SKETCH OF THE SISTERS MARY AND MERCY R. FIELDING—THE FIELDINGS A SEMI-APOSTOLIC FAMILY—THEIR IMPORTANT INSTRUMENTALITY IN OPENING THE BRITISH MISSION—MARY FIELDING MARRIES HYRUM SMITH—HER TRIALS AND SUFFERINGS WHILE HER HUSBAND IS IN PRISON—TESTIMONY OF HER SISTER MERCY—MARY'S LETTER TO HER BROTHER IN ENGLAND.

Already has the name of Mary Fielding become quite historical to the reader, but she is now to be introduced in her still more representative character as wife of the patriarch and martyr Hyrum, and as mother of the apostle Joseph F. Smith.

This much-respected lady was born July 21st, 1801, at Honidon, Bedfordshire, England. She was the daughter of John and Rachel Fielding, and was the eldest of the sisters whom the reader has met somewhat prominently in an apostolic incident in Canada, out of which much of the early history of the British mission very directly grew.

Mary was of good family, well educated, and piously raised, being originally a Methodist, and a devoted admirer of the character of John Wesley. Indeed the family of the Fieldings and their connections were semi-apostolic even before their identification with the Church of Latter-day Saints.

In 1834 Mary emigrated to Canada. Here she joined her youngest brother, Joseph, and her sister, Mercy Rachel (born in England in 1807), who had preceded her to America in 1832. As we have seen, this brother and his two sisters were living near Toronto, Upper Canada, at the time when Parley P. Pratt arrived there on his mission, and they immediately embraced the faith. This was in May, 1836.

In the following spring the Fieldings gathered to Kirtland. Soon the youngest of the sisters, Mercy Rachel, was married by the prophet to Elder Robert B. Thompson, one of the literati of the Church, who was appointed on a mission to Canada with his wife. At the same time Joseph Fielding was appointed on mission to England, to assist the apostles in that land. But Mary remained in Kirtland, and on the 24th of December, 1837, she was married to Hyrum Smith.

Here something deserves to be told of the Fielding family in amplification of the incidental mentionings already made.

The Rev. James Fielding (of Preston, England), Mary's brother, was quite a religious reformer, and of sufficient ministerial reputation and force to become the founder and head of a Congregational Methodist Church. Originally he was a minister of the regular body of that powerful sect, but becoming convinced that modern Methodists had departed from their primitive faith, and that their church no longer enjoyed the Holy Ghost and its gifts, which measurably attended their illustrious founder and his early disciples, the Rev. Mr. Fielding inaugurated a religious reform in the direction intimated. It was an attempt to revive in his ministerial sphere the spiritual power of the Wesleyan movement; nor did he stop at this, but sought to convince his disciples of the necessity of "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints."

Other branches of the family also became prominent in the religious reforms of England that arose about the time of the establishing of the Church of Latter-day Saints in America. One of the Fielding sisters married no less a personage than the Rev. Timothy R. Matthews, who figured nearly as conspicuously as the Rev. James Fielding in the early history of the British mission. This Rev. Timothy Matthews was at first minister of the Church of England, and is said to have been a very able and learned man. With the famous Robert Aitken, whom he called his "son," he attempted reformation even in the established Church; or rather, these innovative divines denounced the "apostasy" of that Church, and prosecuted a semi-apostolic mission. It was eminently successful, Robert Aitken and himself raising up large congregations of disciples in Preston, Liverpool, Bedford, Northampton and London. These disciples were popularly called Aitkenites and Matthewites. Quite relevant is all this to the history of the Latter-day Saints in England, for the congregations of the Rev. James Fielding, Rev. Timothy R. Matthews, and Rev. John Richards (father of Jennetta), gave to the apostles their first disciples abroad, and these ministers themselves were their instruments in establishing the British mission.

But the name of Fielding, after those of the apostles, was principal in accomplishing these results. The sisters Mary and Mercy, with Joseph, half converted by their letters, the congregation of their reverend brother in Preston, before the advent there of the apostles. In their Brother James' chapel the first apostolic sermon in foreign lands was preached by Heber C. Kimball, and it was one of the Fielding sisters (Mrs. Watson), who gave to the elders the first money for the "gospel's sake" donated to the church abroad.

But to return to Kirtland. Hyrum Smith was a widower at the date of Mary Fielding's arrival there from Canada. And this means that his only wife was dead; for polygamy was unknown in the Church at that time. It will therefore, be seen how pertinent is the often-repeated remark of the sisters that the saints were not driven and persecuted because of polygamy, but because of their belief in "new and continued revelation." In becoming Hyrum's wife, Mary assumed the responsible situation of step-mother to his five children, the task of which she performed with unwavering fidelity, taking care of them for years after the martyrdom of her husband, and taking the place of both father and mother to them in the exodus of the Church to the Rocky Mountains. And Mary was well trained for this latter task during her husband's lifetime, besides being matured in years and character before her marriage.

From Kirtland, with her husband and family, she removed to Far West, Mo., where, on the first day of November, 1838, her husband and his brother, the prophet, with others, were betrayed by the Mormon Colonel Hinkle into the hands of the armed mob under General Clark, in the execution of Gov. Boggs' exterminating order. On the following day Hyrum was marched, at the point of the bayonet, to his house, by a strong guard, who with hideous oaths and threats commanded Mary to take her last farewell of her husband, for, "His die was cast, and his doom was sealed," and she need never think she would see him again; allowing her only a moment, as it were, for that terrible parting, and to provide a change of clothes for the final separation. In the then critical condition of her health this heart-rending scene came nigh ending her life; but the natural vigor of her mind sustained her in the terrible trial. Twelve days afterwards she gave birth to her first born, a son; but she remained prostrate on a bed of affliction and suffering for several months. In January, 1839, she was taken in a wagon, with her infant, on her sick bed, to Liberty, Clay county, Mo., where she was granted the privilege of visiting her husband in jail, where he was confined by the mob, without trial or conviction, because, forsooth, he was a "Mormon."

While in this condition of health, with her husband immured in a dungeon and surrounded by fiends in human form, thirsting for his life, a company of armed men, led by the notorious Methodist priest, Bogart, entered her poor abode and searched it, breaking open a trunk and carrying away papers and valuables belonging to her husband. In this helpless condition also she was forced from what shelter she had, in the worst season of the year, to cross the bleak prairies of Missouri, expelled from the State, to seek protection among strangers in the more hospitable State of Illinois. Here is the story that her sister Mercy tells of those days and scenes:

"In 1838 I traveled in company with Hyrum Smith and family to Far West. To describe in a brief sketch the scenes I witnessed and the sufferings I endured would be impossible. An incident or two, however, I will relate.

"My husband, with many of the brethren, being threatened and pursued by a mob, fled into the wilderness in November, leaving me with an infant not five months old. Three months of distressing suspense I endured before I could get any intelligence from him, during which time I staid with my sister, wife of Hyrum Smith, who, having given birth to a son while her husband was in prison, on the 13th of November took a severe cold and was unable to attend to her domestic duties for four months. This caused much of the care of her family, which was very large, to fall on me. Mobs were continually threatening to massacre the inhabitants of the city, and at times I feared to lay my babe down lest they should slay me and leave it to suffer worse than immediate death. About the 1st of February, 1839, by the request of her husband, my sister was placed on a bed in a wagon and taken a journey of forty miles, to visit him in the prison. Her infant son, Joseph F., being then but about eleven weeks old, I had to accompany her, taking my own babe, then near eight months old. The weather was extremely cold, and we suffered much on the journey. This circumstance I always reflect upon with peculiar pleasure, notwithstanding the extreme anxiety I endured from having the care of my sick sister and the two babes. The remembrance of having had the honor of spending a night in prison, in company with the prophet and patriarch, produces a feeling I cannot express.

"Shortly after our return to Far West we had to abandon our homes and start, in lumber wagons, for Illinois; my sister being again placed on a bed, in an afflicted state. This was about the middle of February, and the weather was extremely cold. I still had the care of both babes. We arrived at Quincy about the end of the month."

The following interesting letter, from Mary to her brother Joseph in England, will fitly close for the present the sketch of these sisters:

"COMMERCE, Ill., North America,

"June, 1839.

"MY VERY DEAR BROTHER:

"As the elders are expecting shortly to take their leave of us again to preach the gospel in my native land, I feel as though I would not let the opportunity of writing you pass unimproved. I believe it will give you pleasure to hear from us by our own hand; notwithstanding you will see the brethren face to face, and have an opportunity of hearing all particulars respecting us and our families.

"As it respects myself, it is now so long since I wrote to you, and so many important things have transpired, and so great have been my affliction, etc., that I know not where to begin; but I can say, hitherto has the Lord preserved me, and I am still among the living to praise him, as I do to-day. I have, to be sure, been called to drink deep of the bitter cup; but you know, my beloved brother, this makes the sweet sweeter.

"You have, I suppose, heard of the imprisonment of my dear husband, with his brother Joseph, Elder Rigdon, and others, who were kept from us nearly six months; and I suppose no one felt the painful effects of their confinement more than myself. I was left in a way that called for the exercise of all the courage and grace I possessed. My husband was taken from me by an armed force, at a time when I needed, in a particular manner, the kindest care and attention of such a friend, instead of which, the care of a large family was suddenly and unexpectedly left upon myself, and, in a few days after, my dear little Joseph F. was added to the number. Shortly after his birth I took a severe cold, which brought on chills and fever; this, together with the anxiety of mind I had to endure, threatened to bring me to the gates of death. I was at least four months entirely unable to take any care either of myself or child; but the Lord was merciful in so ordering things that my dear sister could be with me. Her child was five months old when mine was born; so she had strength given her to nurse them both.

"You will also have heard of our being driven, as a people, from the State, and from our homes; this happened during my sickness, and I had to be removed more than two hundred miles, chiefly on my bed. I suffered much on my journey; but in three or four weeks after we arrived in Illinois, I began to amend, and my health is now as good as ever. It is now little more than a month since the Lord, in his marvelous power, returned my dear husband, with the rest of the brethren, to their families, in tolerable health. We are now living in Commerce, on the bank of the great Mississippi river. The situation is very pleasant; you would be much pleased to see it. How long we may be permitted to enjoy it I know not; but the Lord knows what is best for us. I feel but little concerned about where I am, if I can keep my mind scald upon God; for, you know in this there is perfect peace. I believe the Lord is overruling all things for our good. I suppose our enemies look upon us with astonishment and disappointment.

"I greatly desire to see you, and I think you would be pleased to see our little ones; will you pray for us, that we may have grace to train them up in the way they should go, so that they may be a blessing to us and the world? I have a hope that our brothers and sisters will also embrace the fullness of the gospel, and come into the new and everlasting covenant; I trust their prejudices will give way to the power of truth. I would gladly have them with us here, even though they might have to endure all kind of tribulation and affliction with us and the rest of the children of God, in these last days, so that they might share in the glories of the celestial kingdom. As to myself, I can truly say, that I would not give up the prospect of the latter-day glory for all that glitters in this world. O, my dear brother, I must tell you, for your comfort, that my hope is full, and it is a glorious hope; and though I have been left for near six months in widowhood, in the time of great affliction, and was called to take, joyfully or otherwise, the spoiling of almost all our goods, in the absence of my husband, and all unlawfully, just for the gospel's sake (for the judge himself declared that he was kept in prison for no other reason than because he was a friend to his brother), yet I do not feel in the least discouraged; no, though my sister and I are here together in a strange land, we have been enabled to rejoice, in the midst of our privations and persecutions, that we were counted worthy to suffer these things, so that we may, with the ancient saints who suffered in like manner, inherit the same glorious reward. If it had not been for this hope, I should have sunk before this; but, blessed be the God and rock of my salvation, here I am, and am perfectly satisfied and happy, having not the smallest desire to go one step backward.

"Your last letter to Elder Kimball gave us great pleasure; we thank you for your expression of kindness, and pray God to bless you according to your desires for us.

"The more I see of the dealings of our Heavenly Father with us as a people, the more I am constrained to rejoice that I was ever made acquainted with the everlasting covenant. O may the Lord keep me faithful till my change comes! O, my dear brother, why is it that our friends should stand out against the truth, and look on those that would show it to them as enemies? The work here is prospering much; several men of respectability and intelligence, who have been acquainted with all our difficulties, are coming into the work.

"My husband joins me in love to you. I remain, my dear brother and sister, your affectionate sister,

"MARY SMITH."