Arms and Legs Broken.--Injury to Breast Bone and Ribs.--Drowned.--Frozen.--Scalded.--Other Escapes.--Life Preserved by a Merciful Providence. The journal of Wilford Woodruff contains a chapter which he designates as a "chapter of accidents." It is given thus early in his biography as it reveals the purposes of an overruling Providence whose mercies and guiding powers are remarkably manifested throughout a long and arduous career. He himself regarded his escapes from death as an evidence of a destructive power that sought to thwart that special mission in life so wonderfully revealed in the subsequent chapters of this biography. His life throughout discloses a constant struggle against obstacles which he had to overcome. They are manifested in every degree of difficulty, and to less courageous natures many of them would have been insurmountable. There are in his words which describe the misfortunes that overtook him no traces of envy, discouragement or despair. That others were born to an easier life did not awaken within him a spirit of envy or doubt. To his mind the joys or sorrows of this world were all subordinate to the will of an overruling Providence. While he did not complain, he did not ascribe his difficulties or dangers to fate. He was never so much concerned about the difficulty in surmounting an obstacle as he was about his ability through the goodness of God to do so. "Evidently," he says, "I have been numbered with those who are apparently the marked victims of misfortunes. It has seemed to me at times as though some invisible power were watching my footsteps in search of an opportunity to destroy my life. I, therefore, ascribe my preservation on earth to the watchcare of a merciful Providence, whose hand has been stretched out to rescue me from death when I was in the presence of the most threatening dangers. Some of these dangers from which I so narrowly escaped I shall here briefly describe: "When three years of age, I fell into a caldron of scalding water and although instantly rescued, I was so badly burned {6} that it was nine months before I was thought to be out of the danger of fatal consequences. My fifth and sixth years were interwoven with many accidents. On a certain day, in company with my elder brothers, I entered the barn, and chose the top of a hay mow for a place of diversion. We had not been there long before I fell from the great beam upon my face on the bare floor. I was severely hurt, but recovered in a short time, and was again at play.