... Nineteen years ago this coming summer, Apostle John W. Taylor predicted to me that I would be an Apostle. We were travelling together south and were on the train about opposite Murray. I little dreamed, nor did he, that I would succeed him in the Quorum. He was always very good to me. ' For several years I had paid little or no attention to religion, and though naturally of a spiritual temperament, and possessed of deep veneration, for the Supreme Being had become careless and indifferent, like many others, and had contracted a distaste for sacred things. This was due largely to the company I kept, but most of all to ignorance of the true meaning and import of religion. I had, for some reason, despite the best of teachings, come to regard meetings and sacred gatherings more as laces of punishment than of instruction. I carried this aversion to such an extent that if I picked up a book and saw the word 'God' or 'angel' or anything about heaven religion in it, I would at once lay it down, as of no interest. All this time I never doubted God's existence or that I was one of his children and would often, though not regularly, pray. to Him It was reported that I was an infidel, but this was not true; I was only reckless and disobedient.
[Source: Orson F. Whitney, Diary and Autobiography, pp. 35-36, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015]
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