Lorenzo D. Barnes' Deathbed Testimony in Idle, England — His Reason Restored, He Prophesies the Coming Judgments (1842)

Lorenzo D. Barnes (1812–1842), a native of Massachusetts and an early convert who served in Zion’s Camp and as one of the first Seventy, was the first missionary of the Church to die in a foreign land. While serving as the presiding elder of the Bradford, Yorkshire, England conference, he suffered from a prolonged illness, described as consumption and a fever, which led to his death on December 20, 1842, in Idle, Yorkshire. During his final illness, Barnes experienced bouts of delirium, during which he spoke of returning to Nauvoo. However, on the night before his passing, his reason returned completely. In this clear state, he bore a powerful and faithful testimony to the truth of the restored gospel. He prophesied that it would not be long before the kings and great men of the earth would call for the rocks and mountains to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb of God, which would soon be poured out upon the earth as a deluge of divine judgments. Following his death, his remains were initially interred at Idle, where his headstone marked him as the first gospel messenger from Nauvoo to be buried on foreign soil, before his body was eventually exhumed and reburied in the Salt Lake City Cemetery a decade later.