| 60 not able to help to support us in the necessaries of life; times are hard, very hard. It is very difficult for us to get labor and support ourselves in that way, because there are at present hundreds and hundreds of the laboring class without employment; and another thing, the wages are so low; and a third thing is, people have no confidence in us, when we have to go and hire ourselves out for work. They say, "If your church is the church of God, as you say, why do they not sustain you with proper means to carry on the work?"
All the missionaries of the other denominations are sustained with the necessary means to commence their work; but till the present we have not. We are in a land and among a people all different to America, and have to break new ground. In America there are branches scattered very near all over, where the traveling elders can get supplied more or less; here it is not so. We have to pay for all we need; to beg we are not accustomed, and can not do it. I have used up my means, and also money which was my wife's; she was willing that I should use it for the sake of the gospel. Bro. Avondet has also used his own means to carry on the work.
We counseled together what would be the best for us to do, and come to this conclusion, to write to you and the churches in America, and ask this question: will the church in America sustain us with the necessary means for us to live, and the printed word to build up the church of Christ in these countries, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, or not?
We are satisfied that the church can be built up here; that many will embrace it, when we can spend our time in spreading the truth; if the church can not sustain us immediately, then we are not able to stand any longer, and ask to be released, which would give us pain indeed to give up our mission when the Spirit testifies unto us that a great work can be done here; but we are in this position now, that we can see no way for us, if the church does not take immediate action in our behalf and the work of God in these countries. We also concluded that if the church in America would help us, we would like to travel together, if you give your consent to it; we think we could do more good in going together than single; two testimonies are better than one.
We hope the church will sustain, not only in word, but in deed also; or release us from our mission, and let better men try here with means only as we had. When the work is once started, then the mission will supply itself.-The Saints' Herald, vol. 21, pp. 177, 178.
The following from the Herald for March 1, will be found interesting:
Bro. David Smith is again ill. The abiding faith and prayer of the Saints are requested in his behalf. He has been so constantly engaged since he first began his ministry that he is missed very much, and almost constant inquiry is made about him.
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