"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.dship 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 worship, 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.
"And if ye do this with a pure heart, with all faithfulness, ye shall be blessed in your flocks and in your herds and in your fields and in your families. For I am the Lord your G.o.d, even the G.o.d of your fathers, the G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob. I am He who led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and my arm is stretched out in these last days to save my people of Israel.
"Fear not thine enemies, for they are in my hands, and I will do my pleasure with them.
"My people must be tried in all things, that they may be worthy to receive the glory that I have in store for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not receive chastis.e.m.e.nt is not worthy of my Kingdom.
So no more at present. Amen and Amen!"
This was what he had longed for each winter night when he had seen the sun go down,--the word of the Lord to follow that sun on over the rim into the pathless wilderness, infested by savage tribes and ravenous beasts, abounding in terrors unknown. There was an adventure worth while in the sight of G.o.d. It had never ceased to thrill him since he first heard it broached,--the mad plan of a handful of persecuted believers, setting out from civilisation to found Zion in the wilderness,--to go forth a thousand miles from Christendom with nothing but stout arms and a very living faith in the G.o.d of Israel, and in Joseph Smith as his prophet, meeting death in famine, plagues, and fevers, freezing in the snows of the mountains, thirsting to death on the burning deserts, being devoured by ravening beasts or tortured to death by the sinful Lamanites; but persisting through it all with dauntless courage to a final triumph so glorious that the very G.o.ds would be compelled to applaud the spectacle of their devoted heroism.
And now he was face to face with the awful, the glorious, the divinely ordained fact. It was like standing before the Throne of Grace itself.
Out over that western skyline was a spot, now hidden and defended by all the powers of Satan, where the Ten Tribes would be restored, where Zion would be rebuilt, where Christ would reign personally on earth a thousand years, and from whence the earth would be renewed and receive again its paradisiac glory. The thought overwhelmed.
"If we could only start at once!" he said to Bishop Wright, who had read the revelation with him. But the canny Bishop"s religious zeal was henceforth to be tempered by the wisdom of the children of darkness.
"No more travelling in this kind of a time for the Saints," the Bishop replied. "We got our full of that when we first left Nauvoo. We had to sc.r.a.pe snow from the ground and set up tents when it was fifteen or twenty below zero, and nine children born one night in that weather. Of course it was better than staying at Nauvoo to be shot; but no one is going to shoot us here, so here we"ll tarry till gra.s.s grows and water runs."
"But there was a chance to show devotion, Brother Seth. Think how precious it must have been in the sight of the Lord."
"Well, the Lord knows we"re devoted now, so we"ll wait till it fairs up.
We"ll have Zion built in good time and a good gospel fence built around it, elk-high and bull-tight, like we used to say in Missouri. But it"s a long ways over yender, and while I ain"t ever had any revelations myself, I"m pretty sure the Lord means to have me toler"bly well fed, and my back kept bone-dry on the way. And we got to have fat horses and fat cattle, not these bony critters with no juice in "em. Did you hear what Brother Heber got off the other day? He butchered a beef and was sawing it up when Brother Brigham pa.s.sed by. "Looks hard, Brother Heber," says Brother Brigham. "Hard, Brother Brigham? Why, I"ve had to grease the saw to make it work!" Yes, sir, had to grease his saw to make it work through that bony old heifer. Now we already pa.s.sed through enough pinches not to go out lookin" for "em any more. Why, I tell you, young man, if I knew any place where the pinches was at, you"d see me comin" the other way like a bat out of h.e.l.l!"
And so the ardent young Elder was compelled to curb his spirit until the time when gra.s.s should grow and water run. Yet he was not alone in feeling this impatience for the start. Through all the settlement had thrilled a response to the Lord"s word as revealed to his servant Brigham. The G.o.d of Israel was to be with them on the march, and old and young were alike impatient.
Early in April the life began to stir more briskly in the great camp that sprawled along either side of the swollen, muddy river. From dawn to dark each day the hills echoed with the noise of many works, the streets were alive with men and women going and coming on endless errands, and with excited children playing at games inspired by the occasion. Wagons were mended and loaded with provisions and tools, oxen shod, ox-bows renewed, guns put in order, bullets moulded, and the thousand details perfected of a migration so hazardous. They were busy, noisy, excited, happy days.
At last, in the middle of April, the signs were seen to be right. Gra.s.s grew and water ran, and their part, allotted by the Lord, was to brave the dangers of that forbidding land that lay under the western sun.
Then came a day of farewells and merry-making. In the afternoon, the day being mild and sunny, there was a dance in the bowery,--a great arbour made of poles and brush and wattling. Here, where the ground had been trodden firm, the age and maturity as well as the youth and beauty of Israel gathered in such poor festal array as they had been able to save from their ravaged stores.
The Twelve Apostles led off in a double cotillion, to the moving strains of a violin and horn, the lively jingle of a string of sleigh-bells, and the genial snoring of a tambourine. Then came dextrous displays in the dances of our forbears, who followed the fiddle to the Fox-chase Inn or Garden of Gray"s Ferry. There were French Fours, Copenhagen jigs, Virginia reels,--spirited figures blithely stepped. And the grave-faced, square-jawed Elders seemed as eager as the unthinking youths and maidens to throw off for the moment the burden of their cares.
From midday until the April sun dipped below the sharp skyline of the Omaha hills, the modest revel endured. Then silence was called by a grim-faced, hard-voiced Elder, who announced:
"The Lute of the Holy Ghost will now say a word of farewell from our pioneers to those who must stay behind."
He stood before them erect, brave, confident; and the fire of his faith warmed his voice into their hearts.
"Children of Israel, we are going into the wilderness to lay the foundations of a temple to the most high G.o.d, so that when his Son, our elder Brother, shall come on earth again, He may have a place where He can lay His head and spend, not only a night or a day, but rest until He can say, "I am satisfied!"--a place, too, where you can obtain the ordinances of salvation for yourselves, your living, and your dead. Let your prayers go with us. We have been thrust out of Babylon, but to our eternal salvation. We care no more for persecution than for the whistle of the north wind, the croaking of the crane that flies over our heads, or the crackling of thorns under a pot. True, some of our dearest, our best-loved, have dropped by the way; they have fallen asleep, but what of that?--and who cares? It is as well to live as to die, or to die as to live--as well to sleep as to be awake. It is all one. They have only gone a little before us; and we shall soon strike hands with them across those poor, mean, empty graves back there on the forlorn prairies of Iowa. For you must let me clench this G.o.d"s truth into your minds; that you stand now in your last lot, in the end of your days when the Son of Man cometh again. Afflictions shall be sent to humble and to prove you, but oh! stand fast to your teachings so that not one of you may be lost.
May sinners in Zion become afraid henceforth, and fearfulness surprise the hypocrite from this hour! And now may the favour and blessing of G.o.d be manifest upon you while we are absent from one another!"
When the fervent amens had died away they sang the farewell hymn:--
"Thrones shall totter, Babel fall, Satan reign no more at all;
"Saints shall gain the victory, Truth prevail o"er land and sea;