money to supply our more pressing necessities.

After Brother Snow's return he built a more commodious house for his family, and we began to enjoy more of the comforts of life. But in the year 1861 my husband was called to explore Southern Utah. After a few weeks absence he returned for his family. Our journey to the south was attended by many difficulties, and dangers, but we finally reached our destination in safety. We encountered all the discomforts and privations which were such prominent features of the southern mission in its earlier years, and which are SO well known to those who endured them. The first two of my twenty-four years' residence in St. George were spent in a tent, with all its attendant annoyance. I was also in delicate health, and suffered very much from the unaccustomed heat and the lack of comforts which it was impossible to procure. I was appointed President of the St. George Stake Relief Societies by President John D. T. McAllister, in 1875, which office I held till my removal to Salt Lake in 1885, where I was appointed Counselor to Sister M.

ple, where I remained a little over a month, when President Taylor released me, and on the occasion of the dedication of the Manti Temple I again received a call to labor in the Lord's House; but as my eldest son, Erastus, had passed from earth on the 20th of March previous, and my husband being very sick, I was released for a season. Six days later, on May 27th, Brother Snow died, but I was so bowed down with grief at the recent loss of my husband and son that I could not at once resume my labors, but on July 9th I went to Manti, where I have resided ever since, and have had great joy and comfort in my labors. I have received many blessings from my heavenly Father in the holy temples dedicated to His name. I have seen the power of God made manifest many times. I have seen the sick healed, the lame made to walk, and the blind to see, and I wish to repeat my testimony to my young sisters, to whom this sketch is affectionately inscribed, that Joseph Smith was a Prophet, and that this gospel was established by divine revelation. I have received this knowledge from my heavenly Father through obedience to His commandments, and I earnestly desire to be faithful unto the end.

SKETCH OF ELLEN B. RAY
MATHENY,

WORKER IN THE MANTI TEMPLE.

I WAS born May 13th, 1889, in Carroll County, Miss. My parents

gospel

house, and though I was but twelve years old, the gospel taught by them was so impressed on my mind the first time I heard it that I have never forgotten the sweetness thereof. Ministers of other sects had been to our house, but they made no impression on my mind.

My father was baptized in November, 1851, after hearing but two sermons from the Mormon Elders, and about nine months later my step-mother, Mary Young Ray, my oldest sister, Martha J. Ray, and myself were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In January, 1853, we left our beautiful home and started for Utah. After traveling fifty miles. we arrived at a branch of the Church known as the Spring Creek Branch, where we remained three months, and during this time I became acquainted with a young man by the name of Sims F. Matheny, whom I promised to marry when he came to Utah.

In March, 1853, my father and his family, with a few other families, resumed our journey for Utah, where we arrived the 1st of September, 1853.

After arriving in Salt Lake City, my father bought a home, in which we lived but a couple of months, when we were called to move to Fillmore, Millard County. This call was promptly obeyed, and we made the journey in November, which was pretty cold weather for people raised in a southern clime. In October, 1855, Brother Sims F. Matheny arrived at Fillmore, and I faithfully fulfilled my promise to him, and we were married the 24th of

November, 1855. Three years later, with my consent and wish,. my husband took to himself another wife, and I have ever been thankful that I, with my husband, were privileged to obey that holy command.

When I was twenty-two years of age I was taken sick and confined to my bed for one year. The next five years I was an invalid, but not quite so helpless as during the first year. About four months after I was taken sick my father died; and one year after this our home, with all we owned, was accidentally burned.

From my twenty-eighth

to my thirty-first year I enjoyed moderately good health, when I met with an accident which paralyzed my right arm and nearly the right half of my body. This caused me to be a helpless invalid for six years, during which time my husband was called to leave this world of sorrow. In the seventh year of my sickness I went to the St. George Temple, was baptized for my health, and

to do some work for my mother, and from that time I rapidly improved, and in one year I was called to go to the St. George Temple as a regular worker, where I worked for three years without losing a day on account of sickness. I was then released, and returned to my home in Fillmore, in which I remained for ten months, when I was called to Manti to work in the temple, where I have been for four years and ten months, and have lost but two days on account of sickness, which I appreciate, and thank God our heavenly Father for such great blessings.

SKETCH OF CHRISTINA WILLARDSON.

WORKER IN MANTI TEMPLE.

Mrs. Susa Y. Gates, Editor:

DEAR SISTER,-I have worried. considerable ever since receiving your first note desiring me give a sketch of my labors in the temple. I have felt as though I could write nothing that would be of interest at all, and thought I would ask to be excused, but on receiving the second request, I concluded to give you a few items, and if you consider them worthy of mention you can do so. I was called by President Peterson to labor in the Manti Temple five years ago next May. I began at the opening of the temple, and have continued to labor there since, except when I have been waiting on the sick. I have had no very great manifestations while

laboring there. laboring there. My home being at Ephraim, seven miles from the temple, I have usually gone home every night and back in the morning, and on account of my traveling back and forth Sister Snow has felt to excuse me as much as possible from being there Tuesdays, thinking it more convenient for those living at Manti. Tuesday being the day for baptisms and waiting on the sick and infirm, I have not had the opportunity of seeing the sick healed instantly or waiting much on them in the temple, but do know that many have been benefited. I was privileged to attend the dedicatory services of the Manti Temple, and the first day just before the opening hymn I heard some beautiful singing in some other part of the building. Sarah A. Peterson, wife of President Peterson, and I sat together, and both wondered where it was. Just then the choir began to sing.

I think it was the second day services I saw a halo of light around one of the brethren when he was speaking, and at the laying of the capstone of the Salt Lake Temple I saw a halo of light over the same brother when speaking there.

I have enjoyed my labors very much in the temple, and if they are accepted I shall certainly feel much rewarded for my time.

Please excuse my delay in answering your kind favor. Yours,

etc.,

Christina Willardson.

SKETCH OF FRANCES C. BROWN. WORKERS IN THE ST. GEORGE TEMPLE.

The

I WAS born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, October 31, 1817. My father Joshua, and my mother Hannah Cann, were natives of the same place, but removed to Portland, Chautauqua County, New York, when I was but five years of age. Our home was on the beautiful shore of Lake Erie, where I spent my childhood and early life, and though bred to toil and privation, incident to the settling of a new country, had many pleasant recreations. gospel net of so-called Mormonism caught our family in 1838, and from this time commenced the realities and varieties of life, serious and in earnest. The serious when friends and relatives deserted us wholesale, the earnest when in the spring of 1839 we left our home and journeyed west, not knowing our destination, as the Saints were then, through intense persecution in a scattered condition. After a journey of seven weeks we came to Commerce, afterwards called Nauvoo, on the Mississippi River, where in a short time we were prostrated wth sickness, with not enough well ones to care for the afflicted. In July my mother died in her wagon, being the first Latter-day Saint that died here. My mother breathed her last at sunset, and Sister Huntington at sunrise the next morning. Both funeral sermons were preached at the same

time by Sidney Rigdon, and they were laid side by side.

Of our company of fourteen

from New York seven were taken in as many months. O the sad, bitter and earnest realities of those days of anguish. How was it possible for humanity to attain. strength to endure them? I was in Nauvoo through all the persecutions. I saw the Prophet and his brother Hyrum on their way to Carthage. I saw their mangled bodies after they were brought home. I saw the disaffection of Rigdon and others. I saw Brigham Young as the mantle of Joseph fell upon him. I was married here by the Prophet. I received most of my blessings in the Nauvoo Temple. I left Nauvoo in 1846, stopped sone year at Winter Quarters. Left Winter Quarters in the spring of 1848. I was sick the entire distance of one thousand miles, and was brought on my bed. Lived in the Seventh Ward of Salt Lake City. Removed to St. George in the fall of 1862. After the completion of the St. George Temple, early in 1877, was called by President Brigham Young to labor in the temple, which I considered. my home for seven years, during which time I received all the blessings pertaining to the everlasting covenant, and have done the entire work for my dead so far as I have found them. I have traced my father's and mother's families back for four generations to the time of their first emigration from England, England, and have

been mainly instrumental in the baptisms and endowments, etc., for more than six hundred of my relatives.

I have had no particular or open manifestations by dreams or visions, but as I have been seriously and very earnestly engaged in this work, there has been an influence working with

me and urging me forward in a way that I have been able to learn of my ancestry in a most marvelous manner, and such a way that I am forced to believe that the key is my mother. Removed to Nutrioso, Apache County, Arizona, in October, 1883, which is now my home. Frances E. Brown.

A MISSIONARY'S LETTER.
CHATTANOOGA, TENN.
Feb. 16, 1893.

Miss Ella Dallas:

MY DEAR ELLA:-It has been just three months tonight since I said good-by to dear old Salt Lake City for my trip in a strange portion of the world. It is with It is with peculiar feeling that I sometimes think of my past associations in the Seventeenth Ward, more particularly the Y. L. M. I. A. On Tuesday nights my mind wanders to the Seventeenth Ward, and I fancy that I see Ella, Mrs. Groesbeck, Vickie, Lottie, and the faces of the faithful few who were always there, and at times it seems as though my thoughts and feelings mingle with theirs in meeting. You may think because I haven't written before I have forgotten those left behind, but I haven't. The faces of my friends are fresh in memory and ever will be.

It hardly seems possible that three months have gone by since

I left, but the calendar says so. The time we look forward to appears so much longer than the time that has faded or passed. As I sit thinking what would be the most interesing thing to write, I am impressed with the shallow life of this so-called world. I find myself comparing not only the crooked, ill-shaped streets and cities of the East with the beautiful ones I left in Utah, but the majority of people. Life is, as it is held up to my view now, nothing but a race for popularity, and the price paid for that popularity, or place on the human scale, is money, virtue and honor, each one scheming and trying to gain more foothold. Men of the world say our fair world is growing better, and that men have more widsom, etc. True, men have more wisdom to cover up their ill deeds than ever before. Everything is sacrificed to gain their ambition. The world is being dragged through the vilest depths of infamy and vice. Never could