| 384 "We arrived at Liverpool on the fourth day of February, after a very stormy voyage, and I soon learned by the newspapers that there had been great destruction on sea and land.
"After landing I secured lodgings where I stayed in Liverpool when I started on my outward bound trip for Utah nine years before, Mrs. Powell's, Great Crosshall Street. Another lady kept the house now, but I was treated kindly and lodged for a reasonable sum. I had the first good night's rest that I had enjoyed for fourteen nights. . . .
"I bought a few things needful and then ordered one thousand of President Joseph Smith's first epistle to the saints printed. On the 6th I visited George Q. Cannon, then president of the Brighamite churches in England. I made known my mission to him and requested the privilege of presenting the matter before his people. He treated my statement with contempt and absolutely refused to allow me to speak in their meetings. I offered him some pamphlets to read. He refused them, declaring that the leaders of the Reorganized Church were apostates. I invited him to an open discussion of the matter. He flatly refused. I then turned to his counselors, Chauncy W. West and Jacob Biggler, and invited them to investigate the matter with me, but, like their chief, they refused.
"In a few days the Millennial Star contained a statement from the pen of its editor, Cannon, claiming to be 'The whisperings of the Spirit,' warning the members of his church that the Spirit had made known to him that apostates would soon be in their midst seeking to lead them from the truth. Of course when I appeared among the branches, they remembered Cannon's pretended prophecy, and my presence among them was esteemed as evidence that George Q. Cannon was a prophet. But I had been the means of making him aware of the presence of the one he was pleased to brand as an apostate, and I had assured him in the name of Jesus Christ that we would make our message ring from one end of the land to the other.
(page 384) |
