THIRD GRADE.

CHURCH HISTORY.

LESSON XIII.

Chapter 13. Young Folk's History of the Church.

WILFORD WOODRUFF.

Wilford Woodruff was the fourth President of our Church. He was a great and good man, humble and industrious, and from the time he became a member of the Church until his death was faithful and true, devoting all his time and energy to the advancement of his religion.

He was destined to be a great man, although, as he often testified, two powers were working with him all his life, one to destroy and the other to protect him and enable him to complete his mission upon the earth. So many accidents of a serious nature happened to him especially in his youth, (we have not time to tell them all,) falling into a caldron of boiling water when he was but three years old; later, at different times he had both legs and both arms broken, narrowly escaped death by suffocation, drowning, exposure to cold, bite from mad dog, poisoning, etc. It would take a long time to tell how all these accidents, and many others which have not been mentioned, occurred and how wonderfully the life of President Woodruff was spared.

When Brother Woodruff was baptized, a peculiar thing happened which was prophetic. There were many others who were seeking baptism at the same time. There was nothing unusual or remarkable about Wilford Woodruff;-he was a very unassum

ing, humble man, and yet, he seemed to have given even then the promise of what he was to be. The Prophet Joseph Smith had never seen him; but somebody told him that he had been baptized, and, when the prophet was writing in his journal, he put down these words, "This day, Wilford Woodruff was baptized."

President Woodruff spent most of his life, after he was baptized, preaching the Gospel. He traveled thousands of miles, attended thousands of meetings, organized fifty-one branches of the Church, received and answered great numbers of letters, kept an excellent journal, which has been of great assistance in writing up the history of the Church. He traveled through England, Scotland, Wales, six islands of the sea, twenty-three States of the United States and five Territories. He had many wonderful experiences and testimonies, and his life is full of lessons and examples that will be helpful to all who will endeavor to tread in his footsteps.

In May, 1898, he attended a meeting of the Y. M. M. I. A., and in addressing the people there, said: "I am deeply interested in the position we occupy. The Lord had appointed the place

we are in, when the blessings were given of Joseph. We are the sons of Joseph. Here is the place where we are going to stay. No power beneath the heavens will ever drive this people from the mountains.

President Young

"This was a desert when we came here. went to work with a will like a man. I was with him when he took his first walk from his carriage across the site where this city now stands. When he reached the place where the Temple now stands he stuck his cane into the ground and said: "Here will be built the temple of our God." I thought that was a strange prediction, but I lost no time until I cut a sage stake and drove it into the very spot where he had marked. That was before any survey or any street had been made, and on that spot, indicated by Brigham Young, and when I drove the stake, the Temple now stands. Men tried to persuade President Young to go to California, but he replied, 'I'm going to stay here, to build a city here, a Temple and a country.""

Once when President Woodruff was traveling on the train to Provo, a man on the same train was declaring that Joseph Smith did not teach or practice the principles that we believe to be true, but said that Brigham Young established these things. President Woodruff arose and told him, and the rest of the passengers, that what he said was untrue, and, said he: "I shall be a witness of this in the spirit world, and I shall meet you all there." President Woodruff lived to be ninety-one years old. Some years before his death he expressed the desire to see the Salt Lake Temple completed and dedicated before his death. All the members of the Church loved and honored President Woodruff, and they

set to work to try and gratify his desire. Everybody helped and soon enough money was gathered to finish the great building. And on the 6th of April, 1896, with great rejoicing, the Temple was dedicated. The services lasted three days and nobody was happier or more pleased than President Woodruff.

On July 20th, 1897, he officiated at the great Pioneer Jubilee celebration; he was presented with a gold Pioneer badge, designed for the oldest Pioneer present. On July 22nd, he was crowned with flowers in the Tabernacle, by the children, who had marched in procession to the number of about 10,000.

LESSON XIV.

Chapter 14. Young Folk's History of the Church.

LORENZO SNOW.

President Lorenzo Snow was baptized a member of our Church, June, 1836. Upon joining the Church, Brother Snow was filled with a desire to obtain a testimony for himself, and while pondering upon the promised witness, the adversary sought to darken his mind and weaken his faith. While in this frame of mind, he retired to a ecret piace and sought the Lord in humble prayer. The following is a description of the result, given in his own words:

"I had no sooner opened my lips in an effort to pray than I heard a sound just above my head like the rustling of silken robes; and im

mediately the Spirit of God descended upon me, completely enveloping my whole person, filling me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, and oh, the joyful happiness I felt! No language can describe the almost instantaneous transition from a dense cloud of spiritual darkness into a refulgence of light and knowledge, as it was at that time imparted to understanding.

I received a perfect knowledge that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and of the restoration of the Holy Priesthood and the fullness of the Gospel. It was a complete baptism—a tangible immersion in the heavenly principle or element, the Holy Ghost; and even more physical in its effects upon every part of my system than the immersion by water.”

President Snow was always true and undeviating from that testimony. He traveled tens of thousands of miles in bearing witness of the Gospel. He suffered privation, hardships, persecution, laid down his life in the Pacific ocean, and by the power of God had it restored again; suffered through bonds and imprisonment, yet with it all he bore the same testimony given sixty-five years before his death. This testimony will endure forever and be presented at the bar of Jehovah, a witness against those who have heard and rejected it.

Dr. Prentiss, a man not belonging to our Church, a studeut of human nature, gave, unsolicited, a pen sketch of President Lorenzo Snow, from which we give the following:

"Nothing is stranger in this strange world of inquiry and wonderment than the subtle power of the human heart to distill itself through and utter itself permanently in the human face. Every face is either a prophecy or a history. The droop of the school girl's eyelash, the furrow of the student's brow, the compression of the youth's lips in the various trials of life. are all promises of a tale that is yet to be told; but upon the countenance of the aged saint or sinner every line, every shade, every tracing speaks unerringly of a history of glorious triumph or disastous defeat. Before the story is told and the character completed, features and coloring may cover up the work going on beneath the appearances; but when these have fallen like forest leaves in the autumn of life, and the hoar frost of winter whitens the head and furrows the smooth skin, the history of life can no longer be hid, and men may read it as in an open book. . . . . To no one was this power of the soul to distill itself into the lineaments of the face better known than to Jesus of Nazareth. The face which speaks of a soul where reigns the Prince of Peace is His best witness. Now and then in a life spent in the study of man, I have found such a witness. Such a face I saw today; saw it where and when I least expected it; saw it in a business office, where great affairs are transacted, where grave responsibilities are borne, and where serious troubles come. I had expected to find intellectuality, benevolence, dignity, composure and strength depicted upon the face of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, but when I was introduced to President Lorenzo Snow, for a second, I was startled to see the holiest face but one I had ever been privileged to look upon. His face was a power of peace. his presence a benediction of peace. In the tranquil depths of his

eyes were not only the home of silent prayer, but the abode of spiritual strength. As he talked of the 'more sure word of prophecy' and the certainty of the hope which was his, and the abiding faith which had conquered the trials and difficulties of tragic life, I watched the play of emotions and studied with fascinated attention the subtle shades of expression which spoke so plainly the workings of his soul; and the strangest feeling stole over me, that 'I stood on holy ground;' that this man did not act from the common-place motives of policy, interest, or expediencv, but he 'acted from far off center. I am accustomed to study men's faces, analyze every line and feature, dissect each expression, and note every emotion, but I could not here. What would be the use of my recording the earnestness of the brow, the sweetness of the mouth, and all my commonplace description turns? The man is not reducible to ordinary description. If the Mormon Church can produce such witnesses, it will need but little the pen of the ready writer or the eloquence of the great preacher."

LESSON XV.

Chapter 15. Young Folk's History of the Church.

BATHSHEBA W. SMITH.

Bathsheba W. Smith is the General President of all the Relief Societies in our Church. Sister Smith is a very sweet old lady; a little child once said of her, "When I look at Sister Bathsheba, I do not see her with her bonnet on, I see her as she will look when she wears that crown that is waiting for her."

Sister Bathsheba has been earning that crown all her life; it will be very bright and beautiful, because it will be filled with so many jewels of good deeds, kind, thoughtful acts and willing sacrifice.

When only fifteen years old she heard the Gospel