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History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

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400 MISSIONS AND IMMIGRATION.<br />

For twenty-five years Parley labored at intervals<br />

as a missionary in various parts <strong>of</strong> the Union, 4 and<br />

in 1845 was appointed president <strong>of</strong> the churches in<br />

New England and the middle states. During his<br />

<strong>of</strong> six pages calling for help and deliverance from the persecutions <strong>of</strong> the people<br />

<strong>of</strong> the United States, particularly from their enemies in Missouri; Letter<br />

to Queen Victoria is a dissertation on the fundamental principles <strong>of</strong> the faith,<br />

dated Manchester, May 22, 1841. The Fountain <strong>of</strong> Knowledge is a shortessay<br />

on the scriptures. Immortality and Eternal Life <strong>of</strong> the Material Body is an attempt<br />

to prove the proposition as named. Intelligence and Affection comprises<br />

a few pages on these qualities in man, more particularly in regard to their<br />

immortality. The above five pamphlets, besides being published separately,<br />

were issued as one pamphlet at Nauvoo. The third son <strong>of</strong> Jared and Charity<br />

Pratt, Parley, was born at Burlington, Otsego co., N. Y., his ancestors being<br />

among the earliest settlers at Hartford, Conn., in 1839, and probably among<br />

the party that accompanied Thomas Hooker from Newtown, now Cambridge,<br />

Mass., in 1836. Of his conversion to Mormonism I have already spoken, and<br />

<strong>of</strong> the leading incidents in his life and the manner <strong>of</strong> his death mention is<br />

made elsewhere. One <strong>of</strong> those who set forth from Nauvoo in Feb. 1846, he was<br />

sent from Winter Quarters, as will be remembered, during the same year,<br />

on a mission to England. But for this circumstance his Autobiography would<br />

probably have included a complete and reliable account <strong>of</strong> the great Mormon<br />

exodus, and one that would have been a most valuable addition to the records<br />

<strong>of</strong> the latter-day saints. Parley was a man <strong>of</strong> many miracles and visions.<br />

In fact, with him all was miraculous; the voice <strong>of</strong> nature was the voice <strong>of</strong> God,<br />

and in one current ran revelation and human happenings. He was miraculously<br />

directed in the first instance to the book <strong>of</strong> Mormon and Joseph Smith.<br />

Myriads <strong>of</strong> false spirits were rebuked by him and driven back into the dark-<br />

' ness. During an illness he had a dream. I thought I saw myself dressed<br />

in a clean and beautiful linen robe, white as snow,' on which was written the<br />

words ' holy prophet ' and 'new Jerusalem.' At the elder's conference in<br />

Missouri, February 1832, he was obliged to keep his bed, as he had not yet<br />

recovered from his illness. At the close <strong>of</strong> it, he says, ' I requested the elders<br />

to lay their hands on me and pray. They did so. I was instantly healed.<br />

Again, when detained by a severe fever, he whispered to Brother Murdock to<br />

lay hands on him unobserved while giving him water. 'I drank <strong>of</strong> it,' he<br />

says, ' bounded on my feet, dressed myself, put on my shoes and hat, and told<br />

him I was ready to start.' Still travelling with Murdock, he was again taken<br />

ill, and again miraculously cured. While engaged in fencing and ploughing<br />

six acres for wheat, he heard a voice at night saying, ' Parley, Parley! ' I answered,<br />

' Here am I.' Said the voice, ' Cease splitting rails, for the Lord hath<br />

prepared you for a greater work. ' He dreamed one night, during the troubles<br />

in Missouri, <strong>of</strong> an attack by enemies at a distance, and learned afterward that<br />

the vision was true. About to set out from Kirtland on a mission to Canada<br />

in April 1836, being in debt and deeply depressed, his wife sick and childless,<br />

Heber C. Kimball and other elders, filled with the spirit <strong>of</strong> prophecy, entered<br />

his house late one night and said: ' Brother Parley, thy wife shall be<br />

healed from this hour, and shall bear a son, and his name shall be Parley, and<br />

he shall be a chosen instrument in the hands <strong>of</strong> the Lord to inherit the priesthood,<br />

and to walk in the steps <strong>of</strong> his father.' Instances might be multiplied.<br />

Scores <strong>of</strong> sick women and children in obedience to the command, ' In the<br />

name <strong>of</strong> Jesus Christ, be thou made whole,' arose and walked.<br />

*In 1831 among the Delawares; in 1832 in the states <strong>of</strong> Ohio, Indiana,<br />

Illinois, and Missouri; in 1833, after the exodus from Independence, in New<br />

York; in 1835 in New England, N. Y., and Penn.; in 1837 and 1845 in N. Y.<br />

city, where in the latter year he commenced the publication <strong>of</strong> The Prophet;<br />

and in 1856 in St Louis, Phil., N. Y., and elsewhere. Autobiog., passim.<br />

'

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