| 153 reasonable freedom. At the close a gentleman asked leave to present a question or two. Leave being accorded to him, he asked the usual questions about the complicity of my father with polygamy, which I replied to as I could. He was quite temperate in his remarks, though he was strongly impressed with the strangeness of the case, which he put thus: "It is to me very strange that a people should be accused of practicing polygamy in 1838, in Missouri, and in Nauvoo in 1842, at the same time publicly denying their complicity with it in their public works as late as 1845, and yet, two years afterwards they are found practicing and defending it, the heads or leading men steeped in it. So to me it is very strange."
We admitted the strangeness of the position; but denied the responsibility of it. What effect the question and replies will have, I have no present means of knowing.
The Saints are mostly in good spirits and the work stands fair; but there are some personal causes for distress and annoyance. Lack of wisdom in administrative affairs has done some damage to individual feelings. Some cases of apparent insubordination and the urging of individual right as against the right of the whole, are acting as stumbling-blocks in the way of a few; apparent distrust and want of effort results.
Bro. Mills has not yet organized our route of travel; but I expect to hear this week. We shall then be off for a tour among the branches so long as I remain.
A good feeling prevails at Nortonville, Contra Costa County, California. Bro. T. R. Davis, who presides there, is an excellent man, full of faith. Nortonville is a small mining town right in the mountains of the coast range. We spent Sunday, the 6th, there, in company with Bro. D. S. Mills, a most excellent man and a beloved pastor; all bearing testimony to his faithfulness. We here had the pleasure of meeting some of the faithful delvers in the mines for coal. An explosion and fire in the mine some two weeks before our arrival killed eleven men, the last of whom was buried the day we were there.
WINDSOR, California, September 1, 1876.
Bro. D. S. Mills and the editor left the Old Mission San Jose, on August 19, to make the circuit of Stockton, Sacramento, and other places lying "up the coast" from the "city," as in California, San Francisco is the central point from which radiate the lines of travel "up the coast," "down the coast," "overland" and "oceanward." We stopped at Stockton first. This city is situated on the plain, between the two great ranges of mountains, the Mount Diablo and coast. This plain is a rich adobe delta, covered sparsely with oaks, and cultivated in wheat, hay, and fruit. . . .
We spoke in Stockton, in the Saints' chapel, a neat little frame building, built on land donated by Captain Weber for the purpose, and for
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