Lily Dougall - The Mormon Prophet
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Lily Dougall >> The Mormon Prophet
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As for Kirtland, the hope of making it a prosperous city had died with
the failure of the bank. Of the few who remained two distinct parties
were formed--the orthodox, headed by Halsey, and the reformers,
encouraged, if not headed, by the former leaders who were now apostate.
In the camp of the reformers there were those who saw visions and had
revelations. Before this, when Smith was at the helm, it had been
counted unlawful for any but himself to have direct dealings with the
Unseen; but the prophet was distant, directing the sect only through his
published journal, and in this case it were hard indeed if no
authoritative local word were spoken in the orthodox party. Angel
Halsey's mystic soul fell easily into the region of voices and visions.
In his adversity, fasting and praying more than ever before, he heard
voices which gave practical directions not only for himself but for his
neighbours. When the neighbours refused to accept these ghostly
counsels, which all tended toward a more rigorous holiness, there was no
room left for Halsey's work in Kirtland. He determined to fare forth to
Missouri, there to comfort and edify the Saints scattered abroad in the
rural districts.
It was now that Susannah expected the sprightly Elvira Halsey, still
unbaptized, to return to the east. Instead of that she proposed to
travel with them, helping to take care of the child.
"Why should I take the trouble to help you and the young un?" she asked,
sitting on Susannah's doorstep, languid with the heat. "When I was going
along the lane last night I met a spirit, so I held out my hand
according to Joe's latest. You've not heard! My! it's in the Millenial
Star that if any sort of a voice or dream comes to you, the way to know,
whether it's an angel or devil is to shake hands, and if it is an angel
you'll feel a good, firm, solid grip sort of coming out of nowhere, but
if it isn't an angel you'll feel nothing. It's kind of Joe to put it in
a nutshell, necessary nowadays that we're all hard at it having
revelations of our own. He thought that nobody would feel the grip but
himself. Quite mistaken. I shook hands with my angel, tho' I couldn't
see a ghost of him, and when he said, 'You come along now to Missouri,
and carry the child half way,' I had nothing to do but say 'Amen.'"
But Susannah was too much afraid of what the result of private
revelations might be to laugh at them; she expressed her fears.
"Bless you, all the dreams and 'voices' in this hustling world wouldn't
have put any guile into the soul of Nathaniel, and they won't into Angel
Halsey's. Saints are saints, sinners are sinners, middling folks are
middling, just the same whether they have three 'revelations' a day
apiece, or one once a year, or none at all. You're fretting because you
think a righteous man might do something wicked, thinking that the voice
of the Lord had told him. Not a bit of it! The Lord will take care of
his own when they're a little off their heads just as much as at any
other time."
What few worldly goods Susannah chose to keep were packed in two single
waggons, Halsey driving the one, and Elvira and Susannah by turns
driving the other and holding the child. Their long journey through the
month of June was the most perfect pleasure that Susannah and Angel ever
enjoyed together, the long nightmare of the last months at Kirtland left
behind for ever, the stage of the future veiled, and the lineaments of
natural hope painted upon the drop-curtain. A loving fate sent fresh
showers on their behoof during the nights, which laid the dust and
dressed field and forest in their daintiest array. The child, who had
been pining somewhat, affected by the anxiety in the Kirtland home,
became lusty and merry.
"If it wasn't that we are shortly going to be robbed of all we possess
by the Missourians," observed Elvira, "this sort of jog-trot comfort
would become too monotonous, but it adds spice to be saying, so to
speak, 'Hulloa there! we've come to be persecuted too.' Of course we'll
all be killed to begin with, but that's a detail; after that we'll take
our rural mission bespoken for us in the dream."
Susannah actually smiled and called "gee-up" to the horse.
"How very little people know," she observed, "who talk about a
persecution as if it would be a means of grace. There is nothing that so
hardens and degrades as the constant report of barbarities; the more
nearly seen, the more closely inspected, the worse is the moral result."
"Speak for yourself," cooed Elvira, "there's one person out there that
isn't hardened and degraded." She looked with reverent eyes at Angel,
who was walking at the head of the foremost horse, crooning a psalm;
"and, as for me, I still feel myself quite soft, almost pulpy, and on an
elevated plane."
"You could never talk in your irreverent way if you weren't a good deal
hardened and degraded," persisted Susannah affectionately, "and, as for
me, I know that I am. Is there any instance in history of a people
emerging from prolonged persecution with high ideals of love toward
their enemies and candour?"
"'Tis commonly said that faith rises from this fire," said Elvira.
"Faith that gives its body to be burned and has not charity," said
Susannah.
When they reached the vicinity of Diahman and Far West the State
elections were about to be held. It was reported that over all Missouri
the stronger party, that of Lilburn Boggs, was threatening to prevent
by force the Mormon vote.
Before commencing his mission to the outlying Mormon districts, Halsey,
hoping to avoid this contest, stopped in the Gentile town of Gallatin to
rest and obtain a fresh outfit.
"But why don't we pay our respects to 'Joe' now we are within reach?"
inquired Elvira with pensive inflection.
"The prophet is full of cares. A man whom I met at the tavern said that
his activity on behalf of the Saints in Far West is amazing, and since
his public appearance there the Lord has prospered the city exceedingly;
but, as for me, I have been commanded to turn aside to those of our
people who are not encompassed by a shepherd's care."
"If he would but confess it," said Susannah with a sigh, "my husband was
so sorely hurt with the appearances of fraud in connection with the
bank--"
"Suppose you put that appearance of a child down and come and eat this
appearance of your breakfast, and then we'll put on what appear to be
our bonnets, and go for what appears to be a walk." Elvira's sunny
serenity never deserted her. "Say rather," she cried, "that the prophet
did defraud, but has repented."
That day was the 6th of August. The voting for the State legislature had
commenced. The travellers did not know that there was any number of
Mormon landholders in this place, but now they could not extricate
themselves from the very contest that they had hoped to avoid. When the
two women strolled through the streets to see the town they became
involved in a crowd at one of the polling places.
Penniston, a candidate of the Boggs party, standing on a barrel, was
haranguing the crowd, and the two women quickly heard the name of their
sect mentioned with contumely.
"Shall we," cried Penniston, "allow our State to come under the control
of Mormon horse-thieves and robbers by allowing these outlaws the civil
rights that are intended only for good citizens?"
There was a commotion in the crowd near him. Susannah, knowing that her
husband was abroad, felt a sudden heart-sick prophecy of evil. The next
moment she saw Halsey spring into sight upon a low wall at the side of
the crowd.
"Look on this picture and on this," cried Elvira in a voice audible to
many too illiterate to comprehend.
The two men, each standing erect above the heads of the crowd, could not
have showed sharper contrast. Penniston was coarse of limb and feature;
a low grade of moral disorder stamped his face as clearly as inferior
articles are ever stamped; no inspector of goods so relentless as God's
servant Time! Halsey had bared his head to the open sky, as though
invoking the presence of God in his temple. Upon features too thin and
haggard for beauty, patience and love and truth were written by every
line.
Halsey's voice, accustomed to preaching, fell with clear modulations
upon the summer air.
"'Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake and the gospel's.'
Friends, this evil that is spoken against us whom ye call Mormons is
falsely spoken, and I stand here before you, and before the great Father
of Truth, who is calling his children everywhere to repent, to say that
every Mormon who has a vote has a right to exercise it, for we have
committed none of the crimes of which you accuse us, but you yourselves,
as you well know, are many of you here to try to put into office men who
are undoubted criminals."
In surprise Penniston and his hearers had listened, but now a man,
half-drunk perhaps, sprang upon the low wall upon which Halsey stood,
and struck him savagely.
"He is all alone," cried Susannah, "all alone among so many." She tried
to struggle forward toward her husband through the crowd.
Halsey believed himself to be alone, and it was not in accordance with
his principles to make any attempt to return the violence by which he
had been assailed; but to his astonishment now a stout man leaped to
his assistance, suddenly belabouring his assailant with blows, and from
far and near in the crowd there were shouts of encouragement from burly
Mormon farmers who had only needed the voice of a leader to declare
themselves. Halsey had thrown a spark, unconscious that a mass of powder
lay near. When the men of Penniston's party turned with savage fury upon
the Mormon who was beating their companion, and the Mormons, no less
fierce, rallied round Halsey and his defender, the fight became general.
Elvira set her quick wits to work to weave a cord that would be strong
enough to draw Susannah back to their inn. "They may find out that baby
is alone," she said; "they're wicked enough to injure him out of
revenge."
Along the wooden pavements of Gallatin, past the gaily-painted wooden
houses, through the doors of which whole families were now emerging to
ask the cause of disturbance, Susannah fled miserably, her cheeks
blanched beneath her veil, her heart within weeping.
The sun was shining brightly on just and unjust; the gardens of Gallatin
were brilliant with such flowers as had bloomed in the August when she
first met her husband. Susannah felt then that the reason why she
desired to clasp and guard the sleeping child she had left was that he
was Angel's son; the pity for injured innocence had been from the first
until now her strongest passion, and at the thought of Halsey, innocent
and gentle, in the midst of the brutal fight she had left, her soul wept
as it were the scalding tears that her eyes refused to shed.
The boy lay in rosy sleep, a woman of the inn keeping a kindly eye upon
him. Probably nothing but a mother's love could have fancied him of
sufficient importance to attract public attention, but Susannah, locking
her door, knelt by the bed, and spreading protecting arms above him,
listened with strained senses for news of Halsey's injury or death. For
years she had feared that the violence she had seen wreaked upon others
would touch her husband; violence offered to herself would have seemed a
trivial grief in comparison. The fear that has long harped upon sore
nerves has a cumulative action upon the pain of its realisation.
Susannah found herself giving forth short ejaculatory whispers of prayer
upon the close air of the plain, small room in which she knelt. It was
such prayer only as we come at by inheritance, prayer that is one of the
habits by which the fittest have survived.
Before two hours were past Halsey had returned. He was bruised and much
shaken, but appeared unconscious of injury, and made light of it. The
open fight had ended with no decisive victory for either party; the
chief result appeared to be that malice on either side was for the hour
exhausted. Whether because of this or because Halsey gave himself to
prayer on behalf of his brethren, the polls were opened quietly at noon
and the Mormons voted with the other citizens.
In the cool of the evening Susannah was sitting beside her husband
holding the sleeping child. The window of their humble room was open,
not to any broad, fair landscape such as their eyes were accustomed to
feast upon, but upon the yard of the small tavern. There is, however, in
new countries no crowding; space, like air and sunshine, is the common
heritage. Grass grew round the edges of the large yard, and an old white
horse was cropping it contentedly. A cool air was blowing, and over the
wooden roofs of the town stars were beginning to gather themselves from
out the pale dusk. An old negro and two mulatto boys were sitting upon a
log at the side of one of the sheds, quarrelling and singing slave
melodies by turns.
Angel took the hand of the sleeping child and Susannah's hand and folded
them in his own. "Susannah, it has been given to me to see this
afternoon more clearly than ever before the material triumph of our
people. They will rear high cities; they will lead armies; they will
command wealth; but it has also been shown me that Zion will not be, as
I had heretofore believed, pure from sin, for evil has already entered
into her. Because she has taken the sword her spiritual warfare will not
be soon accomplished; the wheat and the tares shall grow together, and
I do not yet see the end."
There was a pause. Susannah watched the slaves taking their evening ease
so light-heartedly. She looked down at the three hands which Angel had
gathered together. The dusk was beginning to make all things indistinct.
Angel went on. "I would have thee teach the child above all things the
unspeakable wretchedness of sin, for the least sin closes the eye of the
soul by which we see God and the things of God, clogs them with the dust
and dirt of the world; and when there is no more any clear vision,
selfishness is mistaken for love, malice for righteousness, and folly
for truth. So I pray thee, dear heart, be wary, and slay within thyself
the evil nature, for though I cannot see it, perchance God does; and
teach the child above all things from the first to fear sin more than
death."
"You shall teach him, Angel."
"Dear heart, I would not lay upon thee the burden of knowledge of coming
sorrow if I dared to withhold it, but I believe, Susannah, that it will
soon be given to me to die for the truth and for our people." After a
moment's pause he went on, and his tone, which had dropped
involuntarily, became again cheerful. "That is why I have to-day
determined to change the plan that we have made and to send thee and the
child to-morrow with the company who are about to travel to Far West,
where the prophet is now dwelling with his wife, for I know he will
never see thee want."
Susannah rose up. In the dusk of the low, small room her figure, the
child still in her arms, seemed to tower like a misty goddess or
Madonna, such as praying men have often seen appearing for their
succour; her voice came clear and strong from a heaving breast.
"Angel, I will never leave you, never," and then she added in a voice
that faltered, "Send the child if you will."
CHAPTER X.
They did not send the child to Far West, or even insist on Elvira
seeking safety there, because that town also became swiftly involved in
the flames of the war which had flashed into new life at the Gallatin
fight. The whole land was full of threats and terrors, and many open
fights at the polling-booths were soon reported. The Mormons and
anti-Mormons in various localities entered into mutual bonds to keep the
peace, but in many cases these bonds were soon broken.
To the Mormons everywhere had been issued a proclamation, signed by
Smith and the elders, commanding that no official tyranny, however
unjust, was to be resisted. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers." "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's
sake." But when private violence was offered the order was that the men
should fight in defence of their families.
It seems to have been this order to fight, and the fact that the Mormons
proved themselves sturdy fighters, which alone caused any of the
Gentiles to enter into a compact of peace. So mad was their anger
against a sect claiming the land as an inheritance from God and voting
to a man in obedience to its leader, that the Missouri journals of the
day openly taught that to kill a Mormon was no worse than to kill an
Indian, and to kill an Indian was tacitly considered as meritorious as
killing a wild beast.
"I am just about as safe jogging along in one of your waggons as
anywhere in this part of the country," observed Elvira; "and if it was a
craving for peace and safety we had, why did we come to Missouri at all?
I feel exactly like a rabbit when the men are out trying to thin them; I
notice they get very frisky."
There was psychological truth underlying this statement. Stimulated by
the excitements of sudden alarms, Susannah also found herself enjoying
intervals of temporary security with peculiar zest.
They set forth again upon the country roads. Halsey had the burden of
his message upon his spirit; wherever they found a few Mormon households
gathered together, he preached to them the high ideals of Christian
living and the need of humility and constant prayer. Another theme he
had which he considered of equal importance; this was the interpretation
of prophecy. He gave long rapt discourses upon the most obscure passages
in the books of the prophets, the Revelation of St. John, and the Book
of Mormon. These passages were found chiefly to refer to the rise of
the Mormon Church, the iniquity of her enemies, and her glorious future.
Susannah, who saw the value of his practical teachings, bitterly
regretted this use of half his opportunities.
Only once or twice in many weeks did they come upon a Mormon household
whose management was not such as the moralist would approve, and in
those cases before Halsey's passionate denunciation sins were confessed
and repentance promised.
So they journeyed slowly out of the September heats and oppressive
shades into the cooler and more open glories of autumn. In that part of
the country wild flowers run riot at the approach of winter, painting
the land in broad leagues of colour, white and gold and blue, and the
trees of the forest hang in red curtains overhead. The air was so light
and invigorating that they all felt its tonic properties. Halsey seemed
eased of his burden; the child began to talk, babbling wise and
wonderful speeches. Elvira was even more frivolous than was her wont,
and Susannah almost forgot Halsey's dismal prophecy of martyrdom.
About the middle of October they reached the place called Haun's Mill,
where a small Mormon community was settled. Here they thought well to
pause, shocked by renewed rumours of warfare. A truce for the whole
region, which had been signed by Smith and some of his elders on the one
side, and by a magistrate, by name Adam Black, for the Gentiles, had
been broken by Gentile mobs in several of the counties near Far West. A
number of the saints had been brutally killed, their wives and children
driven from their homes at the point of the bayonet. This renewed
outrage roused at last the fires of revenge, long smouldering in the
breasts of the refugees from the desolate city of Zion, who had
themselves known the bitterness of such unmerited wrong. These fires
fused religious principle and natural wrath together, till a chain was
forged which bound many strong men in a secret society, whose members
swore to fight, not only in defence, but especially in vengeance.
It was at Haun's Mill that Halsey first heard of this society, and he
was deeply concerned. A young Mormon who had lately come to the place
belonged to it, and after one of Halsey's sermons, in which the posts of
the Gate of Life were represented as meekness and forgiveness, this
young man came to the preacher by night to confess, but also to
vindicate his position.
The missionary's little party, with the exception of Elvira, who had
accepted hospitality at a neighbouring farm, were camping in a meadow
not far from a stream called Shoal Creek, which drove the mill. The logs
of their evening fire were still alight. Susannah sat just within the
dark opening of a low canvas-covered waggon; the unsteady flame light
fell upon her, and sometimes showed a farther interior where the child
lay sleeping. Halsey was sitting at the roots of a tree, the utensils of
a simple supper at his side. The gentle horses tethered near were to be
heard softly cropping the grass, and the sound of the creek came from a
farther distance. Above, the poplar boughs, whose yellow foliage had
been thinned by the advancing season, let through the rays of the
brilliant stars. These were the sights and sounds which met the young
man's senses as he came brushing the fallen leaves with his feet.
He leaned against the pole of the farther waggon and looked across the
low-glowing fire at the preacher and his wife.
"Look here! I'm a Danite. Do you mean to say that the Lord's not going
to accept of me because I can't stand by and see weak men and women and
children killed, or worse than killed, without punishing the murderers?
Supposing that a hundred of Boggs' men were to come down now and put an
end to you, your wife, and your child, would you have me go along with
them peaceably afterwards and pray they might be forgiven?"
"What is a Danite?" asked Susannah.
The stranger took off his hat and answered her very respectfully. "We
are under an oath, ma'am, not to tell who belong to us, but we've bound
ourselves to punish them as take the blood of the helpless and
innocent."
He seemed, as far as the light would show, a well-made youth, and his
voice was clear and honest.
Halsey had not spoken, and Susannah asked again, this time of her
husband, "Can it be wrong to do as this gentleman says?"
The preacher spoke slowly. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord."
"But," said the young man eagerly, "the Scripture also says 'There's a
time for wrath,' and 'he that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his
blood be shed.'"
Halsey rose up. It was a strong moment for him, for he had long seen
that the spirit of retaliation, following hard on the spirit of defence,
was the coming curse of his beloved church, and had prayed that he might
be the means of helping to ward it off. Here was one asking counsel who
from the strength of his person and character might have influence among
the avengers of blood, yet with his helpless wife and child beside him
none felt more keenly than Halsey the force of the Danite's arguments,
and none knew better the multitude of Scripture prophecies that could be
brought up in support of them. In the strength of his need this man, who
had been spending the precious time of many a hardly-won audience in
dwelling on obscure poesies in books held sacred, now seemed to step
forth into a sudden illumination of truth just as he stepped from the
shadow of the poplar bole into the light of the fire.
"Friend, I did wrong to answer you in this matter from any part of
Scripture save from the mouth of our most blessed Lord himself, for he
alone is the gate by which we must enter into life, and I would have you
to consider most carefully his life and words, and find out if there be
any promise of blessedness to those who strike back when they are
struck, or any command to punish the evil-doer, or any example for such
punishment. But if you would be more manly and more gallant than the
Saviour of the world, I tell you it must be at your own peril, for he
alone is the gate of that road which leads to everlasting life."
There was a silence for some long moments. Embers in the fire broke and
fell; the horses cropped the grass; a nut or twig dropped somewhere
among the adjacent trees.
"Well," said the young Danite reflectively, "if that's it, I guess I'll
have to take my fling first and seek salvation after; but Smith and
Rigdon don't only preach that sort of Gospel now; they are all for the
Old Testament kind of thing, and the destroying angels in the
Revelations."
CHAPTER XI.
So near came the rumours of war that the Mormons of Haun's Mill entered
into a renewed compact of mutual peace with the Gentiles around them.
The place was about twenty miles below the town of Far West, on the same
stream of Shoal Creek. Around Far West the roads presently became very
dangerous, haunted, it was said, by armed parties of bloodthirsty
Gentiles who lay in wait for trains of Mormon emigrants coming from the
east to the prophet's city. All travellers became alarmed; Halsey
remained where he was; the people of the place accepted his pastoral
services gladly. A train of Gentile emigrants also waited at Haun's Mill
for the cessation of hostilities.
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