The
following comes from “Chapter 17: Ireland Hears the Gospel” in Richard L.
Evans, A Century of Mormonism in Great
Britain (Salt Lake City: The Deseret News Press, 1937), 150-54:
The Lord’s
latter-day work was well started in England and Scotland. There was work enough
to keep all hands busy—and to spare—on the English side of the Irish Sea; but
there were millions in Ireland still waiting in darkness, thousands of whom
were prepared for the advent of truth. The privilege of carrying Gospel tidings
to those who waited on the “Emerald Isle” fell to the lot of Elder John Taylor.
The
Church in Liverpool was growing rapidly. There were demands upon every
available hour of Elder Taylor’s time; but to say unqualifiedly that John
Taylor was popular in Liverpool would be to utter an untruth. True servants of
the Lord are seldom popular with great majorities. Those who did seek his
ministrations, however, sought earnestly, as if their soul’s salvation depended
upon it—which, indeed, was the case. It is plain, however, that this wholesome
popularity did not extend to the gentlemen of the clerical garb. Of them he
wrote:
“We called
upon many of the leading ministers of different denominations, and delivered
our testimony to them. Some received us kindly, some otherwise; but none would
let us have their chapels to hold forth in. They were so good in general, and
so pure, that they had no room for the Gospel. They were too holy to be
righteous, too good to be pure, and had too much religion to enter into the
kingdom of heaven.”—Times and Seasons,
Volume 2, p. 404.
Early in
the month of July, 1840, Elder Taylor engaged for one year, one of the largest
and finest halls in Liverpool—the Music Hall, on Bold Street, with seating accommodations
for approximately fifteen hundred people. In this hall a lecture series was to be
given by Elder Taylor. Following its acquisition and before the lectures were
scheduled to begin, a brief week or two was available for the introduction of
the Gospel into Ireland.
James
McGuffie, obviously Irish, was among those who were early baptized in
Liverpool. He was well acquainted and connected in the village of Newry, County
Down, Ireland. It is not at all unlikely that Newtry was the village of his
birth and the home of his youth, although we are not definitely told so. This
Brother McGuffie and Brother William Black were the traveling companions of
John Taylor on his first official visit to the “Emerald Isle” as an ambassador
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Taking
leave at Liverpool from a large group of Saints who had gathered to the docks
to bid them farewell, these three sailed out of the River Mersey into the Irish
Sea on July28th, 1840. Seven months earlier there had been no member of the
latter-day Church of God in the world-famous port of Liverpool; now there were
scores, eager to assist the work and its servants, and thankful for their knowledge
of the life-giving message.
On the
day after sailing, the three reached Newry, a village among the hills of rural
Ireland, some thirty odd miles in a southerly direction from Belfast. The
influence of Brother McGuffie, with the help of the Lord, placed the courthouse
at the disposal of the brethren. The village bell-ringer was dispatched to give
notice of the pending meeting, an unusual meeting, which was to be held at
seven o’clock that evening. The news spread and had its effect. Between six and
seven hundred nearby residents gathered at the appointed hour, and there Elder
John Taylor preached the first public Gospel discourse in Ireland One such
discourse satisfied the curiosity of most of the congregation. The meeting that
was announced for the following evening was attended by a few only, and the
time was largely spent in friendly and informal discussion.
Following
the second night’s meeting in Newry, it was decided that other places should be
visited. Accordingly, the next morning Brothers McGuffie and Black, with a Mr.
Thomas Tate, a Liverpool acquaintance, accompanied Brother Taylor in a
jaunting-car on a trip through rural Ireland. The first evening they reached the
region known as the four towns of Bellimacrat, and preached in the barn of an
obliging farmer, Mr. Willie, by name.
The next
day they proceeded on foot in the direction of Lisburn still accompanied by Mr.
Tate, who, as John Taylor had previously prophesied, was to be the first person
baptized in Ireland. As they walked along country lanes on that fresh summer
morning, the spirit of truth and understanding was their companion. John Taylor
expounded the eternal purposes of God for the welfare of man. All doubt
departed from Mr. Tate, and, as they topped a hill, at the foot of which lay
Loch Brickland, a sudden conviction of truth led him to exclaim: “See, here is
water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?—Acts
8:36.
Nothing
hindered. The party drew near the lake shore. With John Taylor, Thomas Tate
entered the water and was baptized—the first fruits of the Gospel in Ireland.
Further
activities were carried on in the town of Lisburn. There Elder Taylor preached
several times in the market place to audiences of gratifying numbers. Interest
in the latter-day work was manifest throughout County Down. Nor had the efforts
in Newry been futile. Before Elder Taylor left Lisburn, word came that Brother
McGuffie, who had returned to the village, had begun to baptize.
John Taylor
intended to begin activities in the city of Belfast, but appointments previously
made called him soon to Scotland and back to Liverpool. He took boat from
Belfast to Glasgow on August 6th, 1840, having labored in Ireland
only ten days. But the work begun in that brief period has endured and prospered
even until now.
Following
a hurried trip, during which he preached on several occasions, Elder Taylor
broke away from the Scottish Saints, under protest, to return to Liverpool and
deliver his lectures, which were conducted as arranged, and which were attended
by appreciative audiences. Two reverend gentlemen of our previous acquaintance—Mr.
Robert Aitken and Mr. Timothy R. Matthews, and their disciples—were the chief
disturbers of order at the gatherings. They used all the methods known to the
unscrupulous in attempting to break up the meetings and discredit and
missionaries—but the work has outlived them and their memory in the world.
Elder
Theodore Curtis, who had formerly labored in New York, arrived in Britain
during the summer of 1840, and was assigned to take up the work in Ireland. At
the October 6th conference, 1840, he represented the Hillsborough Branch of
five members—the first branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in Ireland. A few months later Elder Taylor reported by latter to the
Prophet Joseph Smith that Elder Curtis had taken up the work in Belfast, and
that the Church in Ireland numbered nearly thirty. (Times and Seasons, Volume 2, p. 401)
Since
that first thirty were brought out of the world, many thousands from the “Emerald
Isle” have joined the Church of Jesus Christ, of whom thousands have emigrated.
From out
of Ireland, as a lad, with a widowed mother, came Charles A. Callis, of the
Council of Twelve. Born at Dublin, Ireland, May 4, 1865, he was baptized in
Liverpool at the age of eight years, and later, at the age of ten, emigrated
with his mother to Utah in October, 1875, where he qualified himself for a legal
career. All other pursuits he gave up in response to a call to serve the Church
as a missionary, to which exalted pursuit he has devoted the best years of his
mature life, and his examples typifies the loyalty that the Irish Saints have
given to the church of Jesus Christ. One such mission carried him back to
Ireland to preach the Gospel in his native land.
Despite this ancient land’s
turbulent religious and political history, the purposeful step of “Mormon”
missionaries has sounded in the cities and across the shamrock countryside,
bringing stalwart, courageous men and women into the Church, whose memories are
honored by a worthy and loyal posterity, who are proud of their Irish lineage
and grateful for their Gospel heritage.
