678 HISTORY OF BRIGHAM YOUNG. warfare. Were such gigantic preparations ever known in the history of the world hitherto ? Certainly not, according to any accounts that have been handed down to us. Little do they know what all their great preparations are for, and less of the vortex of destruction and misery, the very brink of which they are tottering upon. They will not believe the testimony of the Latter-day Saints, relative to the things that are coming upon them, unless they repent of their sins. They answer that it is all nonsense--it always was so, and always will be. But, thanks be to God, the Saints can lift up their heads and rejoice, for these are testimonies unto them that the day of their redemption draweth nigh. The Saints can realize that "The bright sword is drawn, And the sheath thrown away," and that wickedness of every description will be swept from off the earth by war, famine and pestilence, and that by the fierce and vivid lightning and thunder of heaven shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to mourn. Then the cry of the Saints shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Every Latter-day Saint, who is in possession of the Spirit of God and is living his religion, is aware of these things and can rejoice, even in the midst thereof, and anxiously awaits the coming of the day of his deliverance from the thraldom and tyranny to which he is compelled to submit at present, that he may gather home to the land of God's choice, where he may put forth his hand and help to cultivate and beautify the same, and bring it back to its first primeval order, when God pronounced the earth "very good." What a difference do we behold, when we see the thousands of the honest-in-heart concentrated in that one place-all actuated by the self-same motives, all having made the same covenants, and having the same desires-the beautifying and building up of Zion in the last days, that it may be fit and acceptable in God's sight for his Son Jesus Christ to come and dwell on, with his people, during the great thousand years. While contemplating the thousands of poor Saints that remain to be gathered from amongst the nations of the earth, the heart yearns with pity for their condition; but let them continue humble and faithful in the discharge of every known duty, and live up to the requirements of our most holy religion, that they may have a claim upon every blessing that God has in store for his people. They should be careful to use the means they have in their possession with the strictest regard to economy, and not to let an opportunity slip of putting by a shilling towards their emancipation from Babylon; but, at the same time, they should not forget to be punctual in the payment of Tithing and Mission Fund deposits, for it is by these that the Church has to be upheld, and those sustained who are sent into our midst to comfort and cheer us, to gather in scattered Israel and to preach the glad tidings of great joy unto fallen man. May God grant unto us all his Holy Spirit to enable us to be faithful in the discharge of every known duty, and to see our way clear to gather with the Saints of the Most High, that we may be enabled to appreciate and enjoy the contrast between their condition and that of the rest of the inhabitants of the world. HISTORY OF BRIGHAM (Continued from page 664.) December 6.-Brother Haight took his team, and we rode with him to brother Joseph Murdock's, in Hamilton, Madison county, where we arrived on the 7th, in the evening. Brother George A. was confined to his room YOUNG. sick, and received a thorough series of Thompsonian nursing. I found the Saints in confusion; they had the gift of tongues among them, and the interpretation, and they were so ignorant of the nature of these gifts HISTORY OF BRIGHAM YOUNG. that they supposed that everything which was spoken in tongues was immediate revelation from God; a false spirit had therefore crept in, and division was the result. I taught them that when they spoke in tongues the language might be from the Lord, but with that tongue they spoke the things which were in their hearts, whether they were good or evil; the gift of tongues was given for a blessing to the Saints, but not to govern them, nor to control the Elders, or dictate the affairs of the Church. God had placed in the Church different gifts; among which were Apostles, Prophets, helps and governments, and wisdom was profitable to direct. Before leaving, the Saints came to an understanding on these matters. The brethren were very kind to us brother Benager Moon gave me satinette to make me an overcoat; sister Lucetta Murdock made it for me; this was a great blessing to me, as I had worn a quilt, with a comforter run through it, in lieu of an overcoat, all the way from Nauvoo, which had not much of a ministerial appearance. Held meetings on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. -15 (Sunday.)—Preached in Waterville at brother Gifford's, and returned on Monday to Hamilton. --20.-Went to Eaton, and visited cousins Fitch and Salmon Brigham, and on Saturday to Hamilton, and called on Phinehas Brigham. While at cousin Phinehas Brigham's, he had many inquiries to make about the Prophet. I preached the Gospel to him so plainly that he could not make any reply, but had to acknowledge that what I taught was Scriptural and reasonable, and he could not gainsay it; but being a very staunch Baptist and a deacon too, he regretted very much his son was not there, who was educated for a Baptist priest. He thought if his son was there he might be able to enlighten my mind and point out my errors, although he was not able to do it himself. We had not conversed an hour before his son, the priest, came in, to whom he introduced me, and then sat lown with a great deal of composure, believing the son would be able to ebut the doctrine I had advanced. 679 The son, with all the solemnity and air of a priest, commenced to ask questions. I answered them, and, in return, asked him a few questions, giving him the liberty to rebut any statement I had made by bringing Scripture testimony, as I had read my doctrine from the Bible; but he could not give me any light, neither could he answer the questions I asked him,, and he was too much of a gentlemanyoung and inexperiened-to commence a tirade of abuse, as older priests generally did on the character of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, consequently he sat mute as a stock. I continued my visit with the family for a short time, and when I was about to leave I told them that Baptistism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, Quakerism, Shakerism, and every other ism I had studied and learned, for I desired to know the truth, and found I could put all their doctrines, when simmered down to truth, into a snuffbox of the smallest class, put it into my vest pocket and go on my way but, when I found Mormonism, found that it was higher than I could reach with my researches, deeper than I was capable of comprehending, and calculated to expand the mind and lead mankind from truth to truth, from light to light, from grace to grace, and exalt him in the celestial kingdom, to become associated with the Gods and the angels. I bade them good night, and went over the hill to Hamilton, and staid at brother Murdoch's. -22, 1839 (Sunday.)-Preached at brother Murdock's, and went to Waterville on Monday, 23rd, with brother Gifford. -25.-Went six miles beyond Rome, and met with Elder James Blakeslee and brother Joseph L. Robinson ; stayed with brother Spinning. Returned on the 27th to Waterville, and on the 28th to Hamilton. -29 (Sunday.)- Elder Blakeslee preached. Brother George A., who had been confined to brother Murdock's house during the last three weeks, was now so far recovered as to be ab'e to proceed; and on the first day of January, 1840, brother James Gifford took us in his sleigh to Waterville, where we stayed over night with bro Or the morning of Tuesday, the 6th instant, an earthquake was felt throughout England which startled many of the people from their propriety. Considerable fright was excited in many places where it was most strongly felt; many of those who describe their feelings on the occasion declaring them to be "awful.” Where its character was not immediately recognized, numbers arose in alarm thinking that burglars had entered their dwellings. The damage resulting from the shock, so far as known, has been quite trifling. A few articles of furniture upset and pieces of crockery broken, with here and there a few bricks and tiles displaced, are all the effects attributed to its agency. It seems to have been a quake of a very mild character-so mild and so little to be noticed, that it has not proved to be more than a three days' wonder. For about three days the columns of the newspapers contained descriptions of its effects from correspondents in different places, and editors, during that period, bestowed upon it some slight notice; but the feeling has rather been one of contempt for such a miserably poor shaking as it has afforded, and many of the gentlemen of the press allude to it in such a manner as to lead a reader to suppose that they were rather condescending to notice it at all as a genuine earthquake. They even congratulate the nation upon the total absence of superstition respecting this event, and appear delighted to think that "earthquakes, like eclipses, have ceased to appal even the vulgar as messages of wrath from Heaven." One paper, in allusion to this point, accepts it as a favorable indication that "nothing can be further from superstition than the tone in which our correspondents, many of them clergymen, record what they saw and observed." Oh happy age! Oh blessed generation! when even clergymen, professed ministers of Heaven, cease to be so vulgar as to annoy the people with any reflections about the Divine origin of earthquakes, and are no longer so superstitious as to think for a moment that the Most High can have had anything to do with the production of such phenomena! Let peans be sung in honor of this emancipation of "Christians" of the year of grace 1863 from the remnant of "superstitious folly" bequeathed to them by an earlier generation, who were so unfortunate as to be taught by Apostles and Prophets that Divinity warned and punished through the agency of earthquakes! Earthquakes may be intended to warn and punish the wild and fiery populations of semi-tropical cities; they may speak to the superstitious generations that demand a sign and will only be taught by portents; to such they may stand in the stead of the thunderings and quakings of Sinai; but in these cooler climes-in Great Britain-with more reasonable temperaments, and under a purer faith (yes, purer faith; those are the words) this awful language is not needed! With what a feeling of conscious superiority do editors discourse in this strain to their readers! The mantle of self-righteousness they wrap closely around them, and deem themselves and the people of the nation at large entirely invulnerable to every calamity that may affect other communities and peoples. The ALMIGHTY footfall is soft here, they think; and while they condescendingly acknowledge that there are means, utterly beyond their ken and computation, far below their feet, by which cities may be subverted, populations suddenly cut off, and empires ruined, yet they do so in a tone and manner Intended to convincingly silence any fears there may be entertained of such a power being aroused, especially to their or their compatriots' injury. They do not even confine their gratulations to their immunity from the ravages of physical earthquakes, but give point to their declarations of superiority by alluding to the great moral earthquake which is convulsing and rending to fragments the great empire across the Atlantic, and announcing that they are safe from that fate, for never was the nation so united! Much as we may wonder at the condition of mind which, in seemingly intelligent men, will produce such utterances as those above referred to, and suffer them to be read and accepted by others, also professing to be intelligent, as anything more than the ravings of idiocy, yet we are not disappointed. Unless there should be a numerous class who would thus shut their eyes and harden their hearts against every Divine manifestation of power, and enshroud themselves in their superior self-righteousness and imagined immunity from the evils that would afflict other peoples, the word of the Lord could never be fulfilled. A people less conceited than they, might be terrified by the earthquake, the war, the famine or the pestilence, and repent and escape; but many of them will not do so. What possible effect can the shaking of an earthquake, the bloody consequences of a war, the fearful desolations of a famine or a pestilence have upon minds who think that such dreadful calamities are the language in which superstitious generations, that demand a sign and will only be taught by portents, are spoken to ; but are not sent with any such purpose to them, who have more reasonable temperaments and a purer faith?" Or, who think that it is only the vulgar who are influenced or appalled by such visitations " as messages of wrath from Heaven?" Truly spake the Holy Ghost by the Prophet, and wonderfully applicable are the words to this generation, where he says:-"Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have 66 they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." If they were more susceptible, they might repent and be converted upon the approach of those calamities which every man of God, who has spoken upon the subject, has declared will be felt by the inhabitants of the earth as portents of the Divine wrath. But when even clergymen are free from the "contemptible weakness and superstition" that God has any agency in the matter of earthquakes, wars and other calamities-when the professed ministers of the Almighty, and who may be supposed to know best upon this point, endorse the statement and idea that He does not concern himself any longer about sublunary matters-how can it be expected that the masses, especially that portion of them who take pride in showing that they are above superstitious weaknesses, will be otherwise? The Scriptures inform us that there will be earthquakes and other terrible calamities given unto man for the accomplishment of the purposes of the Almighty; but they do not lead us to expect that repentance and an acknowledgment of the hand and the power of the Lord, on the part of mankind, will follow these visitations. They intimate, on the contrary, that feelings directly the opposite of these will be indulged in, and that men will feel more like cursing God and dying than repenting. Jesus predicted to his disciples that there should be "famines and pestilences and earthquakes in divers places;" but these were to be only "the beginning of sorrows." They were to be testimonies to men given in the language of Almighty power. When the voice of heaven-inspired man failed to have the desired effect upon his fellow-man, and the latter resisted his testimony and warning because he was a man like himself, then there was to be heard and felt testimonies and warnings in voices of a more potent and terrible character. The earth itself, at the impulse of its Almighty Creator, should be moved to add its testimony in language peculiar to itself-language of terrible significancy and portentous character-to its inhabitants. Universal creation should join to testify unto blind and self-righteous and conceited and rebellious man, in manifestations and voices of awful and sublime power, to the truth of the words declared in meekness unto them by their fellow-mortals, who had been inspired and sent forth by the Almighty with the message and warning. The Lord has said unto his servants that "After your testimony cometh wrath and indignation upon the people; for after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground, and shall not be able to stand. And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea, heaving themselves beyond their bounds." "Ah!" but says sapient man-editors, clergymen and others-" we have had hundreds of earthquakes and wars and famines and pestilences; we have had thunderings, lightnings, tempests, and the sea heaving itself beyond its bounds; but the end has not come yet; and we think those who view such events as the messages of wrath from Heaven, the victims of a vulgar superstition." Yes, and in their very anxiety to escape deception and superstition, they will become the victims of both; the voices of the elements-nature's voice speaking in God-like power-will be suffered to pass by as unheeded, so far as repentance is concerned, as is the voice of feeole, though inspired man, until the consumption decreed shall be fulfilied, and the vengeance of a rejected and offended God shall be fully executed. |