| 152 CHAPTER 10.
1876.
PRESIDENT SMITH'S WESTERN TRIP
AS MENTIONED in the last chapter, President Smith left Plano, Illinois, on July 17, 1876, for a Western trip. We think that this trip and incidents connected therewith will be of sufficient interest to justify a special mention; so in this chapter we give a detailed account of the trip in his own language.
On August 3, 1876, he wrote from Mission San Jose, California, and from other places and on other dates, as given below:
I left Omaha on the 25th of July, having spoken in Council Bluffs the afternoon and evening of the 23d, and at Omaha the evening of the 24th. The constant pushing westward, morning, noon, and night, has a strange effect upon one going over the route for the first time-at least it did upon me-and I could not fail to reflect, as the train swept over the long, interminable wastes, how sadly, despondingly, thousands threaded those wastes, ever pushing westward, footsore, heartsick, and weary.
I reached Niles, California, Saturday afternoon at half-past three, and found Brn. D. S. Mills and Albert Haws, with part of Bro. Mills' family, waiting at the depot.
The beauty of the landscape, the balminess of the air, the exhilaration of having reached my journey's end took away my weariness, and I greeted these friends of the cause with pleasure.
San Francisco, August 14.-I arrived here on August 8, and have spent the time mostly in this city, occasionally visiting Oakland to get acquainted with the Saints, or as business demanded.
On Sunday, yesterday, I spoke at West Oakland, in a hall secured by the brethren, and at night in the city, in the hall of the Grand Army of the Republic, in which the Saints held their regular services. The audience in the evening was very fair, the hall quite well filled. I enjoyed
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