| 728 1856, at which time he received a visit from two missionaries of the Reorganization. An account of this visit we give in Elder Blair's own words:-
"At this time two young men called at our store (I was then engaged in the mercantile pursuit) just after nightfall, and inquired for me. When they entered the store the thought was impressed upon my mind that they were Mormon elders. . . . After they introduced themselves (not mentioning yet that they were elders) and stating that they came to make me a call, I was more sensibly impressed that they were, indeed, 'Mormon elders.' I at once took them to my home, for refreshments, and on my way learned that they were elders, sent from Zarahemla, Wisconsin, to hunt up the saints, and to tell them that the time was near at hand when the Lord would call young Joseph Smith to take his martyred father's place as President of the Church.
"These tidings were strange and somewhat novel to me; and I had no confidence, whatever, in their truthfulness; but I felt willing to hear what the young men had to say, and to prove their pretensions.
"I had known, in 1853, at Amboy, the younger of the two men, Edmund C. Briggs, who was then a delicate, sickly boy, but the other, Samuel H. Gurley, I had never known. . . . We read the books and argued various points touching the idea that young Joseph Smith would be called of God as his father's successor, till about three o'clock the next morning, when we retired to bed. The next day was Sunday; and after our prayers for the guidance of God in our interchange of views, we entered again upon the subject of young Joseph being called, at sometime in the near future, to be his father's successor. We continued our investigations till about eleven a. m. and it seemed we were then just as far from seeing alike as when we began the night before. The elders seemed to be somewhat disappointed in my opposing them so persistently. I said to them that they manifested a gentle and kind spirit, but that I could not indorse [endorse] their teachings. I would not say that they were wrong, for I did not know. I only knew I could not, as yet, see their claims to be true. I felt and said, that if their
(page 728) |
