And they sang with fervour:—­

  “By the mountains our Zion’s surrounded,
     Her warriors are noble and brave;
   And their faith on Jehovah is founded,
     Whose power is mighty to save. 
   Opposed by a proud, boasting nation,
     Their numbers compared may be few;
   But their Ruler is known through creation,
     And they’ll always be faithful and true.”

CHAPTER XX.

How the Lion of the Lord Roared Soft

But with the coming of spring some fever that had burned in the blood of the Saints from high to low was felt to be losing its heat.  They had held the Gentile army at bay during the winter—­with the winter’s help.  But spring was now melting the snows.  Reports from Washington, moreover, indicated that a perverse generation in the States had declined to accept the decrees of Israel’s God without further proofs of their authenticity.

With a view to determining this issue, Congress had voted more money for troops.  Three thousand men were to march to the reinforcement of the army of Johnston on Black’s Fork; forty-five hundred wagons were to transport their supplies; and fifty thousand oxen and four thousand mules were to pull these wagons.  War, in short, was to be waged upon this Israel hidden in the chamber of the mountains.  To Major Rae, watching on the outposts of Zion from behind the icy ramparts of Echo Canon, the news was welcome, even enlivening.  The more glory there would be in that ultimate triumph which the Lord was about to secure for them.

In Brigham and the other leaders, however, this report induced deep thought.  And finally, on a day, they let it be known that there could no longer be any thought of actual war with the armies of the Gentile.  Joel Rae in Echo Canon was incredulous.  There must be battle given.  The Lord would make them prevail; the living God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, would hold them up.  And battle must be given for another reason, though he hardly dared let that reason be plain to himself.  For only by continuing the war, only by giving actual battle to armed soldiers, by fighting to the end if need be—­only so could that day in Mountain Meadows be made to appear as anything but—­he shuddered and could not name it.  Even if actual war were to be fought on and on for years, he believed that day could hardly be justified; but at least it could be made in years of fighting to stand less horribly high and solitary.  They must fight, he thought, even if it were to lose all.  But the Lord would stay them.  How much more wicked and perverse, then, to reject the privilege!

When he heard that the new governor, who had been in the snow with Johnston’s army all winter, was to enter Salt Lake City and take his office—­a Gentile officer to sit on the throne of Brigham—­he felt that the Ark of the Covenant had been thrown down.  “Let us not,” he implored Brigham in a letter sent him from Echo Canon, “be again dragooned into servile obedience to any one less than the Christ of God!”