the possession of wealth or worldly honors ever could.
Sister Annie Davis Watson, widow of the late Joseph M. Watson, was a
worker in the Temple for seventeen years, and only gave up the work
because of her hearing growing so bad that she could not continue. Her
husband died in the year 1895. She never had any children, and her life
would have been extremely lonely if she had not interested herself in
the work for the dead. She had a desire to devote herself to working
for her husband's dead kindred, and mentioned the matter to President
Snow, telling him if she could not so labor she had no desire to live;
also that she had no genealogy of her husband's kindred farther back
than his parents, for whom the work had already been done. He told her
she would be able to obtain the genealogical information necessary,
advised her to take up the work and promised there should be no end
to it. He also told her that her husband in the spirit world would
be familiar with every circumstance connected with the work as it
progressed.
She has since devoted her life and her income to the work, and either
officiated herself, or employed others to officiate, for 15,247 dead
persons, most of whom are her husband's kindred.
She says it is the most glorious work she ever engaged in, and she has
felt the presence of her husband's spirit upon many occasions.
There is one special class to whom the vicarious work in the Salt Lake
Temple must be a very great boon. The blind, of whom there are quite a
number of both sexes, in daily attendance, seem to find special comfort
in the work. The opportunities people have of making themselves useful
to their fellows, after being deprived of the priceless gift of sight,
are extremely limited. People of independent minds dislike to be always
treated as objects of charity. They like to feel that they are of some
use in the world, and it is doubtful if there is any other work in
which the average blind person can engage with so much satisfaction
as that in the Temple. It is usually conceded that the loss of sight
by a normal person has the effect of quickening and strengthening
his remaining senses, and it is quite possible that the most of the
sightless workers in the Temple get more enjoyment out of the work than
the average person who retains his sight. He is perhaps able to think
more profoundly, and is more susceptible to the impressions of the
Spirit than if he had the use of his eyes.
Perhaps no man that ever labored in the Temple enjoyed the Spirit of
the work more and shed a better influence among his associates than did
Samuel W. Jenkinson, a blind brother of rather unusual intelligence and
devotion, who died about three years since, and of whose experiences
more may be said hereafter.
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