| 385 "Having got one thousand of Joseph's epistles printed, I circulated them, as many as I could among the Brighamites. My means were now nearly exhausted. I visited a number of people in Liverpool and to as many as would permit me I presented the teachings of the Reorganized Church, showing their harmony with the revelations of God in former and latter days.
"I made but little headway in Liverpool as very few were disposed to listen. I found many who had left the church because of polygamy and kindred evils, but these were yet too sore and disgusted to listen to anything that savored of 'Mormonism,' as it was termed. Truly all seemed dark, but my trust in God remained. The opposition I met was hard to endure; but it confirmed me in the divinity of my mission."
On February 13 he left Liverpool for Chester, where he visited a Mr. Coward, who had been to Utah, and spent a fortune, only to be disappointed in the character of those whom he had received as leaders. Elder Derry passed on through Gassford, Lightwood Green, Elsmere, and Wolverhampton, and on February 18, 1863, found himself at West Bromwich, the place where he was first baptized, and where his early labors in the church had been performed. Here he decided to make a stand and if possible rally his old friends around the standard. This was a commendable thing for an honorable man to do. It was evidence that he feared not the record that he had made among his neighbors. Though branded as an apostate, these people knew him, and knew him to be a man of integrity, and for no act of his early life did he blush with shame or fear to look his fellow man in the face. Surely his message would be received. But like the Master, he soon found that "a prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." And, like his Master, he was not without friends, among whom was Mr. Richard Stokes, who made him welcome to his home, the first home that had been offered him since his arrival in his native land.
Of his work in West Bromwich he writes:-
(page 385) |
