One way in which the prophetic gift of the missionaries was proved in the early days in England was as follows: "Whenever a candidate was immersed, some of the brethren was given a letter signed by Hyde and Kimball, setting forth that 'brother will not abide in the spirit of the Lord, but will reject the truth, and become the enemy of the people of God, etc., etc.' If the brother did not apostatize, this letter remained unopened; if he did, it was read as a striking verification of prophecy."* * Caswall's "City of the Mormons," appendix. Miracles exerted a most potent influence among the people in England with whom the early missionaries labored, and the Millennial Star contains a long list of reported successes in this line. There are accounts of very clumsy tricks that were attempted to carry out the deception. Thus, at Newport, Wales, three Mormon elders announced that they would raise a dead man to life. The "corpse" was laid out and surrounded by weeping friends, and the elders were about to begin their incantations, when a doubting Thomas in the audience attacked the "corpse" with a whip, and soon had him fleeing for dear life.* * Tract by Rev. F. B. Ashley, p. 22. Thomas Webster, who was baptized in England in 1837 by Orson Hyde and became an elder, saw the falsity of the Mormon professions through the failure of their miracles and other pretensions, and, after renouncing their faith, published a pamphlet exposing their methods. He relates many of the declarations made by the first missionaries in Preston to their ignorant hearers. Hyde declared that the apostles Peter, James, and John were still alive. He and Kimball asserted that neither of them would "taste death" before Christ's second coming. At one meeting Kimball predicted that in ten or fifteen years the sea would be dried up between Liverpool and America. "One of the most glaring things they ever brought before the public," says Webster, "was stated in a letter written by Orson Hyde to the brethren in Preston, saying they were on the way to the promised land in Missouri by hundreds, and the wagons reached a mile in length. They fell in with some of their brethren in Canada, who told him the Lord had been raining down manna in rich profusion, which covered from seven to ten acres of land. It was like wafers dipped in honey, and both Saints and sinners partook of it. I was present in the pulpit when this letter was read."