--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Grant, Heber J. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 8 published: 1912-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Heber J. Grant, "When Great Sorrows Are Our Portion," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 8 (June 1912): 726–730.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1508unse 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: improvementera1508unse start_page: 726 end_page: 730 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1508unse publication_year: 1912 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 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # When Great Sorrows Are Our Portion When Great Sorrows are Our Portion BY HEBER J. GRANT, OF THE QUORUM OF TWELVE APOSTLES [Recently Elder Grant sent the following personal letter to Mr. and Mrs. O. L. Winters, of Ogderi, Utah, on the occasion of the death of their little daughter. Besides containing many personal reminiscences of real public interest, the nature of the contents is comforting to the sorowing and faith-promoting to all, which is sufficient to make them of general value to both young and old. — Editors.] My Dear Friends: I expected to have dictated before now the experiences wherein I was abundantly blessed of the Lord, upon several occasions when sorrows came into my life, but this afternoon is the first chance that I have had to do so. I have been up from three to four a. m. for several mornings, and have been exceedingly busy. My wife Lucy was very sick for nearly three years prior to her death. At one time I was in the hospital with her for six months. When she was dying, I called my children into the bedroom and told them their mamma was dying. My daughter Lutie said she did not want her mamma to die, and insisted that I lay hands upon her and heal her, saying that she had often seen her mother, when sick in the hospital, in San Francisco, suffering intensely, go to sleep immediately and have a peaceful night's rest, when I had blessed her. I explained to my children that we all had to die, some time, and that I felt that their mamma's time had come. The children went out of the room, and I knelt down by the bed of my dying wife, and told the Lord that I acknowledged his hand in life or in death, in joy or in sorrow, in prosperity or adversity ; that I did not complain because my wife was dying, but that I lacked the strength to see my wife die and have her death affect the faith of my children in the ordinances of the gospel. I therefore pleaded with him to give to my daughter Lutie a testimony that it was his will that her mother should die. Within a few short hours, my wife breathed her last. Then I WHEN GREAT SORROWS ARE OUR PORTION 727 called the children into the bed-room and announced that their mamma was dead. My little boy, Heber, commenced weeping bitterly, and Lutie put her arms around him and kissed him, and told him not to cry, that the voice of the Lord had said to her, "In the death of your mamma the will of the Lord will be done." Lutie knew nothing of my prayers, and this manifestation to her was a direct answer to my supplication to the Lord, and for it I have never ceased to be grateful. After the death of my wife, I took my three eldest girls to Chicago, New York, Boston and Washington, to see the sights of these great cities, believing that it would lessen the great sorrow which had come into their lives in the death of their mamma. At Washington my daughters Ray and Lutie were taken down with diphtheria, and were sick nigh unto death. Lutie was so sick that her pulse beat only twenty-eight times to the minute, and they fed her large quantities of the strongest whisky every fifteen minutes, all through the night, to keep her alive. She was given enough whisky to have made a dozen strong men drunk, and it hardly made her tongue thick. I was kneeling, supplicating the Lord to spare her life, pleading with him not to allow the additional sorrow to come to me of one of my children dying while I was away from home. I was shedding bitter tears, when the inspiration came that if I would send out for President George Q. Cannon and Bishop Hiram B. Clawson, who were then in Washington, that as they held the priesthood, they could rebuke the disease, and that my daughter would live. I thanked the Lord for this manifestation, and shed tears of gratitude that my daughter's life was to be spared. President Cannon in blessing Lutie stated that the adversary had decreed her death and made public announcement of his decree. I subsequently learned that the lady who was the proprietor of the boarding house was a spiritualist, and that she had visited her medium and asked her to tell her what was going to happen in her home. The medium told of the sickness of two little girls, that the older of the two had been nigh unto death, but would recover. She told her that she saw the second little girl get worse and worse, and finally die. She described taking the body out of the house, and the coffin being put upon the railroad train, and the railroad train going hundreds and hundreds of miles toward the west, and then she described the 728 IMPROVEMENT ERA train going over high mountains and then stopping in a valley and the coffin being taken off the train and then taken to a burial ground upon the hill-side, where she saw it lowered into a grave. President Cannon, in his prayer, rebuked the destroyer, and announced that Lutie should recover and live to be a mother. And in the providences of the Lord, she is now the mother of three children, and their great-grandfather is the man who, in the authority of the priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ, rebuked the destroyer's declaration that she was to die and her body be carried home and buried upon the hill-side. When my son Heber was dying, notwithstanding I had builded great hopes upon his future life and he was my only living son, I never experienced a more peaceful, calm spirit, than was in my home. I was sitting by the little boy, expecting every moment would be the last. Between me and your sister, Augusta, was a vacant chair, and as I was sitting there, the impression came over me that my boy's mother was occupying this vacant chair, waiting for him to breathe his last. I turned to Augusta and spoke of the peaceful influence that I felt, that there was apparently no death in the room, and asked her how she felt. She said her feelings were the same as mine, and she had the impression that Lucy was in the chair between us, waiting for Heber's death. When Heber was dying, they came and woke me up. I had just finished having a dream. The dream was that while I was sleeping, a messenger came in company with my wife Lucy, and she instructed him to carefully take Heber out of the bed, that she had come for him, and she wanted him to go with her, and the messenger was to take him so quietly that I would not be disturbed. In my dream, I jumped up out of bed immediately, and took hold of my boy. The messenger who was acting under Lucy's instructions to take him away had a struggle with me, and I succeeded in wrenching Heber away from him. But in doing so, I fell, and I fell upon him, and very seriously injured his limb, from which he had been suffering so long with hip disease. His cries of agony pierced my very soul, and I got to thinking, "What if I have injured him, and made him lame for all the days of his life? It would have been better to have let his mother take him." I felt quite sad to think I had not consented to my boy being taken by his mother. I walked out of the house and wandered around WHEN GREAT SORROWS ARE OUR PORTION 729 the streets, and happened to meet Brother Joseph E. Taylor. I told him of Lucy coming to the house to try to get her boy, and of the struggle that I had had with the messenger. He spoke of the fact that a mother has to offer her life upon the altar of sacrifice to bring her children into the world, and he said to me, "Brother Grant, much as I like to keep my children on this earth, I believe if the mother of any of my children were to come for her child, I certainly would raise no objections. I do not think there should be any family quarrels over a matter of this kind." I walked home with the feeling in my heart that if Lucy returned again, she could have her boy. I had just come to this conclusion in my dream when I was awakened, and the information was given to me that Heber was dying; and a subsequent impression which both Augusta and I received, that his mother was sitting between us waiting for his death, was in confirmation of my dream. I never had a serious dream in my life except the above, and it has always been a source of comfort to me. No man can tell me that I do not know that God lives and that he hears and answers prayers, after the manifestation that came to Lutie that it was his will that her mother should die. Neither can anybody tell me that I do not know that the authority of the Priesthood of God is on earth when the representatives of the adversary announce the death of my daughter, and President George Q. Cannon, in the authority of the priesthood and in the name of Jesus, rebukes the decree of her death and promises she will live to be a mother, and this promise is fufiled. No words of mine can express the gratitude that I felt at the time of Heber's death. Alma, in his commandments to his son Helaman (ch. 36, B. M.), speaks of the agony he felt when the angel appeared to him and rebuked him, and says nothing could be more exquisite than his pain. Alma also tells of the joy that he felt after calling upon the name of Jesus Christ, and says that nothing could be so ' exquisite as the peace and happiness that came to him. I can testify of my absolutely knowledge that nothing short of the Spirit of the Lord ever could have brought the peace and comfort to me which I experienced at the time of Heber's death. I am naturally affectionate in my disposition. I loved my last and only living son with all my heart. I had builded great hopes on what I ex- 730 IMPROVEMENT ERA pected him to accomplish. I expected to see him a missionary proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I hoped that he might live to be a power for good upon the earth ; and yet, notwithstanding all these aspirations that I had for my boy, I was able, because of the blessings of the Lord, to see him die without shedding a tear. No power on earth could have given to me this peace. It was of God. And I can never speak of it or write of it without feelings of gratitude filling my heart, far beyond any power with which I am endowed to express my feelings. My dearly beloved brother and sister, it has been a pleasure to me to relate the three incidents above, of my personal experience, where blessings have come to me, when great sorrows have been my portion ; and I have done so hoping they may comfort your aching hearts. That God may bless and comfort you, and that the sweet influence of his Spirit may be and abide with you, in your home, and that your hearts may be healed of the sorrow caused by the death of your beloved little girl, is my earnest prayer — in which Augusta and Mary join. I am ever your affectionate brother, Heber J. Grant. SALT LAKE CITY, MARCH 21, 1912 Elder D. Dredge Thomas, writing from San Antonio, Texas, reports that he and his companion have had great satisfaction in holding weekly meetings in their field of labor. They also held street meetings in the leading streets of the city, where they have full freedom, so long as they do not block traffic. He says: "This is quite a place for tourists to spend the winter. We find many people who have visited Salt Lake City. While there, they were entertained by the Bureau of Information, and attended the organ recital. All have words of praise for what they saw and heard. Many express themselves as having an entirely different idea of the 'Mormons.' The Bureau of Information opens many doors to the elders. The elders in the picture are: D. Dredge Thomas, Malad, David Roberts, Paris, Idaho."