"I have not now a lame limb about me, notwithstanding it all. I have been able to endure the hardest kind of manual labor, exposures, hardships, and journeys. I have walked forty, fifty, and, on one occasion, sixty miles in a single day. The only inconvenience I am now conscious of is that if I overwork, or take a severe cold, I feel it more sensibly in my breast and left side than I did before my last injury. I have given considerable space in recounting the foregoing peculiar circumstances which I have experienced in life. A summary of what is here given may be briefly stated thus: I have broken both legs, one of them in two places; both arms, both ankles, my breastbone, and three ribs; I have been scalded, frozen, and drowned; I have been in two water wheels while turning under a full head; I have passed through a score of other hairbreadth escapes. The repeated deliverances from all these remarkable dangers I ascribe to the mercies of my Heavenly Father. In recalling them to mind I always feel impressed to render the gratitude of my heart, with { 12} thanksgiving and joy, to the Lord. I pray that the remainder of my days may pass in His service, in the building up of His kingdom."
When one stops to reflect upon the character of the accidents and the manner of escape, he is impressed by the thought that they came along as part of the remarkable incidents of his life. They are marvels to be sure, but the whole life of Wilford Woodruff is a marvel. He was on the spot when the danger arrived. He never seems to have been disconcerted by it. He was so serene in his faith that he always had an assurance that all would end well, and he, consequently, is never found in a complainly mood, even when undergoing the severest pain. His patience, therefore, was a powerful factor in bringing to his life a large measure of confidence in the ultimate goodness of an overruling Providence.
"Coming Events."--Wilford Woodruff's Interest in Religion.--Existing Religious Denominations.--Teachings of Scripture.--Father Mason, a Prophet.--Peculiar Process of Preparation.
Wilford Woodruff belonged to a group of men whose advent into the world characterized the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Though in their own day, humble and obscure and held in contempt by mankind generally, their importance and the work accomplished by them grow in significance to the Latter-day Saints who are and have been for the past half century the greatest history makers in the world. Such men as Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith, whose administration of the affairs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has given them a prominent place in the world as well as in the Church, grow in historical magnitude as time goes on. Their respective administrations constitute distinguished landmarks in the history of a great people.