The Lions of the Lord | Page 6

fought till the white crows come
a-cawin', but the rest of 'em wasn't so het up with the Holy Ghost, I
reckon. Anyway, they signed. The terms wasn't reely set till Thursday
morning, but we knew they would be, and so all Wednesday night we
was movin' acrost the river, and it kept up all next day,--day before
yesterday. You'd ought to 'a' been here then; you wouldn't wonder at
my comin' down on you like a thousand of brick jest now, takin' you
for a mobocrat. You'd 'a' seen families druv right out of their homes,
with no horses, tents, money, nor a day's provisions,--jest a little foolish
household stuff they could 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