But he had taken up a new cross and he had his reward.  The first night after they reached home he took the little Bible from its hiding-place and opened it with trembling hands.  The stain was there, red in the candle-light.  But the cries no longer rang in his ears as on that other night when he had been sinful before the page.  And he was glad, knowing that the self within him had again been put down.

Then came strange news from the East—­news of a great civil war.  The troops of the enemy at Camp Floyd hurried east to battle, and even the name of that camp was changed, for the Gentile Secretary of War, said gossip from Salt Lake City, after doing his utmost to cripple his country by sending to far-off Utah the flower of its army, had now himself become not only a rebel but a traitor.

Even Johnston, who had commanded the invading army, denouncing the Saints as rebels, had put off his blue uniform for a gray and was himself a rebel.

When the news came that South Carolina had actually flung the palmetto flag to the breeze and fired the first gun, he was inclined to exult.  For plainly it was the Lord’s work.  There was His revelation given to Joseph Smith almost thirty years before:  “Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina.”  And ten years later the Lord had revealed to Joseph further concerning this prophecy that this war would be “previous to the coming of the Son of Man.”  Assuredly, they were now near the time when other Prophets of the Church had said He would come—­the year 1870.  He thrilled to be so near the actual moving of the hand of God, and something of the old spirit revived within him.

From Salt Lake City came news of the early fighting and of meetings for public rejoicing held in the tabernacle, with prophecies that the Gentile nation would now be rent asunder in punishment for its rejection of the divine message of the Book of Mormon and its persecution of the prophets of God.  In one of these meetings of public thanksgiving Brigham had said from the tabernacle pulpit:  “What is the strength of this man Lincoln?  It is like a rope of sand.  He is as weak as water,—­an ignorant, Godless shyster from the backwoods of Illinois.  I feel disgraced in having been born under a government that has so little power for truth and right.  And now it will be broken in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

These public rejoicings, however, brought a further trial upon the Saints.  The Third California Infantry and a part of the Second Cavalry were now ordered to Utah.  The commander of this force was one Connor, an officer of whom extraordinary reports were brought south.  It was said that he had issued an order directing commanders of posts, camps, and detachments to arrest and imprison “until they took the oath of allegiance, all persons who from this date shall be guilty of uttering treasonable sentiments against the government of the United States.”  Even liberty of opinion, it appeared, was thus to be strangled in these last days before the Lord came.