The Brigham Young Center

President's Office
Gt. Salt Lake City,
February 23, 1867

Mr. James Lavender
Midway, Provo Valley Wasatch Co.

Sir:

Your letter of Feb. 22nd, in which you claim from me a balance due you of Five hundred dollars ($500.00) which now you claim, with the interest, has amounted to $1426.00 has been received.

You had better come to the City and collect your pay; but before you come I wish to state plainly to you that if you get it from me you will have to sue me, for I do not intend to pay anything to you without sueing. Your first letter on this subject I thought had been written by mistake, and therefore I did not answer it. The second one, just received, convinces me that the other was intended for me. Are you dreaming, that you should write such letters? And have you been dreaming for years? A man familiar with all the transaction to which you allude would set you down to be either dreaming or crazy! No wide-awake sensible men would, it seems to me, write such stuff as you have written. Taking the most charitable view of the circumstances, your memory must be very treacherous. Do you have any recollection of Bro. Joseph Horne paying you any money on my account about eight years ago? and have you entirely forgotten giving him a receipt for the same as being "in full for all account" up to that time? Fortunately for me I am not at your mercy in this transaction, or you would try to make everybody believe that I was your debtor, as you state in your letters, and that I was keeping you
out of your just dues.

A man who writes such letters as you have done to me, and is so evidently crazy, is unfit to go on a Mission, and my feelings are that you had better give up all such ideas and content yourself at home.

Brigham Young