On receipt of his returned letter, Professor Maeser forwarded it to Elder John Van Cott, at Copenhagen. As Elder Van Cott knew I was presiding over the German mission, he mailed the letter to me, explaining that he had directed the professor to me, as he was doing nothing in the German language, and he believed him to be an honest inquirer after truth. I answered Professor Maeser's letter, and he wanted to know more. I sent him German publications: he believed them all and said during an approaching vacation he would come to Geneva, a distance of about six hundred miles, and be baptized. Thinking this might be an opening to establish the gospel in the heart of Germany, where it had not been preached for about eighteen hundred years, I wrote and told the professor that if there was free toleration of religion perhaps I might send an Elder to preach the gospel to others as well as to instruct him further in its principles. He wrote, in answer, that no religion, except the Lutheran, was allowed to be taught, and that was the national religion. He thought, however, that as all persons who took up their abode in the kingdom had to make known their business, an Elder might go under the guise of a teacher of the English language. On my informing him that I apprehended such a policy might draw a class around him who would be liable to betray him to prison and banishment, and as I had an Elder under my charge who had some knowledge of the German language, I asked him whether it would not be better that his object be known to be to complete his education in the same. Simple as this suggestion was, it struck him with great force. Knowing that I was unacquainted with their laws and customs and that he had been taught them from childhood, in fact, was a leading teacher among his fellows, he referred to this fact and said he could see the wisdom of the Lord in it, and it was another evidence to him that the Latter-day Saints were His people, and he would be exceedingly glad if I could send an Elder to baptize him. An important duty now devolved upon me which was to inform the learned professor that our Elders, like the ancient disciples, traveled and preached the gospel "without purse or scrip," and, if an Elder was sent, he would have to sustain him free of charge. Most men of his type would have spurned such a proposition. Not so with this humble servant of the Lord. In his reply he said: "If you send an Elder, my house shall be his house, my table shall be his table, all I have shall be his as well as mine." Apostle Franklin D. Richards, president of the European mission, who had recently arrived in Geneva from Liverpool, on hearing this letter read, immediately decided to send Elder William Budge, who was then in England, having been banished from Zurich, a prominent Swiss canton.