Prosecute the missionary work in this land and abroad so far and so widely as you may. All are called according to the gifts of God unto them; and to the intent that all may labor together, let him that laboreth in the ministry and him that toileth in the affairs of men of business and of work labor together with God for the accomplishment of the work intrusted to all.-Doctrine and Covenants 119: 8.

AUTUMN LEAVES

Volume 24

APRIL, 1911

Number 4

The First
First Great
Great Mission of
The Church.

By Inez Smith.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had been organized only about six months when the first mission was undertaken. Strangely enough, these intrepid missionaries into the western wilds chose the very route afterward followed by the church,-first to Kirtland, and then on to Independence, Missouri. This mission was very fruitful. Many converts were made, and among them were men of strong character who were afterward to take a prominent part in church work. God went with those first missionaries, directing them and blessing them.-EDITOR.

ACH spring, when all the world is beginning a new life, the church sends out from her ranks, with a prayer and "God bless you," a little army of workers, bearing to the world the tidings of a new life for all, and a gospel of peace and rest that was old when history was new. Some of our missionaries go far from home and home land, over the mountains and seas, to meet-no one knows exactly what-but at the very least homesickness and loneliness, and sometimes sorrow and even death; but no matter where they are or what they meet, our missionaries of to-day know that in the hearts of hosts who call themselves Latter Day Saints, there is always an unspoken prayer for their success, and they know that around hundreds of hearthstones in their native land, every night the prayer goes up from the oldest there to the tiny, lisping child, "God bless thy servants— everywhere." It was different when our first missionaries left the score of believers in a new and strange religion to cross the untracked forests and prairies on an errand of love.

About a year ago a young man was called to go on a foreign mission and started on his way in the midst of a session of General Conference. It was a beautiful scene, as well as a sad one, when the congregation rose and sang with hearts and eyes full, "God be with you till we meet again." In the hush that followed, like a benediction, one by one hands were offered the young man in a farewell clasp, and our minds went back to the handful who gave our first missionaries "godspeed" nearly eighty years ago.

PREPARATION FOR A GREAT MISSION.

Late in October four young men set out from the little village of Fayette, New York. It was the year 1830,-a memorable year for latter day Israel, a memorable one to the young men who began that long journey westward. A prophet had risen, and they had

come to learn and had been baptized; the whole course of their lives had been changed, and before them lay a future as fraught with peril as the journey they undertook that bright fall morning. For weeks before this event the women of the little group of first Latter Day Saints had been busy, for they had no little part to play in the sending forth of the first messengers of the church. There were clothes to make for the long, cold, winter journey. They went to work with a will, and it was not long before the missionaries were provided with necessities for the trip. Lucy Smith tells us that Emma, the Prophet's wife, worked far beyond her strength at this task, for the clothing was made from the raw material, spun, woven, cut, and sewed by the few women that could help.

THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT.

Oliver Cowdery, who probably was the leader of the little group, was but twenty-five years old; Parley P. Pratt was twenty-three; Peter Whitmer, junior, had just attained his majority; the other member of the party was Ziba Peterson. They had little money to use upon their journey, they had little need of it, for they were traveling like those of old, without purse or scrip. They had little learning with which to convert the world, but they had something better, they had a message-and the world has always stood still for the man with the message. We may admire the man with the lore of the ages at his command, the man with immense power of rhetoric and oratory at his call, but after all it is the man who has something to say and says it, that makes the world wake up and take notice. Our first missionaries had a story to tell, and although the words they spoke might have been poor, and even ungrammatical, there was a spirit behind them, and conviction carried conviction with it. It was a strange and new story and the men were swept wth a strange, new enthusiasm in its telling, like the bards of old, who

"When God made music through them, could but speak
His music by the framework and the chord."

They were men transfigured with the fire of conviction, and for such men the taunts of a conservative world, its torch and thumbscrew have ever held no terrors. Like the Roman Tertullian, who while writing in defense of the former day saints challenged his emperor, they challenge the world with his query, "Who ever looked well into our religion that did not embrace it?" It is the missionary fire that makes men think and believe. Sometimes we have seen men when the fire had flickered, or even died after years of discouragements. We have heard them preach a perfect sermon, not a word misplaced, not an illogical phrase; yet we marveled later and forgot them while listening to humbly spoken words of another man with a heart aflame. We sometimes wonder if the old maxim is true, that a perfect technique makes a soulless art, and if that is why God revealed his choice secrets to the rough sailors on Galilee; the awkward, unlettered farmer lad of Vermont; the poor, the ignorant, and humble.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS.

But our missionaries had set out through the many colored autumn woods with joyful hearts, and made light work of the miles that stretched before them. To every man they met, they gave of what they had; and they received a blessing for every word, for they were testing one of nature's great laws, and in blessing others, they blessed themselves. They did not go without credentials. They were commissioned by the One they professed to serve. Hardly-to-be-questioned credentials these.

"And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites, and preach my gospel unto them; and inasmuch as they receive thy teachings, thou shalt cause my church to be established among them, and thou shalt have revelations, but write them not by way of commandment. And now, behold, I say unto you, that it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites. . . . And now concerning my servant Parley P. Pratt, behold, I say unto him, that as I live I will that he shall declare my gospel and learn of me, and be meek and lowly of heart; and that which I have appointed unto him, is that he shall go with my servants Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, junior, into the wilderness, among the Lamanites; and Ziba Peterson, also, shall go with them, and I myself will go with them and be in their midst; and I am their advocate with the Father, and nothing shall prevail."

The days went by pleasantly to the wayfarers. They spent the time with discussion and conversation on their newly found treasure, for it filled the mind of each so that minor matters had lost their interest. Some of their time was spent in singing; one of the party, Ziba Peterson, seemingly was gifted in this line, and the way seemed short. It was not long before they reached the little Indian village, near the city of Buffalo, and in accordance with their special commission "tarried a part of the day" and taught the Indians from the Book of Mormon, and then leaving two copies of the book continued their journey.

THEY MEET SIDNEY RIGDON.

The next stop was at Mentor, Ohio, for the purpose of visiting the Rev. Sidney Rigdon, a progressive religionist of the day and an old friend and instructor of Elder Pratt's. Mr. Rigdon was an interesting character. He had been intimately connected with Alexander Campbell in the founding of the Christian Church, and his knowledge of the Scriptures and powers of interpretation were almost unparalleled in that day. At the time our heroes found him. he was enjoying the utmost confidence and trust of the community and country at large. He had built up a large congregation, finally became their pastor, giving up the trade of tanning, to which circumstances had forced him, after giving up his former pulpit on account of advanced religious ideas. The tiny frame house was soon to be abandoned, and a large, new house was being prepared