40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
gress, and as having outstripped all of the neighboring schools.
But my extra exertions told seriously on my physical system, as the following little incident will illustrate: One evening I was in company with a gentleman who was with Napoleon Bonaparte's army in its retreat from Moscow. He possessed peculiar descriptive powers, and portrayed so lifelike the terrible scenes of suffering and death he had witnessed in that memorable defeat, that my mind was entirely absorbed, and my feelings and sympathies so aroused and carried along with him in his thrilling narrative, that my bodily strength was completely overcome, and I suddenly fainted and fell from my chair. This circumstance admonished me of the necessity of rest, of which I availed myself, and soon regained my usual health.
After having arranged my secular affairs, I took leave of my friends and kindred in Ohio, and started for Nauvoo, where I arrived about the first of May, 1840. I found my parents, brothers and sisters, whom I had left about eighteen months before, in Adam-ondi-Ahman, living in LaHarpe, about thirty miles from Nauvoo. 0, what changes, privation, hardship and suffering, the cruel hand of persecution had produced in those eventful months! But God was with His people, and they knew in whom they trusted, and in the midst of severe trials, rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the truth's sake.
