The Lions of the Lord | Page 6

carry in their hands,--sick men and women carried on beds, mothers luggin' babies and leadin' children. My sakes! but I did want to run some bullets and fill my old horn with powder for the consolation of Israel! They're lyin' out over there in the slough now, as many as ain't gone to glory. It made me jest plumb murderous!"
The younger man uttered a sharp cry of anguish. "What, oh, what has been our sin, that we must be proved again? Why have we got to be chastened?"
"Then Brockman's force marched in Thursday afternoon, and hell was let loose. His devils have plundered the town, thrown out the bedridden that jest couldn't move, thrown their goods out after 'em, burned, murdered, tore up. You come up from the river, and you ain't seen that yet--they ain't touched the lower part of town--and now they're bunkin' in the temple, defacin' it, defilin' it,--that place we built to be a house of rest for the Lord when he cometh again. They drove me acrost the river yesterday, and promised to shoot me if I dast show myself again. I sneaked over in a skiff last night and got here to get my two pistols and some money and trinkets we'd hid out. I was goin' to cross again to-night and wait for you and the wagons."
"My God! and this is the nineteenth century in a land of liberty!"
"State of Illinois, U.S.A., September 19, 1846--but what of that? We're the Lord's chosen, and over yender is a generation of vipers warned to flee from the wrath to come. But they won't flee, and so we're outcasts for the present, driven forth like snakes. The best American blood is in our veins. We're Plymouth Rock stock, the best New England graft; the fathers of nine tenths of us was at Bunker Hill or Valley Forge or Yorktown, but what of that, I ask you?"
The speaker became oratorical as his rage grew.
"What did Matty Van Buren say to Sidney Rigdon and Elias Higbee when they laid our cause before him at Washington after our Missouri persecutions--when the wicked hatred of them Missourians had as a besom of fire swept before it into exile the whipped and plundered Saints of Jackson County? Well, he said: 'Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you.' That's what a President of the United States said to descendants of Mayflower crossers who'd been foully dealt with, and been druv from their substance and their homes, their wheat burned in the stack and in the shock, and themselves butchered or put into the wilderness. And now the Lord's word to this people is to gether out again."
The younger man had listened in deep dejection.
"Yes, it's to be the old story. I saw it coming. The Lord is proving us again. But surely this will be the last. He will not again put us through fire and blood."
He paused, and for a moment his quick brown eyes looked far away.
"And yet, do you know, Bishop, I've thought that he might mean us to save ourselves against this Gentile persecution. Sometimes I find it hard to control myself."
The Bishop grinned appreciatively.
"So I heer'd. The Lute of the Holy Ghost got too rambunctious back in the States on the subject of our wrongs. And so they called you back from your mission?"
"They said I must learn to school myself; that I might hurt the cause by my ill-tempered zeal--and yet I brought in many--"
"I don't blame you. I got in trouble the first and only mission I went on, and the first time I preached, at that. When I said, 'Joseph was ordained by Peter, James, and John,' a drunken wag in the audience got up and called me a damned liar. I started for him. I never reached him, but I reached the end of my mission right there. The Twelve decided I was usefuller here at home. They said I hadn't got enough of the Lord's humility for outside work. That was why they put me at the head of--that little organisation I wanted you to join last spring. And it's done good work, too. You'll join now fast enough, I guess. You begin to see the need of such doin's. I can give you the oath any time."
"No, Bishop, I didn't mean that kind of resistance. It sounded too practical for me; I'm still satisfied to be the Lute of the Holy Ghost."
"You can be a Son of Dan, too."
"Not yet, not yet. We must still be a little meek in the face of Heaven."
"You're in a mighty poor place to practise meekness. What'd you cross the river for, anyway?"
"Why, for father and mother, of course. They must be safe at Green Plains. Can I get out