(Previous installment)

(David halts at Memphis for the winter, then pursues his way toward Nauvoo in the spring.)

The city of Memphis, in Tennessee, is beautifully situated on a brown clay bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi, thirty feet above high water mark, and is one of the most important and populous cities on the river between New Orleans and St. Louis.

Having to stop here for the winter, I made it a subject of prayer how to proceed, for I believed then, as I do now, in an overruling providence, and I can say in truth God has preserved me all my life long for some wise purpose best known to Himself.

While here, during the winter of 1845, I found friends who gave me work and a home. Temptations were strewn in my path on every hand; but the society of the wicked never had any charms for me. I chose rather to be a Saint so that I could associate with the righteous and be happy.

In answer to prayer, I was directed to put up at the Franklin Hotel, the best house in the city. I told the proprietor I was a Latter-day Saint, where I was from, and where I was going, and why I had to stop, and wished to know if he could give me employment. He asked me a great many questions about Scotland and about the Mormons. He said he had never seen a Mormon before. He had heard they were a bad people and advised me not to go among them, but remain, and he would give me work and a home. I thanked him, and said I could not be anything but a Mormon, for I knew the doctrines they taught to be true, and had embraced them for the love of the truth.

“Well,” said he, “this is a free country, and every man has the right to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. I am a free-thinker, and believe you to be honest in your belief, so I will give you work cleaning a pile of bricks I have down on the levee. The foundation of my warehouse gave way and the building tumbled down. I want the brick all cleaned and piled up ready for rebuilding in the spring.”

He gave me a little hatchet and introduced me to the tumbled-down building. It looked like a mountain; but I went to work with a will for the first time in the United States, and finished the job in a month. My employer said I had done well, and he put me to work in the hotel under the steward; he paid me fifteen dollars and board per month. I had now to conform to the American customs and manners, which I thought free and easy, and far more liberal than those of the old country; but in morality and integrity, they fell far short of what I was taught Christians should practice. When I was asked by the young men who worked in the hotel to stoop to folly, vanity and vice, or to indulge in degrading habits, such as drinking, smoking, gambling, and so on, I answered: “No, gentlemen, I am a Latter-day Saint.” This course of action cut me off from evil doers, who denounced me as a “green-horn,” while it won for me the esteem of my employer. He took me to his own home, a pretty villa up town, told me he had no boys and he wanted me to be adopted into his family, and when I became twenty-one years old he would set me up in business. His family consisted of a wife and three girls, who were members of the Methodist church; but they had a nasty habit of chewing snuff which marred their loveliness in my estimation. Fancy how a nice young lady would appear putting a twig pulled from an apple tree about as thick as a pencil, and chewed at one end like a brush, and all wet with saliva and dipped in scotch snuff, in her mouth as tobacco chewers do a chew of tobacco. This was the custom with many young ladies in the Southern States. In the north and west they chew gum, which is very unbecoming, but not so filthy as chewing snuff. It is to be hoped that the children of Zion will never adopt any filthy habits to debar them from standing in holy places among the pure in heart.

I was very much attached to my home in Memphis, but more attached to the home of the Saints, and determined to leave on the first of April for St. Louis. The family remonstrated; but the girls, finding I would go, said jestingly: “that all fools’ day was a proper time for me to start on a fool’s errand.” When the day of parting came, however, they were all in tears, and my employer went with me to the boat and made me promise that if ever I wanted a home or a friend to let him know.

My heart swelled with gratitude to God that my way was again opened to travel towards the body of the Church, although I left with regret a pleasant home for an uncertainty. I knew not whether I had a friend in St. Louis or not; but I knew God was my friend, and in Him I put my trust. On landing at St. Louis I met old Sister McMaster waiting for me on the wharf. She had dreamed I was coming, and was there to meet me. I was well acquainted with her in the town of Paisley, Scotland, where I joined the Church. She was among the first baptized in that place, and the first to open her house to the Elders; and now I was rejoiced at seeing her still a faithful Latter-day Saint. I felt at home once more among the Saints in St. Louis, where I was counseled to stop until a new gathering place was found by the Twelve Apostles, who had left Nauvoo for the gospel’s sake and had gone west to find a home where the Church could be established beyond the reach of her enemies. This was a time that tried many of the Saints. They got weary in well doing, and strayed from the path of duty into bye and forbidden paths, and lost sight of the kingdom. The humble and the faithful did not fall into this condition. They always knew the voice of the shepherd. They followed the priesthood, in fulfillment of the prophets, to establish the Lord’s house in the tops of the mountains. They are there to-day, with their children, and their children’s children, rejoicing in the truth. The truth has made us free, and we still enjoy the society of those noble men who led us by the inspiration of Heaven to our mountain home.

(To be continued)