A Revelation from the Lord and a Toast from Brigham

From his little one-roomed cabin, dark, smoky, littered with hay, old blankets, and skins, he heard excited voices outside, one early morning in January.  He opened the door and found a group of men discussing a miracle that had been wrought overnight.  The Lord had spoken to Brigham and word had come to Zion to move toward the west.

He hurried over to Brigham’s house and by that good man was shown the word of the Lord as it had been written down from his lips.  With emotions of reverential awe he read the inspired document.

“The Word and Will of the Lord Concerning the Camp of Israel in its Journeyings to the West.”  Such was its title.

“Let all the people,” it began, “of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, be organised into companies with a covenant and a promise to keep all the statutes of the Lord our God.

“Let the companies be organised with captains of hundreds and captains of fifties and captains of tens, with a President and Counsellor at their head under the direction of the Twelve Apostles.

“Let each company provide itself with all the teams, wagons, provisions, and all other necessaries for the journey.

“Let every man use all of his influence and property to remove this people to the place where the Lord shall locate a stake of Zion, and let them share equally in taking the poor, the widows, and the fatherless, so that their cries come not up into the ears of the Lord against His people.

“And if ye do this with a pure heart, with all faithfulness, ye shall be blessed in your flocks and in your herds and in your fields and in your families.  For I am the Lord your God, even the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob.  I am He who led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and my arm is stretched out in these last days to save my people of Israel.

“Fear not thine enemies, for they are in my hands, and I will do my pleasure with them.

“My people must be tried in all things, that they may be worthy to receive the glory that I have in store for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not receive chastisement is not worthy of my Kingdom.  So no more at present.  Amen and Amen!”

This was what he had longed for each winter night when he had seen the sun go down,—­the word of the Lord to follow that sun on over the rim into the pathless wilderness, infested by savage tribes and ravenous beasts, abounding in terrors unknown.  There was an adventure worth while in the sight of God.  It had never ceased to thrill him since he first heard it broached,—­the mad plan of a handful of persecuted believers, setting out from civilisation to found Zion in the wilderness,—­to go forth a thousand miles from Christendom with nothing but stout arms and a very living faith in the God of Israel, and in Joseph Smith as his prophet, meeting death in famine, plagues, and fevers, freezing in the snows of the mountains, thirsting to death on the burning deserts, being devoured by ravening beasts or tortured to death by the sinful Lamanites; but persisting through it all with dauntless courage to a final triumph so glorious that the very Gods would be compelled to applaud the spectacle of their devoted heroism.