Mobbed to Preach

[Elder Frank E. Douglas, President of the East Tennessee Conference wrote the following report to the mission office. The report made it into the Liahona.]

While Elder Garfield and I [Elder Douglas] were laboring in Scott County [Tennessee] a short time ago [probably 1925] we had a rather thrilling experience. We had received permission to preach during the noon hour at a large mill just out of Oneida. We had good success at the meeting, and a good man, a short distance from the mill, invited us to stay with him that night. Along about eleven o'clock we were awakened by a loud knock on the door and the voices of men outside. We became alarmed, knowing that the elders had had considerable trouble at different times in this part of the country. While we were on the edge of the bed putting on our clothes, the man with whom we were staying came into our room and informed us that some men from the mill wished to speak with us. We went to the door and much to our surprise found six or eight men requesting us to come to the mill and talk to the night crew who were to have lunch from eleven to twelve. We took up all the time allowed us and, after distributing a number of books and tracts, thanked God that we had been mobbed to preach rather than because of preaching."