| OCR Text |
Show 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 \ vho " 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. To 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 Canon, 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, I'd 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 caflon 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 vegas on Ham's Fork, they set fire to the tall grass, and, when the smoke 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 |
