Gifts of the Gospel: “And He Will Show You Things to Come”

726 IMPROVEMENT ERA remember. Sister Dudley, at their request, gave them some- thing to eat; and while they were eating I asked them who their black companion was at the gate, and they replied that he was a native of the Caribbean Islands. "Does he speak English?" I inquired. "Not a word," they answered. "When you go to the gate," I said, "tell him to come to the house." I had received an impression that sister Dudley, through him, would be able to receive an assurance that the tongue she had received was genuine. When the Caribbean came to the house, sister Dudley gave him some bread and milk, and as he ate it she stood leaning against the doorpost regard- ing him very intently. When the man finished eating I said to sister Dudley, "now is your chance to test your new tongue." She replied, "I do not like to try it." But I urged her to put it to the test, and presently she began to speak in the tongue that had been given her. When she began to speak the black man arose from his chair with the most pro- found astonishment I ever saw on a man's face. He listened to her in silence for a while, and then he commenced to talk in his native language. When he stopped sister Dudley be- gan again, and thus they continued to converse with each other for some fifteen minutes. At last the Caribbean shook hands with her and joined his companions. As the black man left the house brother Dudley turned to his wife and said: "Letty, I hope you will never doubt again." She replied: " No, I never shall, John." SL George, June 2ist, i8g8. 'AND HE WILL SHOW YOU THINGS TO COME." (John XVI: IS). BY SAMUEL C. ADAMS. While reading the editorial, in number two of the Era, on the prophecy of Elder Parley P. Pratt respecting the construc- tion of railroads, etc., my mind reverted to a similar prediction in 1854, at Nephi, Juab County, by a man who was considered a visionary. The circumstances leading up to the prophecy were these: A war with Chief Walker (Ute Indian) was upon our

GIFTS OF THE GOSPEL. 727 hands, and many of us almost felt that our aims at making a suc- cess of our foothold in Juab County might be futile. President Joseph L. Heywood tried to inspire all with the idea that success was an assured fact, and in his Sabbath discourses he would try to inspire us with faith, by declaring what he expected to live to see. On one occasion he went so far as to say, in the name of God, that he would live to see these valleys so filled up, that there would be a railroad north and south through this (Juab) valley; and further, that another railroad would run east and west, up and down the very street upon which our fort then stood, and run into Sanpete Valley. This was about ten years before the great railroads across the continent were talked about or surveyed. To those of us who listened, it seemed wild, we said, for we new that to freight one rail eighteen feet long, from the east to Utah, would cost $100.00, and that there was not enough money in circulation in North America to deliver the rails by ox teams to build a 400 mile road from north to south through Utah. But the Civil War brought its blessings, or at least its changes. It showed the necessity of a railroad from ocean to ocean: the pony express gave way to the Brigham Young express carrying company; this to the overland stage; then came the telegraph line; then the Union Pacific railroad, by which the rails for the north and south railroad of Utah could be brought with the greatest ease. The road bed was laid chiefly under contracts nego- tiated by President Brigham Young. The rails were brought, the track was laid, and today the main part of the road exists and the east and west line, connecting with the Union Pacific, or Oregon Short Line now, is built up the very street spoken of, and doing business with Sanpete through Salt Creek can- yon: and the venerable old gentleman who made the "wild declaration" is still alive, and numbers of those who were present in the meeting and thought his prophecy extravagant when the declaration was made, say now, surely he was in- spired of God, for it hath come to pass. The foregoing can be proven by a dozen or more of the old settlers of Nephi, for I have talked with that many in late years upon this subject. St. George, Utah, April 23d , iBg8.