Elder George D. Grant and William H. Kimball preserved by the finger of Providence

While Elders George D. Grant and William H. Kimball were aboard a ship (the North Briton), a thick fog obscured their vision. The captain of the vessel observed a spectacle of icebergs and impending danger, but the 'finger of Providence' pointed out the danger in time to prevent disaster, allowing the captain to change course.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, Vol. 18, No. 19, 10 May 1856, p. 302):

The following is an extract from a letter just received by a clergyman in this country from a friend of his in New York, who sailed from Liverpool in the Atlantic on the 6th of February, fourteen days after the Pacific had started from the same port. New York, Feb. 26, 1856. . . . On the third day, at seven o’clock in the morning, we saw a spectacle which none on board will ever forget; it was, in fact, the finger of Providence, and some more deserving than I and others must have been on board. The whole veil of fog rose like a curtain, and we looked upon an ocean scene beautiful, fearful, and grand. We were in the midst of a field of icebergs, and within a few hundred yards of a mountain of ice, which, had we struck, would have sent us to the bottom in a few minutes. The captain took the hint, and turned his ship towards England for the remainder of the day, and towards the south at night, not resuming his course to America until the following morning.