1837-11-25-Letter to Mary Ann Frost Pratt

Letter to Mary Ann Frost Pratt

Source: MS11864, Parley P. Pratt Papers, Church History Library

Letter to Mary Ann Frost Pratt

New York, November 25th, 1837

Dear Mary Ann:

I take this opportunity to write you. We are well and have remembered you in our prayers. I have this day counseled with Brother Fordham on the subject of our future business and calculations and have decided that I shall not be able to come to Maine at least before winter closes navigation.

For the field is open wide in this city and the cause is rolling on and it is necessary for me to stay and do what I can to pay those notes for printing which come due about New Year's Day and whether I will be able to come the latter part of winter or not till Spring I know not or whether I will be able to come at all. You can therefore do as you think best and as circumstances will admit. If you finish your visit and the water is open from Portland to Boston, you can come to New York between this and Christmas or New Year's and I shall be in the city if I live and we can winter here as doors are open and there is no lack as to friends or means of living here. Or should the way open we can go west by way of New Orleans at any time. Or if you choose to winter where you are while the snows and ice block up the long distance between us. Or if the winter shuts you in do as wisdom shall direct and as best suits your feelings and happiness or circumstances. It may be that you can come by Boston by stage and from here to New York navigation will probably be open all winter. And as to your father's house, you can persuade them to go west and settle with you as well as I can do it if I should come. But if they will not come, I hope you will not go and leave them for I would prefer that we perish with them sooner than go from them with such heart-rending feelings as we have once experienced in undertaking to go without seeing them. If you see fit to winter in Maine I shall probably come in the spring if not before. But the Lord's will be done for I have become resigned in a measure to anything for I see no prospect of rest or enjoyment of friends or home short of immortal rest.

As to news, we have found many new acquaintances and held some meetings and many are believers. Brother Fordham has had good success, baptized two persons and left others ready to obey the truth. Brother Watson the class leader is in hopes to come in with most of his class in this city. Two preachers whom you saw at meeting last Sunday are also believing and are holding meetings regularly at their house.

I have also been to visit _______________ and his lady who believe. And the Lord had shown them in a dream concerning me. They saw me in a dream. She had been seeking to find God's people. She had printed a pamphlet prophesying plainly of the judgments and of the sin of the Church and of the coming of Zion and the prophet. She calls all the preachers infidels who deny the spirit of prophecy, vision and revelation and she says that all the Churches are anti-Christ and only a few good people in them who will be called up. She also says that Christ is soon to come on earth to reign 1,000 years. As soon as she heard me preach and read the Book of Mormon she said she believed it all true and of God. Thus you see that God is able to do his own work.

I must now close this hasty communication by praying the Lord to bless you and your little daughter and all our friends. Give my love and best wishes to all our friends.

(Tune Bower of Praise)

Adieu to the pleasures of home and its joys

To all the sweet prospects which hope had inspired;

Our fond expectations were like fleeting toys

Our prospects are blighted, our hopes have expired.

In some lovely cottage how oft I've desired

To clasp to my bosom the friends that I love;

Far, far from all strife and confusion retired

Together in union and friendship and love.

But still I am doomed for to wander alone

A stranger, a pilgrim far, far from my friends;

No more can I ponder the pleasures of home

Til worn out and weary my pilgrimage ends.

Oh why should the feelings of friendship and love

Beat warm in that bosom that doomed for to part;

And to dwell at a distance from those that we love

Oh why should affection still cling to the heart.

I am better if heaven had left us to wander

With no kind companion or children so dear,

Then to once plant affection then tear it asunder

To dwell at a distance in sorrow and tears.

I remain your own kind and affectionate

P. P. Pratt