Cut from the mountain without hand,
A church with gifts and blessingg, oh, that's the church for me,
Oh, that's the church for me, oh, that's the church for me.
• " The God that others worship is not the Grod for me;
He has no parts nor bodj, and can not hear nor see;
But I've a God that lives above,
A God of Power and of Love,
A God of Revelation, oh, that's the God for me.
"A church without apostles is not the church for me;
It's like a ship dismasted afloat upon the sea;
But I've a church that's always led
By the twelve stars around its head,
A church witli good foundations, oh, that's the church for me.
" The hope that Gentiles cherish is not the hope for me.
It has no hope for knowledge, far from it I would be;
But I've a hope that will not fail.
That reaches safe within the vail.
Which hope is like an anchor, oh, that's the hope for me."
But neither hope nor faith clianged the harsh climate of the high
plains and wind-swept plateaus; and seven weeks of travel left our
friends still four hundred miles from " Zion," in the heart of the high
Rockies, almost out of provisions, worn down, sick, apparently for-
gotten of God and abandoned by man. It was then the inborn noble-
ness of the English race shone out. Men toiled on day after day,
hauling and even carrying women and children, wading ice-cold
streams with the feeble in their arms, in many cases carrying their
little children in the morning and themselves dying before night.
Fainting fathers took the scant rations from their lips and fed their
crying children ; mothers carried their babes till they sank exhausted
in the snow, and young men nerved themselves to suffer every thing
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THE FAIR APOSTATK 326
for those they loved. Briarly had never known how much he loved
his little Marian till then. Daily the image of her mother grew in
her fiice, and hourly he felt the agony of death lest he should leave
her corpse in the wilderness. At times pushing his hand-cart with
her weight added to his regular load; at times wading the cold mount-
ain streams with her clasped to his bosom, and yet again assisting
others whose husbands or fathers had died on the way, he showed
that a false faith had not yet corrupted nature. Day after day iho
^ \ril08E KXISTENCE PROM DECEMBER TILL MAY IS OROAMIZED FAMINE AND MISEIIY.*'
train struggled on in silence and sorrow, and every morning saw from
one to ten of their number cold in death. Daily the survivors grew
weaker from exposure and insufficient food : old men died as easily as
a lamp goes out when the oil is exhausted ; women died as a child
goes to sleep; young men died sitting by the camp-fire, with their
scant rations in their mouths. Still the survivors pressed on, though
every day more slowly : by day pierced by the keen winds, or happily
sheltered a little by the mountain pines; by night shivering and moan-
ing in a miserable sleep, cheered only by the long drawn and melan-
choly howl of the coyote.
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326 WESTERN WILDS,
The regular winter storms struck them at Rocky Ridge, but not
until the first relief company from Salt Lake City had reached them.
In their worst extremity some had even accepted charity from the
wretched Goshoots, whose existence from December till May is organ-
ized famine and misery. But help came too late for one of our
friends. Old Man James had borne up long and well. The day the first
storm of winter came he sank by the wayside with scores of others.
John Chislett, commander of this huqdred, took ofi^ his own blanket
and wrapped it around his older and weaker brother; and a few
hours later the relief party brought him into camp. They warmed
and chafed his cold limbs, and pressed food upon him ; but his
thoughts were far away. He babbled of green fields, and the hawthorn
along the English lanes; of the village ale-house and the Chartist's
Club, of his little Nixie, still a child, as he tliought. This recalled his
later experience, and starting up, he cried: "My curse, my eternal
curse on those who brought us from our English home ; ^' then fell
back with glazing eye and stiffening jaw.
The Old Radical had found the Brotherhood of Man at last.
But Brigham's kingdom had lost a subject.
« « « « « « 4
While fanaticism was corrupting fresh young English hearts, the
harsh attrition of ruraL life in the West was wearing another hero
into shape. But who would have chosen Willie Manson for a hero
that spring afternoon? — his face covered with dust, through which
the tears were washing liitle tracks ; his feet bare, and his head half
covered with a dilapidated straw hat. He had but dim recollections
of a tall and kindly man who spoke to him as " my boy;" since then his
" legal guardians " had made him more familiar with the phrase, " that
wretched young one," and the neighbors' children had nicknamed
him "Binder," in allusion to the legal tie which relegated him to the
authority of his master. How have they wasted their time — those
poets who write of "innocent childhood?" Cruelty is bound up in
the heart of a child, and is manifested against the helpless of his own
age. If you do not believe it, watch a group of school children, when
a pauper child, or a " bound boy " or girl is first sent among them.
But to-day Willie Manson had received blows as well as harsh
words, and as he came across the fields on his errand, a glance west-
ward showed him a wide expanse of open country; and all at once
arose that vague longing which appears to have moved our race ever
since the first Aryan turned towards sunset. Obeying a wild im-
pulse — half anger and half a formed desire to run away — the boy fled
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THE FAIR APOSTATE. 327
swiftly across the fields till he reached the high road; then he stopped,
and, boy-like, with the reaction came this thought: " Oh, won't I catch
it, though, when I get home?" Left to himself, the thirteen-year-old
child would, of course, have gone back, taken his punishment, and
perhaps sunk into a "white slave," perhaps taken a later occasion to
fly. But fate would have it otherwise. As he pondered, there came
down the road a high "prairie schooner," drawn by four horses;
within the neat white cover sat a cheery looking woman who held the
reins, while behind came two men driving loose cattle. They nodded
and smiled in a way that warmed the heart of the forlorn orphan ; but
the next minute turned in haste to head off their cattle, who had
broken into a wood lot and were stampeding for wild freedom. With
a natural wish to please, and glad of some change, the barefooted boy
ran after the cattle, and, by his knowledge of the locality, assisted
greatly in getting them past the next open piece of timber. They
thanked him heartily, and pressed a silver dime upon him, then bade
him good-bye; but, to their surprise, when they camped that evening
on the banks of the Wabash, the boy was there. Reluctantly the
"movers" consented to his remaining for the night, and in the morn-
ing, fearing the consequences to themselves of "harboring a runaway,"
they sent him back. But to their amazemept, when the swing ferry
had landed them on the west bank, and they were toiling up the west-
ern bluff, the boy climbed out of the rear of the wagon-box and beg-
ged to go on with them. His readiness to help had pleased the men,
and now something in his pleading face touched the weary but still
cheerful woman.
"Isn't he like our Johnnie was? And at the age we lost him"—
and she took him into her great motherly heart at once. So, with
many misgivings, the head of the family consented to his accompany-
ing them. But it might have been noticed that he made a very long
drive that day, and camped at a distance from any dwelling; that he
managed to keep Willie very busy if any settler halted to chat with
the "movers," and that he pressed upon him a hat very different in
appearance from that he had worn. And so it was that in a few days
Willie felt as if he had never known other friends than these ; that
the old life as a "bound boy" was a dream, and that he was to begin
a new life away in the West.
By this time they had emerged into what seemed a vast field with-
out a fence, where, for hours, they jogged on over the grand prairie
without sight of tree or house. They crossed the Embarras, the Okaw
and other streams, threaded their bordering groves, and were out again
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328 WESTERN WILDS.
upon the prairies, then but thinly settled, of central Illinois. Beyond,
they descended the gently rolling hills, crossed the great river, and in
the early summer entered, upon the roUing'plains alid wooded vales of
Iowa — and still on and on. To Willie each new day brought surprise
that the world was so big; but still at evening the man replied to
his wife's question : " I want to get out where I can have my pick.
Reckon a hundred miles or so west of Iowa City Ml suit me.^'
At last the pioneer announced that ^Hhis 'ere district looked new
enough, and about the right thing,*' and at noon of a scorching July
day they made camp for the last time. Willie had taken the bucket,
and was returning from the creek near by with water, when suddenly
there came in view the most amazing caravan he had ever looked
upon. For a mile along the dim wagon track there straggled in
strange array men,* women, and children, all panting and sweating
under the hot sky of an Iowa July noon. Here and there were
heavy wagons drawn by oxen ; but most of the vehicles were rude
carts with shafts attached, and in those shafts — ^how could the little
American believe his eyes? -were actually women and men, not ex-
actly harnessed like brute beasts, but pushing or pulling at the heavy
loads. Dripping with sweat and begrimed with dust, all ages and
sexes still seemed eager to press on; little children ran beside the
cartw, while babies slumbered on the piles of bedding, or hung upon
the breasts of bronzed and weary mothers. Behind came the more
weary, and with them a man who appeared to be in command, urging
them on ; and among the last came a man who pushed a cart before
him and pulled another from behind, while a little girl walked beside
him crying to ride.
" What's the matter, little girl ? '' said the boy, finding his tongue at
last. The child hushed on the instant, but still lingered as if wanting
to talk.
"Where are you going, little girl?'*
"To Zion — to build up the kingdom of God.''
The boy was positively frightened. What could this strange little
creature mean. But before he could ask, she whimpered : " Oh, I am
so tired."
This was something Willie could understand \^ery well ; and it Avas
not half so bad to his mind as the other, for, like most children who
have been under severe authority, he literally ^^ feared God." To
him any other prospect was more pleasant than going to the "king-
dom," as he understood it. But while he gazed at the little one, and
in his boyish way wondered and speculated, the advance of the caval-
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THE FAIR APOSTATE, 829
cade had halted for midday at the creek ; and he followed with the
weary child^ who seemed all at once to have acquired great confidence
in him. Meanwhile the pioneer had been down to talk with the party,
and Willie had to bid his little acquaintance good-bye and hurry back.
"And who are they, any how?'' said the wife.
"Oh, a set of d — d fool Mormons,'' replied the matter-of-fact
Hooeier — ^**they say they're a goin' to 2iion. More likely goin' to
the devil, startin' out the way they are."
But Willie had in mind his little friend of an hour, and, after much
pondering, concluded that she must be a '^ bound girl " as he had been
a " bound boy," and that some harsh master was taking her away from
home; so, with the good woman's permission, he gathered up some
delicacies left from their dinner, and ran down to ofler them to the
little girl. He listened to the talk of the elders, but it was a strange
jargon to him; there was so much about "wicked Babylon," and
"God's wrath," and "the last days," that he was frightened again,
and could hardly say whether he was glad or sorry when the cool of
the day came on and the strange party set out again. But the vision
remained long in his memory; and months after he astonished his
patron by suddenly asking: "Who are Mormons, anyhow? and why
don't they use teams just like folks?"
A year passed, and the boy was again moving westward. A year
had done wonders in strengthening his body ; he was already known
as a skillful driver, and when a train set out to haul provisions to the
army in the mountains, he was promoted to the management of "one
span" and a " light outfit." " Three span outfits," on such a route as
that, were reserved for men. Need I recount the incidents of that dis-
astrous autumn and winter of suffering? Our army, marching care-
lessly and without a thought of resistance, allowed the Mormon troops
to run off their stock, and render them helpless on the inhospitable
plains of Bridger. There the train to which Willie was attached found
them in the dead of winter, and but for this timely arrival they must
have suffered for food. The winter dragged on in misery and ex-
posure; but fortune, which had denied our little hero almost every
thing else, had at least given him a rugged constitution, and he lived
through a season when strong men drooped and died. When spring
had dissolved the snow banks from the Wasatch passes, and "King
Buchanan had come to his senses," as Mormon history expresses it,
peace was made, and the army entered the Territory, traversed Salt
Lake City, and was located at Camp Floyd.
And now came the era that was to decide our young hero's fiiture;
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330
WESTERN WILDS.
for Camp Floyd presented extraordinary fecilities for the ruin of char-
acter, and Willie was at that period which most often decides one's des-
tiny for time — perhaps for eternity. With the army, or following close
after it, came an array of camp-followers outnumbering the soldiers
three to one. Government contracts were given out with a lavish
hand, and money
that was easily
got was lavishly
spent. Among
the superiors,
there was high-
toned robbery of
the Government
and the Indians ;
among the in-
feriors, gambling
and quarreling,
and every-where
rioting and fatal
** accidents.'' The
revolver was in
f r e q u e n t use ;
renegade young
Mormons crowd-
ed the camp, and
the scum of the
mountains made
it their rendez-
vous. For two
years our hero
was swept along
by the tide. He
was by turns
teamster, com-
missary clerk,
and merchant^s
clerk; but still preserved enough of nature's nolility to make him,
in his quiet moments, loathe the life around him, and long for a
purer atmosphere. Gentile merchants had opened stores in the city,
and with a sudden impulse he set out one morning to ride there
and seek a position. But the life he had lately led had not been
SCENES OM THE COLORADO PLATEAU.
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THE FAIR APOSTATE. 331
without effects. Exposure and over-exertion when at work, anil dissi-
])ation instead of relaxation when at leisure, can not long be borne even
in the stimulating air of Utah. He felt every hour of his progress a
growing lassitude; and had barely entered the outskirts of the
city, when he fell from his horse in a paroxysm of that dread
disease, mountain fever. When he opened his eyes in his first
lucid moment, ten days after, he was amazed at what he thought
a familiar face near his pillow. He gazed long and earnestly, and at
last, despite all the changes of four years, recognized the little girl he
had last seen on the banks of the Boyer, in Iowa.
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CHAPTER XXI.
THE FAIR APOSTATE— CONTINUED.
It was in full Tabernacle, in the early autumn of 1856. The reign
of lust and &naticism, known in Utah as the " Reformation," had not
ended ; and at every meeting fresh schemes were projected to bind the
Mormons more thoroughly into a pliable mass, which might be ** even
as a tallowed rag in the hands of the priesthood." Every Saint
had been required to coQfcss the minutest details of his past life ; all
these were written down, signed by the party^ and thousands of them
filed away by Brigham Young. The ward teachers had reported ev-
ery case of real or supposed heresy ; the accused had been severely
catechised, and the incorrigible driven from the Territory — or worse.
A grand "experience meeting" was now in progress. Brigham
had pronounced one of his fiercely denunciatory and sweeping ser-
mons, and three thousand Saints, wrought up to the highest pitch of
fanaticism, were singing the inspiring national hymn of the Mormon
theocracy :
'* In thy mountain retreat
God shall strengthen thy feet,
On the necks of thy foes shalt thou tread;
And their silver and gold,
As the prophets have told,
Shall be brought to adorn thy fair head.
Oh, Zion, dear Zion, home of the free.
Soon thy towers will shine with a splendor divine,
And eternal thy glories shall be.
" Here our voices we'll raise.
And we'll sing to thy praise.
Sacred home of the prophets of God t
Thy deliverance is nigh.
Thy oppressors shall die,
And the Gentiles shall bow 'neath thy rod.
"Oh, Zion, dear Zion, home of the free!
In thy temples we'll bend, all thy rights we'll defend.
And our homes shall })e ever with thee."
Into this assembly came Joseph A. Young, second son of the
(882)
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THE FAIR APOSTATE'-CONTINUED. 333
Prophet, just returned from a two years' mission in England^ and an-
nounced that two divisions of the hand-cart emigrants were on the
plains, and in danger of starvation. Then Brigham roused himself,
and became, in the estimation of his people, indeed ''The Lion of the
Lord/' Without giving his son a day's rest, he started him at once
on the return, with authority to press all the wagons and available
bedding and provisions in the settlements he passed through. The
people contributed gladly, and in all the assemblies of the Saints pray-
ers were continually offered that God would stay the storms of win-
ter; but instead thereof, as though heaven would rebuke the pre-
sumptuous, the storms of 1856 (it is the testimony of all mountain-
eers) came on earlier and with more severity than for many years be-
fore or since. The poor emigrants were brought in only when one-
fifth of their number had died of cold and starvation, and as many
more been maimed in various degrees. Among the fortunate few were
Elwood Briarly and his little Marian, and their kinsman, young
Thomas James.
The arrival of the sufferers only added to the prevailing madness.
" Surely,^' said fanaticism, " God is angry with His people, or His
promise to temper the winds would have held good;'^ and in an
amazingly short space of time most of the new-comers were as insane
as the rest — ^for, indeed, it did seem that at that time all Utah was per-
vaded by an epidemic madness. Jedediah Grant and Orson Hyde
ranged the Territory, breathing out threats against dissenters, and
teaching bloody doctrines in figures of speech. The New Testament
was laid aside; Hebraic precedents only were cited: Phinehas, who
killed his brother and the Midianitish woman; Jael, who slew the
heathen ; the king who massacred idolaters, and the priest who
hewed the transgressor in pieces before the Lord. "The time is nigh
at hand," said Grant, " when we will walk up and down these streets
with the old broadsword and say, 'Are you for God ?' — and whoever
is not will be hewn down !'^ Marrying and giving in marriage went
on constantly, as fast as the ordained officials could put the Saints
% through the Endowment House ceremonies proper to " plural mar-
riage.'^ Every eligible woman in the Territory was appropriated, and
girls of twelve and fourteen years were " sealed " to old elders. In one
month after he entered the city, in six months aft«r he was an honest
citizen of Clmstian and monogamous England, Elwood Briarly was
the " husband " of two girls who came with him in the hand-cart
company.
Where now were the lofty ideals with which the English Saints had
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334 WESTERN WILDS.
left home? The old Radical who dared all for greater freedom, was
food for the wolves in the Rocky Mountains. The young Radical who
sought a land where men were free in Christ, was now the subject of
the worst despotism on earth. The maidens who " fled from Babylon
because of its corruptions/' were prostitutes in the name of high
heaven; and the Saxon yeoman, who boasted that "the. Briarlys
served no man and feared no officer," was now 'the slave of lust and of
Brigham, and a virtual criminal by the laws of his adopted country.
That brotherly communion of the Saints, which had so warmed their
hearts in old England, they were never to realize again in Utah ;
the British elders, who had labored long to build up the Church abroad,
soon found they had sold themselves for naught, but could not be re-
deemed even at a great price. Many of them mourned secretly for
years, and, when deliverance came, were^ too much broken in spirit to
avail themselves of it. Tt) them Mormonism has proved the loss of all
honorable ambition for this world, and only the skeptic's hope for the
next.
The madness of the " Reformation" wore itself out, and the plenti-
ful harvest of 1857 made Utah prosperous. On " Pioneers' Day,''
July 24th, thousands of Saints were joyously celebrating the settlement
of the country in Cottonwood Caflon, when suddenly arrived two eld-
ers from the States, with the announcement that President Buchanan
had removed Brigham from the Governorship, and ordered the army
to Utah. Brigham's brow darkened as he said : " When we reached
here I said, if the devils would only give me ten years, Pd be ready for
them ; they Ve taken me at my word, and I am ready." The people
were called together, and a defensive war declared. All Utah was
soon in a buzz of warlike preparation. Briarly bid his wives good-
bye, shook their two right hands and kissed their four lips, and was
off for Echo Cafion with two thousand armed Saints, to drive the Gen-
tile army from the borders of Zion. They were wonderfully success-
ful. The little brigade, under command of Colonel Albert Sidney
Johnston, was scarcely a match for the wild riders of Utah, who
knew every cafion and gorge in the Wasatch. The Mormon boys
rode at full speed down hill-sides where a cavalryman dared not vent-
ure at a walk; and finding the army wagons parked, and their cattle
herded in the vegaa on Ham's Fork, they set fire to the tall grass, and,
when the ^moke had obscured the view, dashed across the burning
plain and drove off a thousand of Uncle Sam's cattle.
A few such exploits as this filled the Mormons with a vainglorious
pride, scarcely yet abated ; and many a Saint even now tells with a
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THE FAIR APOSTATE— CONTINUED. 335
joyful glow how " the hirelings of King Buchanan gave back before
the Mormon boys." Winter found the Gentile army on the bleak
])lains of Bridger, unable to move, and nearly all the Mormon soldiers
went home to enjoy the gayest winter Utah has ever passed. Songs,
sermons and dances, varied by glowing prophecies, kept them in
)
" DASHED ACROSS THE BURXIXO PLAIN."
Fplendid humor with themselves. No people in an equal space of
time ever produced so much bad poetry as the Mormons ; but a few of
their beat songs have a ring in them that then made them popular,
especially if they breathed sarcasm and defiance of all the Gentile
world. While the elders prayed and prophesied, the boys in the
camps sang :
^ Old Sam has sent, I understand,
Du dah!
A Missouri * ass to rule our land ;
Duhdahl Duh dah day I
* Referring to Gov. Alfred Gumming, who was, however, a Greorgian, and was greatly
swaged when Brigham afterwards spoke of him as "from Missouri."
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336 WESTERN WILDS.
But if he comes, we'll have some fun,
Dudah!
To see him and his juries run,
Duh dah! Du dahdaj!
Chobtts: Then let us be on hand
By Brigham Young to stand ;
And if our enemies do appear,
We'll sweep them from the land.
"Old squaw-killer Harney is on the way,
Duh dah!
The Mormon i)eople for to slay,
Duh dah I Duh dah day!
Now if he comes, the truth I'll tell,
Duh dah!
Our boys will drive him down to hell!
Duh dah! Duh dah day!"
But again were faith and hope vain. "When the spring sun had
dissolved the snow-packs from the passes of the Wasatch, the army-