Description
Bloodcurdling Scream
James was 11 years old. He was from Eddington, England and he had not been baptized. The reason for that is because he had been ill for so long that it was considered a threat to his health. He wanted to be baptized, and it made his father anxious, so much so that his father vowed that the moment that boy was healthy enough, they were going to baptize him.
Finally, the date came: June 15, 1875. Because there were so many enemies in the church at that time, it was deemed wise that they would do the baptism at night. So on that date, just before midnight, his father left the house, walked out to the river and looked about. There was no one there. He went back to the house and then went back out and checked again. Finally satisfied that no one was there, and no one was listening and that it was safe, James, his father, and others went back out to the river – the Kennett River.
James’s his father stepped down into the water. This is how James described the scene as soon as his father reached back for James’s hand to lead him into the water:
“We were veritably horror stricken by a combined shriek, yell, scream, howl, I know not how to describe the awful noise such as none of us had ever heard. It seemed to be a combination of every fiendish cry we could conceive of. I remember how I trembled at the awful manifestation which had about it the sharpness and volume of a thunderclap followed by an angry roar which died away as a hopeless groan. The fearsome sound seemed to come from a point not more than 50 yards from us, near the end of the great bridge. The night was one of bright starlight and we could have seen anyone on the bridge which was built of white stone with low walls. Father, who was also trembling, asked me if I was too frightened to be baptized. I was too terrified to speak so I answered by stepping into the water. I was baptized.”
After the baptism, James said his father walked over and looked around the bridge. There was no one there. Moreover, no one in the small community seemed to have heard that blood curdling shriek, but James said:
“we heard it and we shall never forget it.”
The Prophet Joseph Smith once taught that the greater an effort made by a man to be good and do good, the greater the forces of evil will be arrayed against him to stop him. And by the way James was Elder James Talmage of the Council of the Twelve Apostles. The man who would later write “Jesus the Christ”.
Sources:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/friend/1974/10/baptism-after-dark?lang=eng
