"While holding meeting with the Saints at North Vinal Haven, on the 9th of August, I received a letter from Elder Thomas B. Marsh, who was then President of the Twelve Apostles, informing me that the Prophet Joseph Smith had received a revelation from the Lord, naming as persons to be chosen to fill the places of those of the Twelve who had fallen. Those named were John E. Page, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff and Willard Richards. In his letter President Marsh added: 'Know then, Brother Woodruff, by this, that you are appointed to fill the place of one of the Twelve Apostles, and that it is agreeable to the word of the Lord, given very lately, that you should come speedily to Far West, and, on the 26th of April next, take your leave of the Saints here and depart for others climes, across the mighty deep.' The substance of this letter had been revealed to me several weeks before, but I had not named it to any person." It was on the 8th of July, just one week after Wilford's memorable experience at his father's home, that this humble, faithful, diligent elder was called by the voice of God, through His prophet, to be one of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb in this dispensation; and Wilford being at the time many hundreds of miles distant from the Prophet, the Lord then revealed to him the fact of that calling. Wilford had been true to the Lord as a teacher, priest, elder, and seventy in His Church, and thus was worthy of the higher call that had come, and to be trusted with its increased responsibility. He was prepared by the revelations of heaven to his own soul to be an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ; and his ordination and leave-taking of the Saints at the designated place, on the 26th of the succeeding April, under the circumstances then existing, were a manifestation of the miraculous power of God in witness of the prophetic office and gift that had been conferred from heaven upon Joseph Smith, the great Prophet of this dispensation. "The time having come for me to prepare to leave Fox Islands," wrote Wilford, "I had a desire to take with me all the {94} Saints I could get to go to Zion. Already there had been a line drawn between the Saints and those on the islands who had rejected the Gospel, and enemies were very bitter against me and against the work of God I had labored to establish. They threatened my life, but the Saints were willing to stand by me. I spent four days with the Saints, visiting them, holding meetings, and encouraging them, while the devil was raging upon every hand. I baptized into the Church and organized, while upon the islands, nearly one hundred persons; and there seemed a prospect of gathering with me about half of them, but the devil raged to such an extent that some of them were terrified.