There being none of the Elders on the Island of Oahu, it was decided
that Elders Bigler and Farrer should go there instead of to the island
of Molokai. When they sailed for that island, which they did in a few
weeks, Brother James Keeler was left alone with no one to converse
with in English, unless he occasionally met a white man. This gave him
a better opportunity of acquiring the language than he had when we
were all there. After some weeks he also was led to leave there and to
travel around the island until he found a people who were willing to
receive him and the principles which he taught.
When the Presbyterian missionary at Wailuku saw that I had come back
there he was displeased. He used all his influence against me among
his congregation, and one Sunday he came out in public and delivered a
most abusive discourse against the Prophet Joseph and our principles,
in which he gave an entirely false statement of the cause of his death,
and also warned the people against me.
I happened to be present when this sermon was delivered. While
listening to it a variety of emotions agitated me. My first impulse was
to jump upon one of the seats as soon as he had got through, and tell
the people he had told them a pack of falsehoods. But this I thought
would produce confusion, and result in no good. When the services were
over, I walked around to the pulpit where he stood. He knew how short
a time we had been on the islands, and, I believed, had no idea that I
could understand what he had said; when he saw me, therefore, his face
turned pale, and to me he looked like a man who had been caught in a
mean, low act.
I told him I wanted to give him correct information respecting the
things he had told the people that morning, that he might remove the
effect of the lies which he had repeated to them; for, I said, they
were base lies, and I was a living witness that they were.
He said he did not believe they were lies, and he should not tell the
people anything different to what he had said; he thought he had but
done his duty, and if the people had been warned against Mahomet in his
day, he would not have got so many disciples.
I bore him a solemn testimony respecting the prophet Joseph, and the
truth of the work, and said that I would stand as a witness against him
at the judgment seat of God, for having told that people lies and for
refusing to tell them the truth when it had been shown to him.
Much more was said, for our conversation lasted about half an hour, and
while we conversed many of the congregation, some of whom understood
English, crowded around.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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