A LIFE SKETCH.

BY SARAH E. PEARSON.

IMPROVEMENT ERA 1903 PART I

There are many beautiful testimonies of the existence of things unseen which are never recounted to the scoffer at all, and not always, for one cause or another, to the children of the covenant. Yet to speak of those things which are lawful tends to increase our faith and add to our patient endurance under stress of suffering. We may know the things of God by the Spirit of God, and that, to the pure and fervent mind, is one of the strongest and most wonderful, as well as the commonest of testimonies.

It is not given to everyone to have visions or the ministration of angels, but we who may not be so favored love to hear the experience of those who do. I have often had it in my mind to write something of the life-experience of my maternal grandfather, Nathan Staker, who passed from this sphere of action some years ago, at a ripe old age, leaving many descendants in this western country. He was four or five years the senior of the Prophet Joseph, and was of German-Dutch extraction

My first introduction to a sketch of the history of my "forebears" on my mother's side came in this wise: My mother's sister, Mary A. Farnsworth, was one day visiting at my home, when I brought out a genealogy of my father's family three hundred years back, and showed her the long line of American patriots and statesmen, remarking that I was very proud of my American ancestry. She laughed, and said, "My dear girl, 'pride goeth before a fall;' for your great-grand-father, on your mother's side, was a native of Hesse-Cassel in Germany-- one of the hired Hessians who came over here to fight Washington." "Oh, you have no cause to be ashamed of him," she added, seeing my look of almost comical dismay; "he was a soldier, too, and a brave one, if tradition goes for anything, even if his interests were for the time being on the wrong side. So was Saul's of Tarsus, you remember, and, like Paul, the Spirit of God came upon him, and he did not long remain an enemy and an alien. To his credit, he laid down the sword for the pruning hook, identified himself with the country he in his ignorance came to help subdue, partook of her spirit, was true to her institutions, and founded the American branch of the family." We can well believe that the prospect of a government by the people and for the people, in this fair, new land of liberty, was very attractive to the soldier-serf of an overcrowded fatherland. It also seems reasonable to believe that he possessed deep reverence for religion, as that is a distinguishing trait of so many of his descendants, and I like to believe that it was given him to know that his coming was a direct dispensation of Providence, that his children might have not only political liberty but the restored gospel of Jesus Christ pure and undefiled.

From this ancestor, his great grandson Nathan, the subject of this sketch, inherited the German characteristics of pride of country, love of family, thrift, sterling integrity, and a quick temper. He was also gifted in faith, and singularly spiritually minded, and these same traits predominate in many of his descendants. In early manhood, he married Jane Richmond, an English lady of gentle birth and great beauty, and, as one of the facetious members of the family remarks, no doubt that is where we get our good looks.

The newly married pair "moved out west," as so many under similar circumstances did in that day, to found a home among the virgin forests, and "grow up with the country." They labored diligently to build them a home, and he raised the usual farm crops, together with maple sugar making; and she carded, and spun, and wove, and did her own household work and sewing for the family, which grew gradually larger as the years rolled by. In those days "the beauty of their garments" were, indeed, "the workmanship of their own hands;" in fact, utility was considered before beauty. Today we are whirling along by electricity, and some of us going at the pace that kills, with half the work and double the worry which our grandmothers had.

Nathan had been raised a Methodist. He was a Bible student, a class leader, and very devout; and he and his busy little wife had each winter of their voluntary exile looked forward to this season of comparative relaxation from labor with pleasant anticipations of social festivities with distant neighbors, and also of revivals in religion, when the music of the popular hymn,

Poor, mourning soul in deep distress,

Most worn away with trouble,

would pulse on the air with true Methodistic fervency and frequency.

True, a feeling of unrest and dissatisfaction with his professed religion, from a Bible standpoint, had of late taken possession of him, but Methodism was the best that he knew anything about, and he tried to make the best of it.

As this particular winter season approached, however, of which I wish to speak, one of their little ones sickened, and, in spite of all their devoted care, grew steadily worse, until he lay at death's door. The parents were worn out with watching, and the mother discouraged and despairing. They knew nothing of authority or priesthood, those potent agents which have won the aid and favor of the Almighty in these glorious days of the restored gospel, but Nathan believed that the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and he tried to live for it.

For two days he fasted, and then retired secretly into the woods to pray. Kneeling down by the side of a log, he poured forth his whole soul in prayer that God would stay the hand of the destroyer, and give back to the stricken mother the life of her little one. And gloriously was his prayer answered, for an angel came in person, and, laying his hands upon his head, blessed him for his perseverance and faith, and promised that his child should be spared adding, for himself, he should yet live to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and bring many souls into the true fold. Now this had long been the secret ambition and desire of his soul, but he had no idea, at the time, that the promise of the angel meant anything else than the preaching of Methodism.

In speaking of his experience afterwards, he said that he seemed for the time being to be taken out of the body, for though the angel stood directly behind him, he could see him distinctly, and described him as a shining personage, with robes of exceeding whiteness, and the hands which lay upon his head were transparent; and not only could he see the angel, but he could see himself kneeling beside the log. Never, through all his life afterward, could he speak of this glorious experience without weeping.

After the angel departed, he returned to the house. As he appeared in the door, his wife, who sat by the bedside of the sick child grieving over it, looked up, and was awed and frightened by his appearance and expression. "What is the matter, Nathan?" she cried. He tottered toward the bed, and with the words "Be comforted, the child shall live," fell over upon the bed in a deep swoon. She thought for a moment he was dead, and wringing her hands in anguish, cried, "He has given his life for the child. Oh, I have done wrong in clinging to my babe as I have done. I should have submitted without murmur to the will of God." But after a time, he revived, and told her what he had seen and heard, and their hearts were filled with thanksgiving and a solemn joy.

IMPROVEMENT ERA 1903

PART II

As we get "line upon line and precept upon precept," so afterwards was the true gospel brought to them, and you know Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me." Then did they begin to understand in full the glorious promises made by the angel.

They made the usual sacrifices to gather to Zion, and tarried for a time in Kanesville, where several members of the family contracted smallpox, and the faithful mother died of it. As she lay ill upon her bed, entirely blind by the disease, they brought her baby to her to nurse, but he cried and clung to his sister, and would not go to his mother at all. "Ah, I must be an awful sight indeed if my baby boy doesn't know me," she said, as she reached the loving arms for him in vain.

After a time, the sorrowing husband and motherless children continued on their way alone, and many of the people in the settlements through which they passed came out to see the long trains of "Mormons," as though they were a wild beast show. A little boy sitting on a gate-post in one of the towns to watch them pass by, turned to his father and was heard to remark, "Why, papa, I don't see but what they look just like other folks."

While in camp, near a certain village, Brother Staker sent his daughter Sarah to a tin shop to have the handle soldered to a quart cup, cooking utensils being scarce and hard to procure. When she stated her errand, the tinner thought he would have some fun with this unfledged "Mormon," so he winked slyly to the by-standers and said,

"So you want the handle soldered to your cup, do you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why, you're a 'Mormon,' ain't ye?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then why don't you have faith that the handle will solder itself, and surely it would be so according. Haven't you faith to heal your cup?"

"No, sir, I haven't faith that I can mend my cup; but if you will put the handle on good, I have faith that it will stay on."

The bystanders laughed and clapped their hands, and the tinner was so amused with the answer that he mended the cup "good," according to her request, and refused any compensation for his trouble.

After a long and toilsome journey, they reached the "promised land," and here faced uncomplaingly new conditions and many hardships. And the children grew up and waxed strong, and took the world much as it came, as children will; and if their wants occupied the father's hands, their little sayings and doings solaced his heart, as God intended they should. Yet there were times when he felt keenly his inability to fill the double duty of father and mother, and his heart bled within him for the loss of one at once so dear and so necessary to the welfare of the children. By degrees they scattered out. Some had married, and some went away to work, and one little fellow was drowned, while bathing in the treacherous Spring Lake, until at last there was only the father and the baby, now three years old, left at home.

Once, when he had no one with whom to leave the child, while he went into the hills to hunt his team, he thought he would give him something to interest him and slip away, leaving him for a little while alone. But the little laddie had been served that way once or twice before, and was on the lookout, so that he found it impossible to get away without his knowledge. At last he told him he must stay and be good while papa went to hunt the oxen. The little fellow cried bitterly, and finding it impossible to pacify him, the father was forced to tear himself rudely from the chubby clinging fingers, and, with a final charge not to wander off, started on his quest. For a long time the sound of his baby's sobbing followed him, but at last it ceased. He had gone perhaps a distance of two miles when he chanced to glance down, and lo! at his side, looking up at him with a most pathetic expression of fear joy, and pleading, was his little lad.

"Ah, my Joe, what am I to do with you now?" the father exclaimed. "You cannot walk, and I cannot carry you far, for I may have miles to go. You must go back." But finding himself unable to prevail on him to go back by kind means-- and harshness to his motherless babe was out of the question-- he hit upon another expedient. Unfastening one of his home-made leather suspenders, he proceeded to tether him to a sagebrush. The baby watched the proceedings with wonder, then with consternation, and when his father said, "If papa's laddie won't go back, I shall have to tie him here so I will know where to find him after I have found the oxen," and actually started off leaving him there; his wailing broke out afresh.

"Oh, papa, I'll do home. Untie me, papa, an' I'll do home."

With quivering lip the father returned, united him, kissed the flushed, tear-stained little face, and set his feet on the homeward path. Bravely the little fellow trudged away, never once looking backward, till a bend in the road hid him from sight. "You may think it a trifling incident," said the father, once when speaking of it, "but it had the elements of tragedy in it for us, didn't it, little Joe; and for miles I could not see my way for tears. II

One day, while taking dinner with Bishop Henson Walker and family, of Pleasant Grove, the bishop jocularly remarked, "Brother Staker, there is the wife for you," indicating an estimable English lady, a widow, who, with her two children, had recently arrived with the handcart company, and who sat at the table with them. And so it proved to be. They made each other's acquaintance, married, and moved into Sanpete county, where they made a comfortable home, reared more babies to sit on his knees and lullaby to his favorite Methodist hymn tune of "Poor, mourning soul," and where, at the ripe age of eighty-four, he passed to his reward. His mother came to him from the east to spend her few remaining years at his side, and it was his joy to convert her to "Mormonism." She lived to be one hundred and one, outliving her son

one year.

He had inherited a constitutional dread of death, but many years before, at his prayerful solicitation, the manner of his death had been shown him in vision, and he dreaded it no more. And truly, it was the ideal death of a patriarch after a well-spent life-his surroundings comfortable and peaceful, himself free from pain, with a heart full of love and blessing for neighbors, mends, and family, and retaining his consciousness until the last moment, when he fell asleep. Truly, "blessed are they who die in the Lord, for their death shall be made sweet to them." Such are the annals of the poor and meek of the earth-- not short and simple, as the poet says, but varied, and complex with the mystery and pathos of life.

Pearson, Sarah. Nathan Staker: A Life Sketch. Improvment Era, 1903. Courtesy of freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~larsenbrown