WILFORD WOODRUFF FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS * * * * History of His Life and Labors AS RECORDED IN HIS DAILY JOURNALS * * * * _"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."--Rev. 3:21._ * * * * PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION BY MATTHIAS F. COWLEY * * * * Salt Lake City, Utah 1909 TO HIS NUMEROUS AND EVER INCREASING FAMILY, AND TO ALL WHO LOVE THE NAME AND MEMORY OF PRES. WILFORD WOODRUFF THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED PREFACE. That which is perhaps best known about Wilford Woodruff is the fact that he kept throughout his long and eventful life a careful record, not only of his own life, but of the important affairs in the history of the Church. In bringing that journal within the compass of one volume, it has not always been easy to determine what was the most important for the pages of this biography. All his journals, covering thousands of pages, I have read with such discriminating judgment as I could bring to the task. The reader, therefore, need not be reminded that this biography contains only a small part, the most important part it is hoped, of the things he wrote. He was so careful and painstaking, and so completely devoted to the task of keeping a journal, that his writings have been sought in compiling much of the important data in Church history which has already been given to the world. His work, therefore, is not unknown to those familiar with Church history. Some of his life has been published in the _Deseret News,_ and _"Leaves from My Journal"_ contains important chapters. Magazines and Church publications have in them reminiscences which he has given to the readers of those periodicals at different times. All missionaries will be interested in the marvelous experiences which he had while working in the spread of the gospel message. Others will read with peculiar interest the recital of events in the travels of the pioneers from the Missouri River to Salt Lake Valley, and others will read with satisfaction the words that fell from the lips of those prophets with whom he was immediately associated--Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor. The life of Wilford Woodruff was full of marvels. It was a simple life in which he revealed his heart and his purposes freely. The frankness of his expressions, his care for details, and his conscientious regard for the truth made him, perhaps, the best chronicler of events in all the history of the Church. His journal reveals not so much what he himself was thinking about the events concerning which he wrote as what others thought about them. In that respect they reveal wonderfully the spirit of the times in which he lived. At the close of the year 1895 in writing of his life, he says: "For twenty-one years I was a member of the legislative assembly of the Territory of Utah.