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Show 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, Elwood 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 Mil-lennial 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 |