"But, the Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I give unto their fathers.
"Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks." (Jeremiah 16:15-16.) In 1837, Elder Wilford Woodruff recognized a modern-day application to a scripture recorded in the book of Jeremiah. In August of that year, Elder Woodruff and his companion, Elder Jonathon Hale, embarked on a steamship from Portland, Maine, with their destination being the nearby Fox Islands. The two missionaries had been laboring among the people of the islands for about a month when Elder Woodruff made this entry in his journal:
"One day Elder Hale and I ascended to the top of a high granite rock on South Island [part of the Fox IslandsT for prayer and supplication. We sat down under the shade of a pine tree which grew out of a fissure in the rocks, and Elder Hale read the sixteenth chapter of Jeremiah, where mention is made of the hunters and fishers that God would send in the last days to gather Israel.
"We were, indeed, upon an island of the sea, standing upon a rock where we could survey the gallant ships, and also the islands which were as full of rocks, ledges, and caves as any part of the earth. And what had brought us here? To search out the blood of Ephraim, the honest and meek of the earth, and gather them from these islands, rocks, holes, and caves of the earth unto Zion."
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Jeremiah stays true through trials, shows ‘absolute fidelity’ to Christ
By observing the sabbath, people forsake wickedness
Articles on this page may be used in conjunction with the Gospel Doctrine course of study.
Information compiled by Gerry Avant
Source: Wilford Woodruff, by Matthais F. Cowley