CHAPTER IX.
Called on mission to England.—Extraordinary communication.—Calls on
families of the Twelve.—In Ohio.—Borrows money.—On board a sailing
yesse!.—In Liverpool.—Writes to his aunt.—Why he is there.—How he
came there.—Crossing the ocean.—Terrific storms.—An ocean storm
scene.—The ealm.—Gratitude.—Arrives in Liverpool.—Manchester.—
Birmingham.—Lorenzo says:
EARLY in the spring of 1840, I was appointed to a mission in England, and I started on or about the twentieth of May. I here record a circumstance which occurred a short time previous—one which has been riveted on my memory, never to be erased, so extraordinary was the manifestation. At the time, I was at the house of Elder H. G. Sherwood; he was endeavoring to explain the parable of our Savior, when speaking of the husbandman who hired servants and sent them forth at different hours of the day to labor in his vineyard.
While attentively listening to his explanation, the Spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon me—the eyes of my understanding were opened, and I saw as clear as the sun at noonday, with wonder and astonishment, the pathway of God and man. I formed the following couplet which expresses the revelation, as it was shown me, and explains Father Smith's dark saying to me at a blessing meeting in the Kirtland Temple, prior to my baptism, as previously mentioned in my first interview with the Patriarch.
As man now is, God once was:
As God now is, man may be.
I felt this to be a sacred communication, which I related to no one except my sister Eliza, until I reached England, when in a confidential private conversation with President
