"I am at Brother Evan Green's. We have held all our conferences, have had two meetings to-day, it being the Sabbath. Some have been added to the Church and prejudice is considerably laid. Monday we shall go to Jacksonville, then on to Springfield. I shall be home in two or three weeks if the Lord wills it so. Since I left you it has been a time of much reflection. I felt as though I was a poor weak creature in and of myself, and only on God can I rely for support. I have been looking back over my past life before I heard the Gospel. It makes me shrink into nothing and to wish I had always been a righteous man from my youth, but we have an advocate with the Father, and I can look back since I came into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, with a degree of pleasure, but I can see if I had more knowledge I could have done better in many points. * * I feel as though I had rather die to-day than be left to transgress one of His laws, or to bring disgrace upon the cause which I have embraced, or a stain upon my character; and my prayer is day by day that God would take me to Himself rather than I should be left to sin against Him, or betray my dear brethren who have been true to me and to God the Eternal Father, and I feel to pray to Thee, O Lord, to help thy poor servant to be true to Thee all the days of my life, that I may never be left to sin against Thee or against Thy annointed, or any that love thee, that I may have wisdom and knowledge how to gain Thy favor at all times, for this is my desire, and that these blessings may rest upon my dear companion, and when we have done Thy work on this Thy footstool, that Thou wouldst receive us into that kingdom where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the holy prophets have gone, that we may never be separated any more, and before I should be left to betray my brethren in any case, let Thy servant come unto Thee in Thy Kingdom and there have the love of my youth, and the little ones Thou has given me. * * Now, my dear Vilate, stand by me even unto death, and when you pray, pray that I may hold out to the end. * * My heart aches for you and sometimes I can hardly speak without weeping, and that before my brethren: for I have a broken heart and my head is a fountain of tears. My life in this world is short at the longest, and I do not desire to live one day only to do good and to make you happy and bring up our little children in the ways of the Lord, and my prayer is that they may be righteous from the least to the greatest. * * The world has lost its charms for me, and I want to seek for that rest which remains for the people of God. I never had a greater desire to be a man of God than at the present, that I may know my acceptance with Him." "SPRINGFIELD, October 25th. "_My Dear Companion:_