houses were almost hidden in forests of peach, fig, apple, and mul-
berry trees; the climaft rivaled that of Southern California, and dam-
sons, apricots, and pears also abounded. All that part of Mormondom
south of the rim of the Great Basin is called Dixie, and produces cot-
ton, wine and figs. And here I first began to be conscious of the
oddity of my dress. At Defiance, to avoid being too conspicuous
among the Indians, I had dressed in a buDkskin suit, with spangled
Mexican jacket, stout moccasins handsomely worked, beaded scarf,
and flowered calico head-wrap; so, at a distance, I was every-where
taken for an Indian. Marriage with Indian women is a strong point
in the religion of these Southern Mormons, and the men were de-
lighted with my description of the grace, beauty, and general desira-
bleness of Navajo girls, as they expect to form a close alliance with



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A STARTLING INTERVIEW. 316

that tribe. Jacob Hamlin had visited all the tribes in Northern
Arizona, making treaties between the Indians and the Church.

My next journey was to Toquerville, where I stopped with Bishop
Isaac C. Haight^ another leader in the Mountain Meadow Massacre,
and a prominent Mormon. Ripe figs, just plucked from the tree,
formed part of our dessert. The narrow valley is very fertile; all
around are yellow hills and red deserts. A leisurely journey of a
day brought me thence to Kanarra, in the rim of the Great Basin.
In the south end of town the water flows towards the Colorado; in
the north end into the Basin. There I had my first sickness on the
trip, as did my horse. We had stood adversity ; prosperity ruined us.
I indulged too freely in fruit, and he in Lucerne hay. There was no
doctor in town, so I worried it through on hot ginger and "Dixie
wine;" in three days was able to ride, and proceeded by easy stages
to Parowan, in Iron County. But six hundred miles through the
Indian country had worn out my horse, and on th)B 16th instant I
''ranched him" twenty miles sou>h of Beaver, and set out for that
place in the wagon of a Mormon farmer. Some five miles on the
road — ^when we were on the ■fieaver "divide" — a cold rain set in and
continued for four 'hours, changing to something very near sleet. The
Mormon family and myself suffered greatly with cold. The seasons
at Beaver are very late, and wheat harvest does not begin, till in
August. Little Salt Lake lay a few miles west of our route, on the
"divide." Having passed the ridge, I walked down the eight-mile
slope to Beaver, which I reached at dark, and was soon warm and
happy in the house of a hospitable Gentile.

Beaver had been revolutionized by the development of mines.
Gentiles were to be seen every-where, and a military post had been
established near town. Thence by stage it was two hundred and fifty
miles to "Zion;" and I was pleased to recognize, in the first driver,
my old friend Will Kimball, who drove a team across the Plains in
the train with me in 1868. Kimball's father was one of the many
arrested the previous winter on charges relating to the conduct of the
Mormon militia in the rebellion of 1857, but was released with a
hundred and twenty others, when the Supreme Court reversed Judge
McKean's rulings. In the progress of Utah affairs, nearly all of the
femily left by old Heber Kimball have become pretty good Gentiles.
This seems to be the course of all such delusions which do not end in
blood.

I halted for a day's rest at Fillmore, the old Territorial capital,
a hundred and seventy-five miles south-west of Salt Lake, and quite a



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316 WESTERN WILDS.

beautiful town. Several wealthy Mormons reside here, in elegant
brick and stone houses, and the place is old enough for all the shade
trees and shrubbery to have attained a good growth. Some thirty
miles west of Fillmore is a remarkable mountain peak, or rather
round heag of cinders and lava, five hundred feet high. It is broken
square across by a gulch with almost perpendicular sides, at the bottom
of which is a spring that is coated with ice around the edges for eleven
months in the year. The altitude is no higher than that of Fillmore,
but the sun never shines in the gorge, and snow lies on the inner slopes
all the year.

Thence two days' slow staging brought me to ^'Zion,'' which I
reached on the evening of July 21st, exactly four months from the
day I left St. Louis for a tour through the Southern Territories. In
that time I had traveled fourteen hundred miles by rail, six hundred
by stage, three hundred by military wagon, two hundred on foot, and
six hundred on horseback — at a total cost of ^35. I reached "Zion"
in splendid health, but complete disguise, if I am to judge from the
conduct of my friends, many of whom passed me on the street without
a nod, or with only a slight look of curiosity, as if some old and half-
forgotten memory were stirred by sight of a face that "had a sort o'
familiar look.'' However, after a bath in the warm springs, getting
off my buckskin pantaloons, spangled Mexican jacket, and Navajo
scarf, and donning a new summer suit, my fingers received once more
the wonted squeeze, and once more I began to feel very like a Christian.

It was on this journey through Southern Utah, and after my arrival
in " Zion," that I heard narrated the personal experiences which are
combined in the three succeeding chapters.



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I CHAPTER XX.

THE FAIR APOSTATE.

Merrily rang the bells of Church, Herefordshire, in the

merry month of May, 1847; for Nixy James, the belle of the hamlet,
was that day to be married to Elwood Briarly, the sturdiest young
yeoman on all the country side. The elder James and Elwood's father
had grown from childhood together: intimate companions and fierce
rivals for the lead among the village j)oIiticians, partners in public
sports and at the village tavern, but never, by any possibility, on the
same side of any exciting question. Thomas James, cobbler, was
often heard to declare that Yeoman Briarly would "contradict for
contradiction's sake — he'd argefy wi' t' clock on t' church steeple,
rather than go wi'out argefying;'' while the yeoman, on his part, in-
sisted that James " was aye runnin' after every dashed new-fiingled
notion that come along.'' He couldn't sec why simple folk like us
couldn't be content wi' t' old church and t' old laws, and not take up
wi' every outlanguaged kickshaw from France or 'Merica or other
foreign parts." For his part, give him the British Constitution.

Nay, the difference was in the blood ; for James' great-grandfather
was a hot adherent of the Prince of Orange, while the Briarlys had
stood by the "Lord's Anointed," and remained zealous Jacobites even
down to the coming in of the House of Brunswick. They held to
legitimacy long after Church, Lords, and Commons had forgotten it;
but the James' had ever three bogies : a papist king, an Irish rising
and a French invasion. Now it so happens that a whole people can
not always be scared into submission by Irish risings and French in-
vasions ; and so, by and by, new and perplexing questions arose, and
certain pestilent fellows began to talk about *'more liberty," and
"household suffrage," and the "rights of the people." It was an ex-
traordinary proceeding on their part, and Yeoman Briarly stoutly pro-
tested no good could come of it; but, in spite of him, he would have
told you the James' fiimily and all their adherents went crazy. But
it never shook him. Oh, no ; he planted himself firmly on the Con-
stitution, and defied the world to move ; and, when the others became
Chartists, he declared, with great positiveness, over his pipe in the vil-
lage ale-house, what Parliament ought to do to stop this sort of thing.

(817)



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318 WESTERN WILDS.

But in despite of all this contention, the young people persisted in
loving each other almost from the starts and at last the blood of the
Old Radical and the Old Conservative were to be united. And all
this time, there was growing up in an obscure village across the sea, an
ignorant, awkward youth, who talked through his nose, and told plau-
sible fibs as naturally as he breathed, whose career was to strangely
affect the blood of the Briarlys and James'. Across the sea an insti-
tution was bom which was to change the current of all these simple
lives in a way the wisest little dreamed of.

The ceremony was ended, the shoe was thrown, the village maidens
strung garlands for the bride ; there was the feast, the dance, and all
the simple pleasantry of the middle class of English farmers. One
year Elwood Briarly rejoiced in the society of his young wife — one
year of continued courtship. Then came a season of trial, happily
ended, said the nurse and doctor ; and an infant daughter was laid in
the arms of the proud father. A perfect little manikin it \\^as, wnth
the orthodox creases in its perfect little feet, and all the orthodox lines
on its perfect little face, by which wise matrons so infallibly fix the
resemblance to either parent: a precious little life wrapped up in a
perfect little anatomy. But the primal curse still rests, even on the
head of the hardy English woman. The weight of the precious fruit
broke the parent stem, and the life of the plant exhaled in the sweet-
ness of the opening flower. Nixie Briarly only saw that her babe had
started well in this world, then bade her weeping husband good-bye,
and fell asleep.

To him it seemed that all which made life worth having was gone.
His had been no sudden affection; for long years Nixie had been
central to all his plans, and now there seemed nothing worth exer-
tion. His daughter — he could scarcely say at first that he loved her —
strange pain ! She seemed to him almost as a living reproach.
Months passed, and it was remarked that he was "slack ;" his hand
had lost its cunning, and words of pity w.ere heard. Months again
passed, and it was remarked that he went often to the village ale-
house, and this time the word of pity was accompanied with an
ominous shake of the head. But the current of common life flowed on
too fast for others for them to turn aside to cheer him. Old yeomen,
on their way home from church, leaned over the fence to look at the
little farm he held on lease; and while you might have thought them
pondering on the preacher's words, the real thought behind those
heavy, unexpressive eyes was, "When will it be to lease?" At the
ale-house he sat apart, a moody man; and it was surprising how



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THE FAIR APOSTATE. 319

soon hi6 old companions learned to do without him, and he dropped
into the ranks of the half-forgotten. All at once it began to be
whispered that El wood Briarly was drinking a great deal; and then
that he was drinking altogether too much, and very soop after, that
he was a drunkard, and in an amazingly short space of time that he
was an abandoned drunkard, and that his late lease was vacated and
the fiirm to be relet. And so it was that when his little Marian was
only three years old, she was taken home to grandfather James, and
Elwood Briarly plunged down, down, down along the course of those
given over to the national vice of Free (and " Merrie ") England.

Counted as already dead by those nearest him, he became a com-
mon laborer for the means of gratifying his appetite. His sorrow
had yielded to time, but now habit dragged him down. When reason
asserted her sway he struggled to his feet for a few days or week^,
then fell again, and each time deeper than before. And now his
habits and associates had changed his original nature. At the church
or social gathering he was never seen ; his only recreation worth the
name was at the workingman^s club ; there he easily learned to crit-
icise every body but himself, and to blame every one for his troubles,
the government most of all. The genial young farmer had become
first a snarling critic, then a radical, a cynic, a misanthrope.

Again he struggled to his feet, and in one of his sober moods, on a
calm Sabbath afternoon, started with his little girl for a stroll upon
the village common. His attention was attracted by a small group
of people who had gathered around a rude stand, extemporized by
piling a few stones together. On this stood a man of peculiar ap-
pearance, with what Briarly thought an unpleasant nasal tone, and a
complexion that was certainly not English. "It's one o' them new-
fangled preachers from America," said a neighbor, as he came up ; and
for want of some better amusement, he decided to wait and listen. There
Was a general air of critical indifference in the small audience, idle
and seeking only entertainment as they were; but they were respectful.
"^^^ preacher seemed to fix his eye on Briarly as he pronounced his text :

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to
^^Imen liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." —
James i: 5. Slowly repeating the text, as if to fix the meaning
^^ each word, the missionary cast a glance over his congregation. In
that sweeping inspection he had noted those whom he would most
^^^h reach.

'*My friends, brethren and sisters, all; this means you. It don't
^^n the Pope of Rome is to have all wisdom. It don't mean His



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320 WESTERN WILDS.

Grace the Archbishop. It means that you are to know for your-
selves, and not for or by another. It means that you are to receive a
witness from God himself, and know of a surety whether this doctrine
is true. It is not for the rich alone, or the learned ; a burden is
laid uiK)n me to oj^cn the Gospel to the poor and ignorant, to help
those who need it, to cheer the sorrowful, to lift up the lowly, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord,'' and again his glance fell
upon Briarly. The latter was powerfully impressed. He had lost
his old friends. He longed for sympathy. If any man could prom-
ise him something bettor, that man was sure of a favorable hearing.
The preacher continued : " You have priests who tell you that there is
no more revelation, that the volume of God's word is closed. For
eighteen hundred years the Christian world has received no message
from the Almighty: the heavens have been shut up, the Lord has not
spoken, there has been no prophet to inquire of the Lord. Where is
their authority to say this? AVhere is it written in this book that
prophecy shall cease? Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,
and were saved ; but the bread my fathers ate is not sufficient for me.
I would know God for myself. Go ask your priests for a witness of
their mission. They can not show it. Eighteen hundred years ago,
they say, God spoke; eighteen hundred years ago He loved His
people, and led them by revelatiom But now the canon is full ; the
world is wise enough to do without the daily word of God, and there
is no longer a voice from the Most High to guide us ! What ! Is
God dead ? Is there less need of a living oracle now than there was
eighteen hundred years ago ? Or is the world so pure that a prophet
has no work to do? Do all men acknowledge God, and worship him,
and is there no unbelief that God should refuse us a witness? No,
my friends, I'll tell you why it is."

The speaker had warmed into something like eloquence. His audi-
ence were impressed, and the nasal tone which at first affiscted their
English ears unpleasantly, seemed to have vanished.

" It is because they rejected God's plan. They would not have a
continuous chain of revelation. They have set up churches in which
there are no prophets nor apostles ; they have not the gifts of the
apostolic church, and the Holy Spirit is not with them ; they have
the form of godliness, but deny the power. Should any one say
to them that God had sent a prophet, they would cry out against him.
But, my friends, God is not dead. The heavens are not brass to those
who seek the truth. God, who so loved the world that he sent hb Son
to save it, loves us as much as he did the people who lived eighteen hun-



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THE FAIR APOSTATE. 321

dred years ago^ and has sent us a messenger. As he spoke to the saints of
the former days so has he spoken to the Latter-day Saints, and all who
will may know for themselves that this message is from God. In
America a prophet has been called ; the word of God has whispered
out of the dust, as foretold by Isaiah, and once more communication
is restored between God and man.''

The speaker then recited the story of Joseph Smith, his conversion
and calling, his mission and martyrdom, as foretold by all the prophets ;
and supported his doctrine by an array of Scripture texts that aston-
ished and fairly overwhelmed his simple hearers. Their experience
had left them unprepared for any thing of this sort. All their lives
they had heard the letter of the Scriptures distorted in the petty war-
fere between the sects ; great principles they did not comprehend, and,
to come to the point, there was no reason why prophets and apostles
should not walk the earth now as well as in former times. The mis-
sionary's argument on this point was to them unanswerable : if there
was wickedness and unbelief in ancient times, so there was now ; if
men needed a living witness then, much more did they now, when so
many claimed to be messengers from God, and all differed as to His
nature and government. No text in the Bible said that prophets should
cease, while scores of texts implied that He would not leave the earth
without an infallible guide.

Elwood Briarly was powerfully impressed. He was in the Slough
of Despond, and the missionary brought hope ; he was disgusted with
all about him, and here was a chance for a new life. Next day he
was surprised by a visit from the Mormon preacher. The latter was
totally unlike the parish priest. He did not stand off and preach down
at the poor outcast; he took a farming tool and worked beside him;
aye, did task for task with him, and talked only in the intervals of work.
He, too, had known poverty and disgrace ; he, too, had been an unfor-
tunate and an outcast ; he had not walked in silver slippers, and how
mightily did he affect these simple people. From house to house he
went, resolving doubts, urging proof texts, preaching and debating; and
sitting by their humble firesides of an evening, he sang with unction :

"The Spirit of Ckxi like a fire is burning.

The latter-day glory begins to come forth ;
The visions and blessings of old are returning ;

The angels are coming to visit the earth.

Well sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven,

Hosanna, hosanna, to Qodand the Lamb t
Let glory to them in the highest be given,

Henceforth and forever, amen and amenl"
21

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322 WESTERN WILDS.

What wonder that he prevailed mightily among these simple people.
What wonder that the cold, barren, carefully prepared homilies of the
parish priest were swept aside! The emotional faith of the speaker
went to the hearer's soul. It was no cold, intellectual reasoning ; it
was warm, robust feeling, and as a natural consequence believers grew
and multiplied. In less than one month from that Sunday, El wood
Briarly, his father-in-law James, and a dozen of their neighbors were
baptized into the Mormon Church, and eager to set out for " Zion.''

But between them and Salt Lake City intervened many months of
work for the cause. And now the whole aim of their lives was
changed. Preaching and working, at home or abroad, all was for the
Church; their talk was of "visions and dreams,^' "the ministering of
angels,^' "tongues and the interpretation* of tongues," "healings and
miracles." And so it was, that by the opening months of 1856, this
little band of Saints was ready for the long journey to " Zion."
Old Man James was beside himself with joy at thought that all his
dreams were soon to be realized; that Brotherhood of Man, that free-
dom he had vainly sought in Chartism, was to be realized in the Rocky
Mountains, where God's people were to live under the mild rule of
prophets and apostles. Such an idea captivated thousands of young
Englishmen. To them, Utah was a land where all legal hardships
were to be cured, and all men to be equal ; and the spirit of brotherhood
among the British saints at this time, to which all observers bear wit-
ness, they thought only a foretaste of the perfect oneness in Christ
which was to prevail in Utah. In this spirit our friends gathered to
Liverpool, where it was announced, through the columns of the 3Iil'
knnial Star, that God, by His servant Brigham, had devised a cheaper
and better way of reaching Utah ; the Saints were to travel from the
frontiers on foot, and take their necessary baggage on hand-carts.
But what can shake a fervent and fooling faith? Without a murmur
of dissent the waiting hundreds crowded on the vessel chartered by
the Mormon agents, and, grouped on the deck as the vessel started on
their way, they sang with a tone that resounded o'er the waves :

" Oh, my native land, I love thee ;
All thy scenes I love them well ;
Friends, connections, happy country,
Can I bid you all farewell?

Can I leave thee,
Far in distant lands to dwell?

" Home, thy joys are passing lovely,
Joys no stranger heart can tell ;



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THE FAIR APOSTATE, 323

Happy home, Hia sure I love thee,
Can I — can I — say 'Farewell?*

Can I leave thee,
Far in distant lands to dwell?

"Yes, I hasten from you gladly.
From the scenes I love so well ;
Far away, ye billows, bear me ;
Lovely native land, farewell I

Pleased I leave thee,
Far in distant lands to dwell.

" Bear me on, thou restless ocean,
Let the winds my canvas swell ;
Heaves my heart with warm emotion,
While I go far hence to dwell,

Glad I bid thee,
Native land, farewell, farewelL"

On ship-board the discipline was perfect. The new converts were
distributed in quorums, over each an elder, and over all a trustee or
apostle, insuring mutual respect and cleanliness; and in this order the
emigrants traveled all the way to Iowa City, their outfitting point for
the plains. It was there learned that over two thousand of the poorer
and middle class of converts had that year left Europe, all of whom
were to continue the journey from this point with hand-carts. But
precious time was lost The Mormon agent had neglected to provide
the carts; they were now hastily constructed of imperfectly seasoned
wood, and the whole party set out joyfully late in July, and were soon
strung along the route thence to the Missouri River. The first
five hundred got an early start, and being largely composed of young
find strong men, entered Salt Lake Valley just as the first snow of the
season was falling. But our friends, with their companions, found
themselves the second week in August just prepared to start from the
Missouri. Fanatical as they were, some of them shrank from making
the attempt so late in the season. The division contained five hun-
dred persons: a hundred and twenty stout men, three hundred women,
and children old enough to walk, and seventy babies to be carried by
their mothers or hauled upon the carts — this party starting to traverse
eleven hundred miles of mountain and desert in the closing months of
the season ! Totally ignorant of the country and climate, the converts
were eager to go on to " Zion," but there were four of the leaders who
liad been to the valley, and others at Florence attending to the emi-
gration. Incredible as it may appear, all these urged them on but one;
Levi Savage used his common sense and knowledge of the countr}%
W was rebuked by the elders, who prophesied, in the name of Israel's



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324 WESTERN WILDS.

God, that not a flake of snow should fell upon them. " You will hear
of storms to the right and to the left, but a way will be opened for
you." Each hundred was then put under charge of a captain; to each
hundred there were five round tents, twenty persons to a tent ; twenty
hand-carts, one to five persons, and one " prairie schooner " drawn by
three yoke of oxen, to haul the tents and provisions. All the clothing
and bedding, seventeen pounds to each person, and all the cooking
utensils, were upon the hand-carts, besides a hundred pound sack of flour
to each. Thus equipped, rested by the delay and " strong in the promise
of the Lord by the mouth of His elder," the secojid division set out
from the Missouri the 18th of August, singing in cheerful concert :

^* A church without a prophet is not the church for me ;
It has no head to lead it, in it I would not be;

But IVe a church not built by man,