The author was born in the State of Vermont, November 9th, 1818; first believed the fulness of the Gospel in the spring of 1832; first saw the Prophet Joseph Smith in December, 1835, in Kirtland, Ohio, which was then head quarters of the Church, was ordained one of the Seventies the following spring, and has been engaged in the ministry ever since; was with the Saints through their persecutions in Missouri and Illinois; was in prison with the Prophets, Joseph and Hyrum, in Missouri; carried the chain for surveying the first town lots of Nauvoo; was one of the two Latter-day Saints who first entered Salt Lake Valley; has crossed the back-bone of the American continent four times, and travelled, probably, not less than eighty thousand miles on that continent, but never, until this mission, left his native shore, or was absent from his family more than one year at a time. And during a period of over twelve years, in which he has had a family, he has at no one time been permitted to remain with them so long as one year with the single exception of one year and twenty-nine days in the Salt Lake city, prior to this mission. Robbed and plundered in common with his brethren, he transplanted his family through poverty and deep affliction to that resting place. The first year spent in surmounting the difficulties of a new country, and while collecting materials for building, the voice of inspiration cried, "To the nations, oh! ye elders of Israel." His destination was Denmark; to be accompanied by brother P. O. Hanson, a native of Copenhagen, who had been mysteriously led by the Spirit to America, in search of the Kingdom of God, and found it in time to sup with the Saints their cup of afflictions, and accompany them to the mountains. Thursday, of the same week in which the mission was first intimated, was fixed for starting, though subsequent circumstances caused a little longer delay. The parting is left to conjecture. God be thanked for a family that amid the overflowing emotions of the heart never say "don't go." The journey over the plains, four hundred miles of mud, through Missouri; the trip through the States, crossing the Atlantic, visit in England, voyage from Hull to Copenhagen, the first scenes in Denmark, are all to some extent known to the English Saints, and however many associations of interest they might awaken, the writer has no design here to recapitulate them.

The pressure of business and haste with which these items have been thrown together, is the only apology for the use made of the following extracts of private letters, which were never intended for publication.