Part 28 (1/2)

But he had taken up a new cross and he had his reward. The first night after they reached home he took the little Bible from its hiding-place and opened it with trembling hands. The stain was there, red in the candle-light. But the cries no longer rang in his ears as on that other night when he had been sinful before the page. And he was glad, knowing that the self within him had again been put down.

Then came strange news from the East--news of a great civil war. The troops of the enemy at Camp Floyd hurried east to battle, and even the name of that camp was changed, for the Gentile Secretary of War, said gossip from Salt Lake City, after doing his utmost to cripple his country by sending to far-off Utah the flower of its army, had now himself become not only a rebel but a traitor.

Even Johnston, who had commanded the invading army, denouncing the Saints as rebels, had put off his blue uniform for a gray and was himself a rebel.

When the news came that South Carolina had actually flung the palmetto flag to the breeze and fired the first gun, he was inclined to exult.

For plainly it was the Lord's work. There was His revelation given to Joseph Smith almost thirty years before: ”Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will come to pa.s.s, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina.” And ten years later the Lord had revealed to Joseph further concerning this prophecy that this war would be ”previous to the coming of the Son of Man.” a.s.suredly, they were now near the time when other Prophets of the Church had said He would come--the year 1870. He thrilled to be so near the actual moving of the hand of G.o.d, and something of the old spirit revived within him.

From Salt Lake City came news of the early fighting and of meetings for public rejoicing held in the tabernacle, with prophecies that the Gentile nation would now be rent asunder in punishment for its rejection of the divine message of the Book of Mormon and its persecution of the prophets of G.o.d. In one of these meetings of public thanksgiving Brigham had said from the tabernacle pulpit: ”What is the strength of this man Lincoln? It is like a rope of sand. He is as weak as water,--an ignorant, G.o.dless shyster from the backwoods of Illinois. I feel disgraced in having been born under a government that has so little power for truth and right. And now it will be broken in pieces like a potter's vessel.”

These public rejoicings, however, brought a further trial upon the Saints. The Third California Infantry and a part of the Second Cavalry were now ordered to Utah. The commander of this force was one Connor, an officer of whom extraordinary reports were brought south. It was said that he had issued an order directing commanders of posts, camps, and detachments to arrest and imprison ”until they took the oath of allegiance, all persons who from this date shall be guilty of uttering treasonable sentiments against the government of the United States.”

Even liberty of opinion, it appeared, was thus to be strangled in these last days before the Lord came.

Further, this ill-tempered Gentile, instead of keeping decently remote from Salt Lake City, as General Johnston had done, had marched his troops into the very stronghold of Zion, despite all threats of armed opposition, and in the face of a specific offer from one Prophet, Seer, and Revelator to wager him a large sum of money that his forces would never cross the River Jordan. To this fair offer, so reports ran, the Gentile officer had replied that he would cross the Jordan if h.e.l.l yawned below it; that he had thereupon viciously pulled the ends of a grizzled, gray moustache and proceeded to behave very much as an officer would be expected to behave who was commonly known as ”old Pat Connor.”

Knowing that the forces of the Saints outnumbered his own, and that he was, in his own phrase, ”six hundred miles of sand from reinforcements,”

he had halted his command two miles from the city, formed his column with an advance-guard of cavalry and a light battery, the infantry and the commissary-wagons coming next, and in this order, with bayonets fixed, cannon shotted, and two bands playing, had marched brazenly in the face of the Mormon authorities and through the silent crowds of Saints to Emigrant Square. Here, in front of the governor's residence, where flew the only American flag to be seen in the whole great city, he had, with entire lack of dignity, led his men in three cheers for the country, the flag, and the Gentile governor.

After this offensive demonstration, he had perpetrated the supreme indignity by going into camp on a bench at the base of Wasatch Mountain, in plain sight of the city, there in the light of day training his guns upon it, and leaving a certain twelve-pound howitzer ranged precisely upon the residence of the Lion of the Lord.

Little by little these galling reports revived the military spirit in an Elder far to the south, who had thought that all pa.s.sion was burned out of him. But this man chanced to open a certain Bible one night to a page with a wash of blood across it. From this page there seemed to come such cries and screams of fear in the high voices of women and children, such sounds of blows on flesh, and the warm, salt smell of blood, that he shut the book and hastily began to pray. He actually prayed for the preservation of that ancient first enemy of his Church, the government of the United States. Individually and collectively, as a nation, as States, and as people, he forgave them and prayed the Lord to hold them undivided.

Then he knew that an astounding miracle of grace had been wrought within him. For this prayer for the hostile government was thus far his greatest spiritual triumph.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

_Just Before the End of the World_

The years of the Civil War pa.s.sed by, and the prayer of Joel Rae was answered. But the time was now rapidly approaching when the Son of Man was to come in person to judge Israel and begin his reign of a thousand years on the purified earth. The Twelve, confirmed by Brigham, had long held that this day of wrath would not be deferred past 1870. In the mind of Joel Rae the time had thus been authoritatively fixed. The date had been further confirmed by the fulfilment of Joseph's prophecy of war.

The great event was now to be prepared for and met in all readiness.

It was at this time that he betrayed in the pulpit a leaning toward views that many believed to be heterodox. ”A likely man is a likely man,” he preached, ”and a good man is a good man--whether in this Church or out of it.” He also went so far as to intimate that being in the Church would not of itself suffice to the attainment of glory; that there were, to put it bluntly, all kinds of fish in the gospel net; sinners not a few in Zion who would have to be forgiven their misdeeds seventy times seven on that fateful day drawing near.

Bishop Wright, who followed him on this Sabbath, was bold to speak to another effect.

”Me and my brethren,” he insisted, ”have received our endowments, keys, and blessings--all the tokens and signs that can be given to man for his entrance through the celestial gate. If you have had these in the house of the Lord, when you depart this life you will be able to walk back to the presence of the Father, pa.s.sing the angels that stand as sentinels; because why?--because you can give them the tokens, signs, and grips pertaining to the holy priesthood and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and h.e.l.l. But how about the likely and good man outside this Church who has rejected the message of the Book of Mormon and ain't got these signs and pa.s.swords? If he's going to be let in, too, why have doorkeepers, and what's the use of the whole business? Why in time did the Lord go to all this trouble, any way, if Brother Rae is right? Why was Joseph Smith visited by an angel clad in robes of light, who told him where the golden plates had been hid up by the Lord, and the Urim and Thummim, and who laid hands on him and give him the Holy Ghost? And after all that trouble He's took, do you think He's going to let everybody in? Not much, Mary Ann! The likely men may come the roots on some of our soft-hearted Elders, but they won't fool the Lord's Christ and His angel gatekeepers.”

Elder Beil Wardle, on the other hand, showed a tendency to side with the liberalism of Brother Rae. He cited the fact that not all revelations were from G.o.d. Some were from perverse human spirits and some from the very Devil himself. There was Elder Sidney Roberts, who had once suffered a revelation that a certain brother must give him a suit of finest broadcloth and a gold watch, the best to be had; and another revelation directing him to salute all the younger sisters, married or single, with a kiss of holiness. Urged to confess that these revelations were from the Devil, he had refused, and so had been cut off and delivered over to the buffetings of Satan in the flesh.

”And you can't always be sure of the Holy Ghost, either,” he continued.

”When the Lord pours out the Holy Ghost on an individual, he will have spasms, and you would think he was going to have fits; but it don't make him get up and go pay his debts--not by a long shot. Of course I don't feel to mention any names, but what can you expect, anyway? A flock of a thousand sheep has got to be mighty clean if some of them ain't s.m.u.tty.

This is a large flock of sheep that has come up into this valley of the mountains, and some of them have got tag-locks hanging about them. But it don't seem to pester the Lord any. He sifted us good in Missouri, and He put us into another sieve at Nauvoo, and I reckon His sieve will be brought along with Him on the day of judgment. And if there are some lost sheep in the fold of Zion, maybe, on the other hand, there's some outside the fold that will be worth saving; that will be broke off from the wild olive-tree and grafted on to the tame olive-tree to partake of its sap and fatness.”

Joel Rae would have taken more comfort in this champions.h.i.+p of his views if it were not for his suspicion that Elder Wardle sometimes spoke in a tone of levity, and had indeed more than once been reckoned as a doubter. It was even related of him that a perverted sense of humour had once inspired him to deliver an irreverent and wholly immaterial address in pure Choctaw at a service where many others of the faithful had been moved to speak in tongues; and that an earnest sister, believing the Holy Ghost to be strong upon her, had thereupon arisen and interpreted his speech to be the Lord's description of the glories of their new temple, which it had not been at all. Such a man might have a good heart, as he knew Elder Wardle to have; but he must be an inferior guide to the Father's presence. He was even less inclined to trust him when Wardle announced confidentially at the close of the meeting that day, ”Brother Wright talks a good deal jest to hear his head roar. You'd think he'd been the midwife at the borning of the world, and helped to nurse it and bring it up--he's that knowing about it. My opinion is he don't know twice across or straight up about the Lord's secret doings!”