specks wuz sighted, also growin' gradual, and at last they turned to
solid land rising up out of the blue water, clad in strange and
beautiful verdure behind the white foamin' billers of surf. And
instinctively as we looked on't I broke out singin' onbeknown to me,
and Josiah jined in in deep base:

"Sweet fields beyend the swellin' flood
Stand dressed in livin' green."

We sung it to Balermy. Josiah hain't much of a singer, and my voice
hain't what it once wuz, but I d'no as in any conference meetin' that
him ever sounded sweeter to me, or I sung it with more of the sperit.

CHAPTER IX

How beautiful wuz the shore as we approached it, its scenery different
from Jonesville scenery, but yet worth seein'--yes, indeed! Mountain
and valley, rock and green velvet verdure, tall palm trees shadin'
kinder low houses, but still beautiful and attractive. And what
beautiful colors greeted our weary eyes as we drew nigher. I thought
of that gate of Jerusalem the Golden, all enamelled with emerald,
amethyst, chalcedony, and pearl sot in gold. The golden brown earth
made from melted lava, the feathery foliage of the palms that riz up
beyend the dazzlin' white beach, the crystal blue waters with
myriad-hued fishes playing down in its crystal depths. Oh, how fair
the seen as we approached nearer and see plainer and plainer the
pictured beauty of the shore. Shinin' green valley, emerald-topped
mountain, amethyst sea; which wuz the most beautiful it wuz hard to
say.

Evangeline Noble stood off by herself leanin' on the rail of the deck
as if she see through the beauty into the inner heart of things, and
see in her mind's eye all the work her own people, the missionaries,
had done there. The thought that they had taken the natives like
diamonds incrusted in dirt and cleansed them of the blackest of their
habits. She see in the past natives burying their children alive,
putting to death the mentally weak, worshipping horrible idols,
killing and eating their enemies, etc., etc. But now, under the
blessed light of the torch, that long procession of martyrs had held
up, the former things wuz passin' away, and she, too, wuz one of that
blessed host of God's helpers. She looked riz up and radiant as if she
see way beyend the islands of the sea and all she hoped to do for her
Master on earth, and as if he wuz talking to her now, teaching her his
will.

Nigher to us Elder Wessel wuz standing, and he sez, lifting up his
e