Letter to John William Grierson, 11 January 1850
Brother Grierson
Dear Sir
I have just returned from
a mission in the West of two months & found your
Letter on my return & In reply would say that I am glad
to hear from you. I have spent two years past in these
Eastern States constantly travelling & preaching among the
Churches I spent the past Summer in the British provinces
In answer to your inquiries concerning who leads the
Church I would say the vary men whom God has called
chosen & ordained under the hands of the prophet Joseph for
that purpose & the vary men who have built up the Church
from the commencement of its organization, & the vary men
who will continue to build it up untill the winding up
scene or their successors will and that is the Quorum of the Twelve
in connexion with the First presidency, who have gone with the
Church & Kingdom of God into the valleys of the Mountains in
Upper Calafornia, And Mr Strang, Wm Smith,
Rigdon and a score of others who have set up for themselves
will soon fall, & will neither do themselves nor their followers
any good. No more than straws will save a drowning man.
The Church has a presidency of three men viz Brigham
Young, Heber C. Kimball, & Willard Richards.
I recieved an Epistle and letters from them a few days since
filled with good News they have universal Health, good
crops, enough to eat, hoping all 3 New Cities, are forming
settlements 200 miles south of the Salt Lake Valley, are prospering
in all they put their hands unto, are forming a perpetual
