| 581 and persistent kindness of Sr. Chatburn when Mr. Davis, family was sorely smitten by disease, and they needed friends-these they found in Bro. and Sr. Chatburn, and it is not forgotten. Bro. Chatburn's premises were also open to the use of the Saints.
One especially pleasant feature about the conduct of the grounds was, that there were no booths nor business stands sufficiently near for their traffic and confusion to interfere with the worshiping [worshipping] assembly. The freedom from this sort of annoyance was marked and very pleasant indeed. No "merry-go-rounds," nor games of toss and pitch for amusement were tolerated by the committee in any shape.
In a spiritual sense, we feel assured that no better meeting has been held by us; and the Saints must feel comforted and strengthened.-The Saints' Herald, vol. 34, p. 681.
On October 31 Elder Thomas S. Standeven, formerly a missionary to England, died at Omaha, Nebraska.
November 2 Elder T. W. Smith wrote from Papeete, Tahiti:
The church at Avatoru, Raroia, are going to build a new house of worship, also a house for the missionary; and as it will be in the center of this field, it will be the best place for one missionary to locate. I hope that the next conference will send out two elders at least. It will never do to abandon this field now. It ought not to have been revived if it is to be left alone now. It will take no harm to be without a missionary for six months or so. I assure them that you will send one or two at next April conferences who should reach here by last of June. . . . The work is in quite good condition all around now.
Elder Smith and wife left Tahiti for Australia November 4, and arrived at Sydney, Australia, on the 29th.
In a letter to the Expositor Elder Smith says of his late mission:
They are but children in character and thought, and they do not do wrong from an innate love for wrong-doing, but because they are so easily led by stronger-minded persons to do wrong and they need some one to be with them all the time to keep a watch over them. I love them dearly in spite of their shortcomings, and I will never forsake them, but while I live and remain in the church (which I trust will be while I live) I shall consider them as belonging to me, as if they were my own children. Their very weakness and their dependent state and their inability to keep the laws of God without the superintending care of a white pastor, gives them a claim on my love and care. I have felt out of patience many a time and wrote more harshly of them than I ought, and expected more of them than was really reasonable to expect, but the last few months that I was there many things transpired to draw them nearer to me, and I left them with deep and genuine sorrow and I felt and I so assured them that I would return to them in a year or perhaps a little more, and I believe that I shall.
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