---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - J. X. Allen
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 7
number: 2
published: 1903-12
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'J. X. Allen, "A Patriarchal Blessing and Its Realization", *Improvement Era* 7, no. 2 (December 1903): 111.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0702unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0702unse
start_page: 111
end_page: 111
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-12)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0702unse
  publication_year: 1903
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Patriarchal Blessing and Its Realization

<!-- page:111 -->

A PATRIARCHAL BLESSING AND ITS REALIZA-
                                      TION.
                       BY DR. J. X. ALLEN, OGDEN, UTAH.


         In the   summer of 1884, Patriarch James M. Works, brother-
in-law of President          Brigham Young, paid a professional visit to
Ogden.       He and I had been intimately associated together in Shef-
field,   England, in the year 1852, so that           it   was most natural that
he should become my guest during his temporary sojourn among us.
         During his visit I was incapacitated from following my calling,
in consequence        of a severe     chronic bronchitis which          I   had con-
tracted through exposure in            the preceding winter          and spring.
Breathing was difficult, -and walking more than a few rods at a
time, impossible.        Medicine   — as   is   common in this complaint
                                                              was             —
of but little avail.  was thoroughly discouraged, and consequently
                         I

not in a happy frame of mind.
     On July first, 1884, Brother Works came into my office to an-
nounce his intention of leaving Ogden, and of blessing me before
leaving.      I   answered him, I fear, not very civilly       — that   I   failed to
see what good his blessing could do me, seeing that I was crip-
pled for life. All who knew Brother Works, know how inoffensive
and non-combative he was, but my answer seemed to grieve and
arouse him as I had never seen him aroused before. He arose,
and with a commanding dignity of voice, gesture, and expression,
altogether foreign to the man, he stretched out his hand and said:
"Brother James, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.                  It commands

me to bless you, and I am going to bless you; and I will have no
back talk, not a word."
         With that he laid his hand upon my head and proceeded                    to
bless me.         And oh, such a blessing! He promised me that I should