SKETCH OF THE SISTERS MARY AND MERCY R. FIELDING--THE FIELDINGS A SEMI-APOSTOLIC FAMILY--THEIR IMPORTANT INSTRUMENTALITY IN OPENING THE BRITISH MISSION--MARY FIELDING MARRIES HYRUM SMITH--HER TRIALS AND SUFFERINGS WHILE HER HUSBAND IS IN PRISON--TESTIMONY OF HER SISTER MERCY--MARY'S LETTER TO HER BROTHER IN ENGLAND. Already has the name of Mary Fielding become quite historical to the reader, but she is now to be introduced in her still more representative character as wife of the patriarch and martyr Hyrum, and as mother of the apostle Joseph F. Smith. This much-respected lady was born July 21st, 1801, at Honidon, Bedfordshire, England. She was the daughter of John and Rachel Fielding, and was the eldest of the sisters whom the reader has met somewhat prominently in an apostolic incident in Canada, out of which much of the early history of the British mission very directly grew. Mary was of good family, well educated, and piously raised, being originally a Methodist, and a devoted admirer of the character of John Wesley. Indeed the family of the Fieldings and their connections were semi-apostolic even before their identification with the Church of Latter-day Saints. In 1834 Mary emigrated to Canada. Here she joined her youngest brother, Joseph, and her sister, Mercy Rachel (born in England in 1807), who had preceded her to America in 1832. As we have seen, this brother and his two sisters were living near Toronto, Upper Canada, at the time when Parley P. Pratt arrived there on his mission, and they immediately embraced the faith. This was in May, 1836. In the following spring the Fieldings gathered to Kirtland. Soon the youngest of the sisters, Mercy Rachel, was married by the prophet to Elder Robert B. Thompson, one of the literati of the Church, who was appointed on a mission to Canada with his wife. At the same time Joseph Fielding was appointed on mission to England, to assist the apostles in that land. But Mary remained in Kirtland, and on the 24th of December, 1837, she was married to Hyrum Smith. Here something deserves to be told of the Fielding family in amplification of the incidental mentionings already made.