The father, however, delayed starting until misfortune began to overtake him, when he was reminded of the counsel he had received, and hastened to obey it. They took passage on the ship Ellen, which sailed from Liverpool, January 8, 1851. The vessel had not proceeded far when, during a heavy gale, she collided with another ship, and was so badly damaged that she had to run into Cardigan bay, North Wales, and remain there three weeks while undergoing repairs. While there one of the sailors was badly hurt, and was sent to Liverpool; and Thomas Briggs, the subject of this sketch, volunteered to take his place, and work his passage across the ocean, and was allowed to do so. After a fairly prosperous voyage the ship anchored at New Orleans on the 14th of March, and the Briggs family proceeded by steamboat up the Mississippi to St. Louis, where they landed March 26, 1851. There they met a man who had borrowed some money from the Briggs family in England, and who was now prepared to repay the loan, which helped them to make a new start, for the means with which they started had become exhausted. Father and son sought employment and worked at whatever job was offered them--as boat hands, farmers' hired help, bottle washers in soda water factories, teamsters, putting up ice, chopping cordwood, etc. Sometimes they were home at night, at other times absent for a considerable period. The cholera was very bad in St. Louis at that time, and one night while Thomas and his mother were the only members of the family at home, she was stricken with the cholera, and appeared to be dying. He was prompted to get some oil and administer to her. Though inexperienced, he anointed and prayed over her, and she immediately revived, and in a short time took some nourishment. Before many days had passed she was as well as ever. Soon afterwards, while Thomas was lying awake in bed one night, there suddenly appeared before his vision a personage dressed in black, who looking straight at him, said in a sneering tone: "You have saved her life this time, but I will have it next time. And when I get her life I will have yours." Thomas boldly answered: "You shall not!" He understood the personage to represent the power of darkness, and the person referred to as having her life saved to be his mother. He had reason to feel very soon that it was no idle threat that the evil one indulged in.