| 634 East, and feels very much encouraged"-The Saints' Herald, vol. 18, pp. 660, 661.
November 14, Elder Z. H. Gurley, Jr., wrote as follows:
"Since my last, I have baptized eleven persons in Fayette township, Iowa. Bro. Banta spoke there Sunday last, the feeling there is good in our behalf. Persecution reigns in Allendale and vicinity. Hope to visit there soon."-The Saints' Herald, vol. 18, p. 725.
December 7, Elder Josiah Ells wrote from Boston, concerning some parties who had returned from Palestine:-
"'I had the privilege of baptizing three at Indian River, Maine, on Sunday, the third of December. Others would have been but for their too late arrival at the place of meeting.' These were a part of the colony that G. J. Adams took to Jaffa, Palestine, and who returned from there-The Saints' Herald, vol. 19, p. 17.
Again he wrote, on December 15, as follows:-
"Two of the brethren I baptized belonged to the Jaffa colony which went to Palestine; one of them I ordained a priest, the other will be ordained also. . . . The brethren will continue their labor, and keep the fire burning, and I shall be most happy to learn they have reaped all that is sown, and more too. I believe I am justified in saying that many in that region will obey the gospel."-The Saints' Herald, vol. 19, p. 55.
The year 1871 was an eventful year, not only in church work, but in the phenomena exhibited in the physical universe. The Chicago Tribune, of November 15, contained an interesting and startling summary of disasters in the world during the year. 3
3 THE BLACK YEAR.
The year 1871 will hardly be considered in history a year of grace. In point of fatality to human life, and destruction to material values by extraordinary natural causes, no year in the history of the world can equal it. Overwhelmed as we are by our own disaster, we have given little attention to what has been transpiring abroad, and have almost come to consider ourselves the only sufferers. The retrospect, however, is a terrible one. War, famine, pestilence, fire, wind and water, and ice, have been let loose and done their worst, and with such appalling results, and with such remarkable phenomena accompanying them, that it is not to be wondered at, men have sometimes thought the end of the world had come. We have seen our own fair city laid in ashes, throughout
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