It was during my travels in England on this mission that I wrote the following letter in blank verse to my family, whom I had left at Council Bluffs, on the Missouri River. It was published in England at the time, on a beautiful sheet with a handsome border, and designed to be put in a frame as a household ornament; and is frequently seen to this day (1856) as a memorial in the parlors of the Saints on both sides of the Atlantic. May it be handed down to posterity as a monument of suffering and self-denial of women and children for the gospel's sake. CHAPTER XLIV. ------------------------ AN APOSTLE OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST, OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, _Was in the Island of Great Britain for the gospel's sake; and being in the Spirit on the 24th of November, 1846, addressed the following words of comfort to his dearly beloved wife and family, dwelling in tents, in the camp of Israel, at Council Bluffs, Missouri Territory, North America; where they and twenty thousand others were banished by the civilized Christians of the United States for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus:_ MY DEAREST WIFE, Thy kindly soul and all Thine acts of love to him, thy chosen head, Are treasured deep in memory's archives. And when, amid the busy throng of towns, I pass unheeded, or wander lonely In some country lane, or graveled highway, Lined with hawthorn hedge--or turn aside From the busy walks of men in meadows green, Or wander 'mid the solitary grove At twilight hour, where silence reins, and the Fading tints of autumn tell of time's flight, And the low murmur of the whispering breeze Steals o'er the senses like a funeral dirge,-- Or flying swift o'er country hedge and ditch In flaming chariot; while hills and vales-- And towns, and villas, farms, plains, and woods Are swiftly whirled behind--or musing in The midnight hour in lonely solitude Upon my bed--'Tis then I think of thee. Sweet thoughts steal gently o'er the memory; And my spirit wanders o'er the wide sea And far away o'er Alleghany's heights, And down the broad Ohio, from its source To where it mingles its limpid waters With the dark waves of Missouri's current; And onward still, with lightning speed it flies, Till towns and cries all are left behind; And the last trace of Gentile dwelling fades From view, and disappears in the far east. At length the long sought vision bursts to view And stays my spirit in its onward flight. Towering bluffs; deep indented vales; wide spread Prairies; boundless plains and beauteous groves Expand to view; all clad in green, and deck'd In summer's richest livery of flowers; Or with the grey tints of fading autumn Crown'd--emblem of Nature's dissolution. There one eternal silence seems to reign, And slumb'ring Nature rests in solitude.