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Charles A. Callis: The Dirty Little Irish Kid

The year was 1875, two missionaries serving in Liverpool, England happened to be walking home one night when they noticed a young boy standing on a bridge. Thinking he was too young to be out so late they offered to walk him home. The offer was accepted and the missionaries walked him to his humble home where they met his mother, Susannah Callis, a widow with four small children, living in terrible poverty. The missionaries and their message were accepted and the family joined the Church. Later that same year with the help of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, the family left England and came to Utah, where they continued to struggle for their survival.

That missionary who had baptized the little boy soon completed his mission, and when reporting his labors was heard to say, “Brothers and Sisters, I think my mission has been a failure. I’ve labored all my days as a missionary here and I’ve only baptized one dirty little Irish kid”

The missionary returned and made his home somewhere in Montana. Many many years passed. Somewhere after the year 1933, this former missionary, now an old man, heard a knock at his door. When he opened it up there standing upon the threshold was a distinguished looking visitor; a small man, only about 5’5”, but with a commanding voice and presence. The visitor asked if he were Elder so and so. The man said he was. The visitor then asked, “Do you remember having said that you thought your mission was a failure because you had only baptized one dirty little Irish kid?’ The man said, ‘Yes.’ The visitor then stuck out his hand and said, ‘I would like to shake hands with you. My name is Charles A. Callis, of the Council of the Twelve [Apostles]. I am that dirty little Irish kid.”

What that missionary could not have known in 1875 was that that dirty little Irish kid would grow to become, not only an apostle, but one of the greatest missionaries of the twentieth century.

My friends, we labor daily to do our duty and sometimes we wonder if we are doing any good at all. Don’t be discouraged. You just never know what great good may come from your simple efforts.

Story based on the following sources:

Harold B. Lee, Feet Shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Provo, 9 Nov. 1954], p. 1).

“Chance Meeting of Elders, Irish Lad Leads to Conversion,” Church News, 7 October 1961, 20.

Richard E. Bennett, “Elder Charles A. Callis: Twentieth-Century Missionary,” Ensign, Apr 1981, 46