  "The University town of Cambridge, England, I am proud to say, is the place of my nativity. I was reared among its classic shades and bowers. For the last thirty years America has been my adopted country, and I love her with a loyal and devoted appreciation, but the home and the haunts of childhood and youth leave on every mind indelible impressions and when brought to a focus upon the past as at the present moment, 'The distant spires and antique towers' rise up before me in all their vividness by the power of that most wonderful faculty, MEMORY. "I was born and reared in the High Church of England, and nothing but the high Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints could have caused me to secede from its high tenets and truly liberal principles; it stands second to none of the churches of the world. "Any son or daughter might have been proud of such parents as mine, they were fine in person, highly moral, and intellectual, were descended from a highly born family, and were honored and respected by all who knew them; they reared their children with great care and watchfulness, giving them such an education as would fit them for all good society of whatever grade. Blessed be their memory! "I was married at the early age of seventeen, but in my mind and character I was older than many girls at twenty. I have lived long enough to authorize the woman to sit in judgment on the girl. "I had a sweet, happy home, for I had the faculty to make it so; I had ten beautiful children but death robbed me of several. We gave the surviving ones a liberal education with accomplishments; as they grew up they repaid us in being all we desired. From a child I had been accustomed to write much—keeping a journal and a book for choice extracts, etc. My father was unavoidably much away from home on business, but he enjoined me to write frequently to him, and to do his bidding was my delight, for he was my beau ideal of all that was good. Since at nine or ten I became a letter writer, and the thousands I have written in my long life would form a towering paper pillar. After some years of my married life I became a writer for the local papers and also wrote two books, one for my girls and the other for the boys, 'The Toilet' and the 'Three Eras,' dedicating them to each. These books were patronized by the aristocracy of England. I also wrote considerable poetry all my life. "In 1849, 'a change came o'er the spirit of my dream.' I had a young woman who had worked for me eleven years as dressmaker, she was highly respectable, conscientious and good. In September, 1849, she was in the house at work, and on the evening of the 4th, when work was laid aside, she told me she wished to speak to me privately, as she had something she wished to communicate to me. I at once gave her the audience she requested and she then laid before me the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the first principles of the same. Of course I was startled! But the spirit of God witnessed to my spirit that she spoke truth! I compared all she told me by the Bible which had ever been my standard of truth—it endorsed all she said! I studied, I prayed,—she gave me to read 'Spencer's Letters'—they made me a willing convert. I read many other prominent works with which my teacher furnished me. Fifteen months passed, and yet I had not attended the Latter-Day Saint Meetings, or seen a single member, but this young woman, yet even at that time I was a confirmed Latter-Day Saint. I then was introduced to an elder from America, and after his first sermon I was baptized by him in the classic waters of the Camm, my native river. "Soon I began to see the antagonisms I had to meet. I, a member of the Church of England. My grandfather a rector in the same, my father and my mother, my family and friends! All had to be met, could I bring the gray hairs of my parents in sorrow to the grave? Could I reduce my family to comparative poverty and reverses of every kind? Could I so lay my all upon the altar of my God? Could I like Abraham of old, arise and go to a far country—even the wilds of America? It would take more than I have space to elaborate this subject—suffice, strength was given me—I passed under 'the car of Juggernaut,' which is no overstrained flower of language but a veritable simile. Suffice, the votary lived! and I came out convinced, determined, and the calm, as it were, of a summer morning was upon me! A conviction had been given me that it was indeed the work of the last days, when all dispensations should be gathered in one, when that people I had all my life prayed for in the Church of England should be 'prepared for the second coming of the Savior,' were indeed organized upon the earth by the voice of God Himself and His Son, Jesus Christ, appearing to a youth, even Joseph Smith, and appointing him as the prophet of the last dispensation, under the immediate direction of the Lord Jesus Himself. The Church was organized with six members, on the 6th of April, 1830. "Of this Church I became a member by the requisite act of baptism by immersion, under the hands of the American missionary. From that time I had the spirit of 'gathering,' and in June, 1853, I left my home and many that were dear to me, my own immediate family accompanying me—and as I stood on the deck of the Golconda I said, 'My native land, good night.' Ox teams conveyed us over the prairies, and on the 19th of September, 1853, we entered Salt Lake City. Here we built a home which has been my sanctuary. I know God was with me, and my loved ones also were with me. The union of my family was remarkable, that, and the Spirit of God enabled us to 'remove mountains.' "In a brief sketch like this it is impossible to give even the outline, but could I place in a book, first our antecedents, and then the marvelous events of those three years, the laying aside our Lares and Penates, surely the skeptic would agree that there was a power with us that the world knows nothing of! for even though we knew we were the agents it was 'marvelous in our eyes.' Perhaps I have filled the brief space allotted me for the purpose for which I was called upon to write, surely my few words will be a testimony that I rejoice I am a Latter-Day Saint. I have passed through many reverses and tribulations, but in my darkest hours the Gospel has been a light upon my path and a lamp for my feet, and I realize day by day the smile and approbation of God upon me. "It has been my delight to write for the Saints since I have lived in Salt Lake City, and my reward has been their love and rich appreciation of my writings. I have been a constant writer for the Woman's Exponent, a paper got up and entirely carried on by the women of our people. President Young desired me to write for it and I have done so with pleasure to the best of my ability, both in prose and in verse. "For two years I had a school in my own house, and it promised to be a success, but my health failed, and to my sorrow I had to relinquish it. I was appointed to preside over the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association of the Seventeenth Ward, which position I held for one year, but resigned from feeble health. I was then appointed First Counselor to Marinda Hyde, President of the Relief Society of the Seventeenth Ward, which office I still have the honor to hold. My desire has ever been to be useful 'in my day and generation,' especially in the work of the last days, for in that I have joy and ample satisfaction. "The history of the people of God as we read it in the Bible, repeats itself in a remarkable manner in the Church of Jesus Christ upon the earth to-day, and those who need a testimony of its truth, I advise them to compare and observe the workings of the self-same spirit of antagonism, and they will hardly need another." I select a portion of one of Mrs. King's poems; her prose and verse are alike, always lofty in character; her prose writings would form more than one valuable volume for the libraries of the Saints, or indeed those not of our faith. Historical and character sketches seem a peculiar gift with her. Among the many admirers of her poems the English Saints regard her with special fondness, for is she not their own? and they anticipate her contributions, as we look forward to flowers of spring, to summer's wealth of fruits, to autumn's harvest time.
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