David O. McKay
Elder Ernest L. Wilkinson, Conference Report, October 1958, Afternoon Meeting,
It was just one hundred and fourteen years ago that a young Scotch boy, sixteen years of age, walking down the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, noted in flaming newspaper headlines the story of the martyrdom in the United States of the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum. This young Scotch boy had never before heard of Mormonism, but he was so indignant that in free America religious leaders should be murdered, he decided he would find out about the religious cause they espoused. Later he was privileged to hear some missionaries, learned from them what he could about this restored gospel, and in 1848, at the age of twenty, joined the Church. Three years later he was himself called on a mission to England and later to the continent of Europe. Returning to England for additional missionary labors, this young Scotch boy, who had never been on American soil, at his own request went to Saxony in Germany and there was instrumental in converting to this Church a young German educator by the name of Karl G. Maeser. The late President Heber J. Grant has said on many occasions that if all the money we had spent in sending missionaries to Germany had been spent in the conversion of this one young man, it would have been well spent.
President Franklin D. Richards of the European Mission was present to participate in the baptism of young Maeser, which was the first to take place in Saxony. The baptism took place in the River Elbe, and Brother Maeser later related that as he was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he prayed as he had never prayed before, for an immediate personal testimony of the divinity of this work. But when he was confirmed he was disappointed, for he seemed to have no different feeling than before. Then he, President Richards, and young William Budge began a rather long walk back to Karl G. Maeser's home. For this purpose young Budge placed himself in the center so he could translate the English of Brother Richards into the German of Brother Maeser, and vice versa. But no sooner had he started translating than he was told by both that translation was unnecessary, that they understood the foreign language of each other just as perfectly as they understood their own native tongues. When they arrived at the home of young Maeser, the gift of interpretation of tongues left them as quickly as it had come upon them, and young Maeser turned to young Budge, for they were both of the same age, and earnestly asked for an explanation of what had happened. The young Scotch missionary, divinely inspired, replied in substance: "Brother Maeser, that is the testimony for which you prayed when you were confirmed a member of this Church."
In due time young Brother Maeser and his family, and the Schoenfeld and Martin families (his wife's sisters and their husbands), decided to emigrate to the promised land of America. In order to do so they left Germany by night, for fear the Prussian police would prevent their going to Zion. When they arrived in London the Maeser family was separated from the others. The Schoenfeld and Martin families left for America, but young Maeser was abruptly called on a mission-to England and Scotland, the native land of the young man who had converted him. If you cast your bread upon the water, that bread will return to you. Scotland was now to be honored by hearing the word of God from this young German convert who had received the same word from its own native son. And young Karl Maeser, like young William Budge. was to begin his great service to the Church before even setting foot on American soil.
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