By this time most of the members of the Pomphret Branch, into which I had been baptized, were gathered up to Kirtland, the first gathering-place of the Saints; and I was left without any one to counsel or direct me as to the way in which I should devote my labors in spreading the principles of truth, when one day the Word of the Lord, by the power of the Spirit, came unto me, saying, "I have fourteen sheep in Portland: go and gather them; then go south, where I have twenty-two more, and gather them also." I then began to preach for the first time, and for that purpose procured the school-room in Portland, and, through my friends, circulated a notice that I was going to preach. This gathered a small congregation of some thirty or forty people. At the time appointed I stood up to address them. As soon as I arose on my feet and looked on the congregation, the dream which I had had five years before, but which I had entirely forgotten, flashed across my recollection. There was the identical room I had seen, with the very people and children, just in those positions in the place that I had described them to my wife years before, when I informed her that I dreamed I was called to preach the Gospel! This was summer time. I continued preaching at Portland until the winter came on, when, having baptized a few out of the place, they met at my house at Pomphret on Sundays, and on the week days I extended my labors in the south. As I was told, I found just fourteen in Portland willing to obey the gospel, and by no exertion of mine could I get any more! I also obtained, in the south, the twenty-two previously spoken of, but it was a year and a half before I completed the number. Not long after receiving the office of Elder, I was called to lay hands on a sister named Crowell, in Chautauqua County, New York, who was afflicted with a cancer. Her life was despaired of by herself and her neighbors, when she sent to me, telling me to come that night if I wished to see her alive! Not being able to go then, I prayed the Lord to give her a good night's rest. I visited her in the morning, and found that she had had a better night's rest than usual. I found her head, where the cancer had broken out, a dreadful sight, full of cancer worms, which were eating into the skull, three pieces of which had come out. I anointed her head with oil, and prayed the Lord on her behalf, and, being obliged, left immediately to attend to my hay. The next time I saw her was the following Sunday, when I met her at the meeting. She pulled off her cap, and showed me her head. It was entirely healed, and the flesh was as sound as ever. She said that within half an hour after my administering to her, she felt all the pain, which had previously been intense, and, to use her expression, "like a thousand gimlets boring into her brain," leave her entirely, and the wound healed up rapidly.