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Show 54 course they are pursuing. They are turning the last key to rend the nation asunder, and they will be broken as a potter's vessel, and cast down as a nation, to rise no more forever.-^9 It is unmistakable that church leaders considered the invasion of Utah Territory by Federal troops as more than a simple posse comitatus. They were looking for something very big. This was the beginning of the end; the hour of deliverance was at hand. After a constant diet of such speeches, one Salt Lake County man was prompted to write in his diary: "The brethren feel with some profficing we will son EJsooriJ go to Jackson County in MLssoury."20 And Apostle Wilford Woodruff, who was also a member of the Territorial Legislature, said on December 21 in the Legislative Council that he "did not think their ever was an Assembly of men on Earth that deliberated upon so weighty a subject upon which hung so important consequences."21 He then went on to compare their own deliberations with those of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Clearly, the church saw much more than a few troops coming to Utah; they saw a threat to the kingdom of God. But all thought was focused on the destruction of that threat and the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom. Even as late as May 6, 1853, when the crisis was nearing an end, Brigham Young was still convinced that the nation was on the verge of collapse. "You know that the nation cannot last long in its present capacity," the prophet wrote to John M. Bernhisel, Utah's congressional delegate. "She is liable to perish in an hour-at any moment she may be dismembered and rent asunder. The only wonder Is that the slender thread which holds her together has not already parted."22 The poetry and verse of the day even found inspiration in the imminent conflict and triumph of the Kingdom. The renowned Utah poetess, Eliza R. Snow,shows the flavor of the times in a poem published by the Deseret |