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Show marriage, or polygamy~ Such signs that the Biblical Kingdom had been reintroduced to earth helped the Saints realize that their Zion in the west was in fact the Kingdom of God on earth. "living in the Kingdom in the nineteenth century," Professor Shipps writes, "was the sign of citizenship in God's elect nation. Gentiles there were, but the community was a separated one~ made special through the institution of the patriarchal order of marriage. 1110 Individual Saints established their place in this literal Zion through baptism and faith, but also through participating in the actual experience of the western migration and the building of the kingdom. The Mormon trek into the wilderness recalled the Exodus of Old Testament tradition and was an event shared by all converts during the pioneering period. Whether they walked with the initial companies from Nauvoo or came later from England and Scandinavia, the early Saints, by this act, entered Zion physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Again, following Professor Shipps: At the deepest level, the journey of the Saints from Nauvoo to the Great Basin was part of a complicated recapitulation process wherein the Latter-day Saints lived through the history of the Hebrews. Historical accounts of the corporate movement of the Saints from Illinois to the Great Salt Lake Valley are rarely written without mentioning that the Saints who followed Young westward resolved themselves into a Camp of Israel, organized into companies in the same manner as the ancient Israelites had been organized during their journey from Egypt to the Promised land in Palestine.11 The Exodus experience, then, was fundamental in defining "Mormoness" in the nineteenth century. That is, one's identity as a good and faithful Latter-day Saint was embodied i n the act of personally living through the dramatic events of Mormon history--the expulsion from Nauvoo, the migration to Utah, and finally, the task of preparing the earth for the 297 |
