| 509 "Subsequently, by the means of a vision, we learned what our duty was in regard to the sin in the West. Subsequently still, in 1859, we were told by dream and vision, that the people then trying to gather up the remnants, were acknowledged of God, and for us to cast our lot with them, and raise our voice in calling upon the Latter Day Saints to return to the law which they had forsaken.
"We did so, and in 1860 we met the saints at Amboy, where they had been told we should come to them.
"That these events have not been in accordance with the ideas entertained by many, as to the manner in which the church should have been organized, or that we should have been chosen, we are quite well aware; but so it is, and so they are, and we shall trust in God for the issue.-The Saints' Herald, vol. 14, pp. 104-106.
This was evidently written in a humble, candid spirit, and will recommend itself to the unprejudiced mind. It is a sufficient refutation of the charge of discrepancy regarding dates and places where and when President Smith was blessed by his father.
On pages 51 and 52 of "Succession in the Presidency of the Church," published in 1894, Elder B. H. Roberts seeks to throw discredit upon the claim that President Smith received a blessing under the hands of his father, by pointing out that some of the testimony used by the Reorganization locates the place of blessing in Liberty Jail, Missouri, and some locates the place of blessing in Illinois. Here President Smith states that the blessing was pronounced upon him in Liberty Jail, and twice confirmed upon him in Nauvoo. The strength of this statement lies in the fact that it was not made to meet the criticism, nor to heal the supposed defects in the testimony, but it was made about twenty-six years before the criticism was offered.
The statement was made in the Restorer for October, 1868, that a branch had been organized at Penston, Scotland, by Elder George M. Rush.
The Semiannual Conference of 1868 was held near Council Bluffs, Iowa, October 6 to 8. President Joseph Smith presided, and D. P. Hartwell and Thomas J. Smith were
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