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“We Felt Our Hearts Burn Within Us” – Stewart and Potter

Andrew Jackson Stewart and his companion Amasa Potter were serving as missionaries in New South Wales, Australia in 1857. Elder Potter recorded the following in his journal:

“We received a letter from Emu Plains, stating that the people would like to see and hear a “Mormon” Elder. Emu Plains was a distance of sixty miles from where we were, and when we started it had been raining about a week, and a great portion of the country was flooded with water. We had a large river to cross on the way and were informed that the bridge had been carried off and there was a ferry established across the river which charged five shillings each passenger. We did not have any money with which to pay this charge, and my companion was anxious to know what we should do for money to pay the ferriage with. We were then about three miles from the ferry and were passing through timber. I told him that we would go into the woods and pray God to open the heart of someone to give it to us. We did so, and we had traveled but a short distance through the lane between two fields, when we looked ahead of us a little way and saw an old man coming across the field. He came into the road ahead of us, and as he came to meet us, he had a smile on his countenance. He reached out his hand to me, as if to shake hands, and left a crown, or five shilling piece, in my hand and went to my companion and did the same; but spoke not a word. I cannot describe the feeling that we had when the man took hold of our hands; we felt our hearts burn within us, and it did not seem that we had power to ask his name or where he was from, as we usually did when a person gave us any article of clothing or money. He was a man about six feet high, well proportioned, and wore a suit of light grey clothes and a broad-brimmed hat, and his hair and beard were about eighteen inches long and as white as snow. We passed on and came to the ferry, and the money that we had was just enough to pay our ferriage.”

Source: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWCT-N65