Part 9 (1/2)
”Tell me,” said the young man, ”the truth of this new order of celestial marriage.” And Brigham had become animated at once.
”Yes,” he said, ”when the family organisation was revealed from Heaven, and Joseph began on the right and the left to add to his family, oh, dear, what a quaking there was in Israel! But there it was, plain enough. When you have received your endowments, keys, blessings, all the tokens, signs, and every preparatory ordinance that can be given to a man for his entrance through the celestial gate, then you can see it.”
He gazed a moment into the fire of hickory logs before which they sat, and then went on, more confidentially:
”Now you take that promise to Abraham--'Lift up your eyes and behold the stars. So shall thy seed be as numberless as the stars. Go to the seash.o.r.e and look at the sand, and behold the smallness of the particles thereof'--I am giving you the gist of the Lord's words, you understand--'and then realise that your seed shall be as numberless as those sands.' Now think for a minute how many particles there are, say in a cubit foot of sand--about one thousand million particles. Think of that! In eight thousand years, if the inhabitants of earth increased one trillion a century, three cubic yards of sand would still contain more particles than there would be people on the whole globe. Yet there you got the promise of the Lord in black and white. Now how was Abraham to manage to get a foundation laid for this mighty kingdom? Was he to get it all through one wife? Don't you see how ridiculous that is? Sarah saw it, and Sarah knew that unless seed was raised to Abraham he would come short of his glory. So what did Sarah do? She gave Abraham a certain woman whose name was Hagar, and by her a seed was to be raised up unto him. And was that all? No. We read of his wife Keturah, and also of a plurality of wives which he had in the sight and favour of G.o.d, and from whom he raised up many sons. There, then, was a foundation laid for the fulfilment of that grand promise concerning his seed.”
He peered again into the fire, and added, by way of clenching his argument: ”I guess it would have been rather slow-going, if the Lord had confined Abraham to one wife, like some of these narrow, contracted nations of modern Christianity. You see, they don't know that a man's posterity in this world is to const.i.tute his glory and kingdom and dominion in the world to come, and they don't know, either, that there are thousands of choice spirits in the spirit world waiting to tabernacle in the flesh. Of course, there are lots of these things that you ain't ready to hear yet, but now you know that polygamy is necessary for our exaltation to the fulness of the Lord's glory in the eternal world, and after you study it you'll like the doctrine. I do; I can swallow it without greasing _my_ mouth!”
He prayed that night to be made ”holy as Thy servant Brigham is holy; to hear Thy voice as he hears it; to be made as wise as he, as true as he, even as another Lion of the Lord, so that I may be a rod and staff and comforter to these buffeted children of Thine.”
His prayer also touched on one of the matters of their talk. ”But, O Lord, teach me to be content without thrones and dominion in Thy Kingdom if to gain these I must have many wives. Teach me to abase myself, to be a servant, a lowly sweeper in the temple of the Most High, for I would rather be lowly with her I love than exalted to any place whatsoever with many. Keep in my sinful heart the face of her who has left me to dwell among the Gentiles, whose hair is melted gold, whose eyes are azure deep as the sky, and whose arms once opened warm for me. Guard her especially, O Lord, while she must company with Gentiles, for she is not wonted to their wiles; and in Thine own good time bring her head unharmed to its home on Thy servant's breast.”
He fasted often, that winter, waiting and watching for his great Witness--something that should testify to his mortal eyes the direct favour of Heaven. He fasted and kept vigils and studied the mysteries; for now he was among the favoured to whom light had been given in abundance--men at whose feet he was eager to sit. He learned of baptism for the dead; of the G.o.ds.h.i.+p of Adam, and his plurality of wives; of the laws of adoption and the process by which the Saints were to people, and be G.o.ds to, earths yet formless.
There was much work out of doors to be done, and of this he performed his share, working side by side with the tireless Brigham. But there were late afternoons and long evenings in which he sat with the Prophet to his great advantage. For, strangely enough, the two men, so unlike, were drawn closely together--Brigham Young, the broad-headed, square-chinned b.u.t.tress of physical vitality, the full-blooded, clarion-voiced Lion of the Lord, self-contained, watchful, radiating the power that men feel and obey without knowing why, and Joel Rae, of the long, narrow, delicately featured face, sensitive, nervous, glowing with a spiritual zeal, the Lute of the Holy Ghost, whose veins ran fire instead of blood. One born to command, to domineer; the other to believe, to wors.h.i.+p, and to obey. For the younger man it was a winter of limitless aspiration and chastening discipline. In spite of the great sorrows that weighed upon him, the sudden sweeping away of those he had held most dear and the blasting of his love hopes, he remembered it through all the eventful years that followed as a time of strange happiness. Memories of it came gratefully to him even on the awful day when at last his Witness came; when, as he lay fainting in the desert, driven thence by his sin, the heavens unfolded and a vision was vouchsafed him;--when the foundations of his world were shattered, the tables of the law destroyed, and but one little feather saved to his famished soul from the wings of the dove of truth. After all these years, the memory of this winter was a spot of joy that never failed to glow when he recalled it.
At night he went to his bunk in the little straw-roofed hut and fell asleep to the howling of the wolves, his mind cradled in the thought of his mission. He had a part in the great work of bringing into harmony the labours of the prophets and apostles of all ages. In due time, by the especial favour of Heaven, he would be wrapped in a sea of vision, shown an eternity of knowledge, and be intrusted with singular powers.
And he was content to wait out the days in which he must school, chasten, and prove himself.
”You have built me up,” he confided to Brigham, one day. ”I feel to rejoice in my strength.” And Brigham was highly pleased.
”That's good, Brother Joel. The host of Israel will soon be on the move, and I shouldn't wonder if the Lord had a great work for you. I can see places where you'll be just the tool he needs. I mistrust we sha'n't have everything peaceful even now. The priest in the pulpit is thorning the politician against us, gouging him from underneath--he'd never dare do it openly, for our Elders could crimson his face with shame--and the minions of the mob may be after us again. If they do, I can see where you will be a tower of strength in your own way.”
”It's all of my life, Brother Brigham.”
”I believe it. I guess the time has come to make you an Elder.”
And so on a late winter afternoon in the quiet of the Council-House, Joel Rae was ordained an Elder after the order of Melchisedek; with power to preach and administer in all the ordinances of the Church, to lay on hands, to confirm all baptised persons, to anoint the afflicted with oil, and to seal upon them the blessings of health.
In his hard, narrow bed that night, where the cold came through the unc.h.i.n.ked logs and the wind brought him the wailing of the wolves, he prayed that he might not be too much elated by this extraordinary distinction.
CHAPTER VIII.
_A Revelation from the Lord and a Toast from Brigham_
From his little one-roomed cabin, dark, smoky, littered with hay, old blankets, and skins, he heard excited voices outside, one early morning in January. He opened the door and found a group of men discussing a miracle that had been wrought overnight. The Lord had spoken to Brigham and word had come to Zion to move toward the west.
He hurried over to Brigham's house and by that good man was shown the word of the Lord as it had been written down from his lips. With emotions of reverential awe he read the inspired doc.u.ment.
”The Word and Will of the Lord Concerning the Camp of Israel in its Journeyings to the West.” Such was its t.i.tle.
”Let all the people,” it began, ”of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, be organised into companies with a covenant and a promise to keep all the statutes of the Lord our G.o.d.
”Let the companies be organised with captains of hundreds and captains of fifties and captains of tens, with a President and Counsellor at their head under the direction of the Twelve Apostles.
”Let each company provide itself with all the teams, wagons, provisions, and all other necessaries for the journey.
”Let every man use all of his influence and property to remove this people to the place where the Lord shall locate a stake of Zion, and let them share equally in taking the poor, the widows, and the fatherless, so that their cries come not up into the ears of the Lord against His people.