  His procedure in administering to the sick—Testimony as to his success—Visits the Prophet—Missionary labors—Casts out a "devil"—His family baptized—Mrs. Strong healed—Called to Jackson County. Those who have had a like experience, will know with what joy the new convert returned to his friends in the wilderness. All business was laid aside. With his companion, David traveled through all the country round about preaching the Gospel and healing the sick. Immediately upon taking up his labors in Michigan, in calling at the house of a stranger to ask for dinner, David found in the family a very sick child, and while discussing the restoration of the Gospel with the parents, was asked to administer to the little one. Finding the mother had faith, he did so, and it was at once healed. In administering the healing ordinance David had a method of procedure peculiarly his own. On reaching the beside, he would first teach the principles of the Gospel and bear his testimony to their truth, when he usually made a promise that the invalid should be healed if he would agree to accept baptism. President Abraham O. Smoot, of Utah Stake, once said he never knew an instance in which David's petition for the sick was not answered, and this was also the testimony of President Wilford Woodruff. At the close of one of his meetings in Michigan, where he had no doubt spoken of the gift of healing, two children sick of fever and ague were brought to the meeting-house to be healed. David had started off, but was called back and upon learning from the parents of their faith, acceded to their request, and the children were healed instantly. Until the latter part of September David and his companion labored in Southeastern Michigan, baptizing sixteen persons in a branch of the Maumee River during that time. Late in the summer they took up a journey to Kirtland, preaching by the way. Perhaps the first person they met at Kirtland was Elder Joseph C. Kingsbury, for they inquired of him at Newel K. Whitney's store the way to the home of the Prophet Joseph. It was early in October; the Prophet was on a mission east, and while waiting his return, David spent the next two or three weeks on the Prophet's farm, helping to dig potatoes and harvest corn. Soon after the return of the Prophet Joseph Smith, David W. Patten was sent into Pennsylvania on his second mission, traveling sometimes with John Murdock as a companion, and at other times with Reynolds Cahoon. The Prophet, in sending out these early missionaries, had no particular field of labor in mind for any of them. They were sent to warn all men, but their message was specially to the honest in heart, and these they had no way of finding except by the inspiration of the Lord. Just at this time a large number of Elders had been sent east from Kirtland in response to the revelation of September 22, 1832, from which we quote as follows:
On the 9th of November, in eastern Ohio, David fell in with John F. Boynton and Zebedee Coltrin, who like himself were uncertain as to their course, and the three thereupon held a council of inquiry. Agreeing that Zebedee Coltrin should be mouth, the three went into a wood near by and knelt in prayer. They were directed to go eastward, preaching as they went. This they did, and David adds, "the Spirit of God leading us." Several persons were baptized on their way. At Springfield, Pa., David met Hyrum Smith and his brother William, and joined them in holding services. After meeting, six persons were baptized. David's gift of healing the sick was in constant demand. People came to him from all the country round, and it was a dally occurrence for the sick to be healed under his administrations. One woman, who had been an invalid for twenty years, was healed instantly. After four months' labor in and about Pennsylvania, David returned to Kirtland, arriving there February 25, 1833. David was a man of great physical strength. While on his third mission, which was undertaken after a month's rest at Kirtland, he and Reynolds Cahoon had an appointment to preach at the house of Father Bosley, at Avon, Ohio. Several meetings had been held here before by other Elders, and among the assembled neighbors, was a man known as the "County Bully," who was the source of a great deal of annoyance to the speakers. Sitting by the door in the hallway, this man would, every little while, contradict the speaker, or call out some irreverent suggestion, or ask for a sign. He boisterously refused to be quiet, and on the evening of David's meeting at the house, was particularly noisy, asking David, among other things, to cast the devil out. Whether it was from a sense of humor at the fellow's unlucky remark, or because he was tired of the disturbance, we cannot say, but David finally determined to silence his persecutor. Walking to the hallway, he quietly picked the man up bodily, carried him to the outside door, and with a swing sent the fellow about ten feet onto the wood pile. There was no more disturbance that night, and the saying was the current mirth provoker of the neighborhood for weeks afterward, that "Patten cast out one devil, soul and body." While on this mission, David assisted in converting a part of his own family. On the 20th of May, 1833, at Theresa, Indian River Falls, his brothers, Archibald and Ira, his sister Polly, his mother, and two of his brothers-in-law, Warren Parrish and Mr. Cheeseman, were led into the waters of baptism by Elder Brigham Young, who was another of the large number of missionaries sent out from Kirtland in March, 1833. David's father had died in August the previous year. For nearly a year now David had been almost continuously in the field, preaching the Gospel and healing the sick, his power with the Lord in no wise diminishing. No credit was ever taken to himself, however, in the miracles performed, for he writes of this time: "The Lord did work with me wonderfully, in signs and wonders following them that believed in the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, insomuch that the deaf were made to hear, the blind to see, and the lame were made whole. Fevers, palsies, crooked and withered limbs, and in fact all manner of diseases common to the country, were healed by the power of God, that was manifested through his servants." Among those visited by him was a blind woman, the wife of Ezra Strong. It was nearly noon when David reached the house. After the usual testimony and questions respecting her faith in the Gospel, David rubbed and anointed her eyes, when immediately she was restored to sight; and so thoroughly was she healed that she prepared dinner for the household. During this summer, under great hardship and suffering, eighty members were added to the Church under David's administration. Eighteen of these were at Orleans, Jefferson County, New York. At Henderson where eight converts were baptized, great power was manifested at the confirmation, when the members spoke in tongues and prophesied. With his brother, Ira, David returned in the early autumn of 1833 to Kirtland, where he worked on the temple for a month. Before winter set in that year, David had removed his wife and their effects from Michigan to Florence, Ohio, where he remained till the latter part of November. Having been sickly, five weeks of the seven he spent at home that fall, David commended himself into the hands of the Lord and went into the neighboring country to preach. But there was a field more in need of his labors than this, for he had not been from home more than two weeks when the word of the Lord came to him as follows: "Depart from your field of labor, and go unto Kirtland, for behold, I will send thee up to the land of Zion, for behold, thou shalt serve thy brethren there." |
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