After Smith left Kirtland there was a great exodus Missouri-ward of his
more devout followers. The army which had gone out from Kirtland in '34
to the rescue of the fugitives from the city of Zion in Missouri had
failed, through disease and exhaustion, to make warlike demonstration;
but the principle then accepted by the children of Zion of opposing
force to force in self-defence, had been bearing fruit ever since in a
bloody warfare between the hunted Saints of Missouri and their more
powerful neighbours.
Before the Saints took up arms the Missourians had, it would seem, no
real ground of offence against them except the religious faith which led
them to proclaim that the land was to be given to them by the Lord for
an everlasting possession. Now this provocation was still in force,
added to the greater one that the worm had turned.
So futile had been the mad persecutions, so fruitful the blood of the
martyrs, that by this time there were some ten thousand Saints in
Missouri, all heads of families, for although Zion in Jackson County
still lay waste, and the colonies of Clay County had been swept away,
the cities of Far West and Diahman, and numerous villages near them, had
risen like magic, built by the thrift, the organisation, and the
temperance of the Saints.
As for Kirtland, the hope of making it a prosperous city had died with
the failure of the bank. Of the few who remained two distinct parties
were formed--the orthodox, headed by Halsey, and the reformers,
encouraged, if not headed, by the former leaders who were now apostate.
In the camp of the reformers there were those who saw visions and had
revelations. Before this, when Smith was at the helm, it had been
counted unlawful for any but himself to have direct dealings with the
Unseen; but the prophet was distant, directing the sect only through his
published journal, and in this case it were hard indeed if no
authoritative local word were spoken in the orthodox party. Angel
Halsey's mystic soul fell easily into the region of voices and visions.
In his adversity, fasting and praying more than ever before, he heard
voices which gave practical directions not only for himself but for his
neighbours. When the neighbours refused to accept these ghostly
counsels, which all tended toward a more rigorous holiness, there was no
room left for Halsey's work in Kirtland. He determined to fare forth to
Missouri, there to comfort and edify the Saints scattered abroad in the
rural districts.
It was now that Susannah expected the sprightly Elvira Halsey, still
unbaptized, to return to the east. Instead of that she proposed to
travel with them, helping to take care of the child.
"Why should I take the trouble to help you and the young un?" she asked,
sitting on Susannah's doorstep, languid with the heat. "When I was going
along the lane last night I met a spirit, so I held out my hand
according to Joe's latest. You've not heard! My! it's in the Millenial
Star that if any sort of a voice or dream comes to you, the way to know,
whether it's an angel or devil is to shake hands, and if it is an angel
you'll feel a good, firm, solid grip sort of coming out of nowhere, but
if it isn't an angel you'll feel nothing. It's kind of Joe to put it in
a nutshell, necessary nowadays that we're all hard at it having
revelations of our own. He thought that nobody would feel the grip but
himself. Quite mistaken. I shook hands with my angel, tho' I couldn't
see a ghost of him, and when he said, 'You come along now to Missouri,
and carry the child half way,' I had nothing to do but say 'Amen.'"
But Susannah was too much afraid of what the result of private
revelations might be to laugh at them; she expressed her fears.
"Bless you, all the dreams and 'voices' in this hustling world wouldn't
have put any guile into the soul of Nathaniel, and they won't into Angel
Halsey's. Saints are saints, sinners are sinners, middling folks are
middling, just the same whether they have three 'revelations' a day
apiece, or one once a year, or none at all. You're fretting because you
think a righteous man might do something wicked, thinking that the voice
of the Lord had told him. Not a bit of it! The Lord will take care of
his own when they're a little off their heads just as much as at any
other time."
What few worldly goods Susannah chose to keep were packed in two single
waggons, Halsey driving the one, and Elvira and Susannah by turns
driving the other and holding the child. Their long journey through the
month of June was the most perfect pleasure that Susannah and Angel ever
enjoyed together, the long nightmare of the last months at Kirtland left
behind for ever, the stage of the future veiled, and the lineaments of
natural hope painted upon the drop-curtain. A loving fate sent fresh
showers on their behoof during the nights, which laid the dust and
dressed field and forest in their daintiest array. The child, who had
been pining somewhat, affected by the anxiety in the Kirtland home,
became lusty and merry.
"If it wasn't that we are shortly going to be robbed of all we possess
by the Missourians," observed Elvira, "this sort of jog-trot comfort
would become too monotonous, but it adds spice to be saying, so to
speak, 'Hulloa there! we've come to be persecuted too.' Of course we'll
all be killed to begin with, but that's a detail; after that we'll take
our rural mission bespoken for us in the dream."
Susannah actually smiled and called "gee-up" to the horse.
"How very little people know," she observed, "who talk about a
persecution as if it would be a means of grace. There is nothing that so
hardens and degrades as the constant report of barbarities; the more
nearly seen, the more closely inspected, the worse is the moral result."
"Speak for yourself," cooed Elvira, "there's one person out there that
isn't hardened and degraded." She looked with reverent eyes at Angel,
who was walking at the head of the foremost horse, crooning a psalm;
"and, as for me, I still feel myself quite soft, almost pulpy, and on an
elevated plane."
"You could never talk in your irreverent way if you weren't a good deal
hardened and degraded," persisted Susannah affectionately, "and, as for
me, I know that I am. Is there any instance in history of a people
emerging from prolonged persecution with high ideals of love toward
their enemies and candour?"
"'Tis commonly said that faith rises from this fire," said Elvira.
"Faith that gives its body to be burned and has not charity," said
Susannah.
When they reached the vicinity of Diahman and Far West the State
elections were about to be held. It was reported that over all Missouri
the stronger party, that of Lilburn Boggs, was threatening to prevent
by force the Mormon vote.
Before commencing his mission to the outlying Mormon districts, Halsey,
hoping to avoid this contest, stopped in the Gentile town of Gallatin to
rest and obtain a fresh outfit.
"But why don't we pay our respects to 'Joe' now we are within reach?"
inquired Elvira with pensive inflection.
"The prophet is full of cares. A man whom I met at the tavern said that
his activity on behalf of the Saints in Far West is amazing, and since
his public appearance there the Lord has prospered the city exceedingly;
but, as for me, I have been commanded to turn aside to those of our
people who are not encompassed by a shepherd's care."
"If he would but confess it," said Susannah with a sigh, "my husband was
so sorely hurt with the appearances of fraud in connection with the
bank--"
"Suppose you put that appearance of a child down and come and eat this
appearance of your breakfast, and then we'll put on what appear to be
our bonnets, and go for what appears to be a walk." Elvira's sunny
serenity never deserted her. "Say rather," she cried, "that the prophet
did defraud, but has repented."
That day was the 6th of August. The voting for the State legislature had
commenced. The travellers did not know that there was any number of
Mormon landholders in this place, but now they could not extricate
themselves from the very contest that they had hoped to avoid. When the
two women strolled through the streets to see the town they became
involved in a crowd at one of the polling places.
Penniston, a candidate of the Boggs party, standing on a barrel, was
haranguing the crowd, and the two women quickly heard the name of their
sect mentioned with contumely.
"Shall we," cried Penniston, "allow our State to come under the control
of Mormon horse-thieves and robbers by allowing these outlaws the civil
rights that are intended only for good citizens?"
There was a commotion in the crowd near him. Susannah, knowing that her
husband was abroad, felt a sudden heart-sick prophecy of evil. The next
moment she saw Halsey spring into sight upon a low wall at the side of
the crowd.
"Look on this picture and on this," cried Elvira in a voice audible to
many too illiterate to comprehend.
The two men, each standing erect above the heads of the crowd, could not
have showed sharper contrast. Penniston was coarse of limb and feature;
a low grade of moral disorder stamped his face as clearly as inferior
articles are ever stamped; no inspector of goods so relentless as God's
servant Time! Halsey had bared his head to the open sky, as though
invoking the presence of God in his temple. Upon features too thin and
haggard for beauty, patience and love and truth were written by every
line.
Halsey's voice, accustomed to preaching, fell with clear modulations
upon the summer air.
"'Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake and the gospel's.'
Friends, this evil that is spoken against us whom ye call Mormons is
falsely spoken, and I stand here before you, and before the great Father
of Truth, who is calling his children everywhere to repent, to say that
every Mormon who has a vote has a right to exercise it, for we have
committed none of the crimes of which you accuse us, but you yourselves,
as you well know, are many of you here to try to put into office men who
are undoubted criminals."
In surprise Penniston and his hearers had listened, but now a man,
half-drunk perhaps, sprang upon the low wall upon which Halsey stood,
and struck him savagely.
"He is all alone," cried Susannah, "all alone among so many." She tried
to struggle forward toward her husband through the crowd.
Halsey believed himself to be alone, and it was not in accordance with
his principles to make any attempt to return the violence by which he
had been assailed; but to his astonishment now a stout man leaped to
his assistance, suddenly belabouring his assailant with blows, and from
far and near in the crowd there were shouts of encouragement from burly
Mormon farmers who had only needed the voice of a leader to declare
themselves. Halsey had thrown a spark, unconscious that a mass of powder
lay near. When the men of Penniston's party turned with savage fury upon
the Mormon who was beating their companion, and the Mormons, no less
fierce, rallied round Halsey and his defender, the fight became general.
Elvira set her quick wits to work to weave a cord that would be strong
enough to draw Susannah back to their inn. "They may find out that baby
is alone," she said; "they're wicked enough to injure him out of
revenge."
Along the wooden pavements of Gallatin, past the gaily-painted wooden
houses, through the doors of which whole families were now emerging to
ask the cause of disturbance, Susannah fled miserably, her cheeks
blanched beneath her veil, her heart within weeping.
The sun was shining brightly on just and unjust; the gardens of Gallatin
were brilliant with such flowers as had bloomed in the August when she
first met her husband. Susannah felt then that the reason why she
desired to clasp and guard the sleeping child she had left was that he
was Angel's son; the pity for injured innocence had been from the first
until now her strongest passion, and at the thought of Halsey, innocent
and gentle, in the midst of the brutal fight she had left, her soul wept
as it were the scalding tears that her eyes refused to shed.
The boy lay in rosy sleep, a woman of the inn keeping a kindly eye upon
him. Probably nothing but a mother's love could have fancied him of
sufficient importance to attract public attention, but Susannah, locking
her door, knelt by the bed, and spreading protecting arms above him,
listened with strained senses for news of Halsey's injury or death. For
years she had feared that the violence she had seen wreaked upon others
would touch her husband; violence offered to herself would have seemed a
trivial grief in comparison. The fear that has long harped upon sore
nerves has a cumulative action upon the pain of its realisation.
Susannah found herself giving forth short ejaculatory whispers of prayer
upon the close air of the plain, small room in which she knelt. It was
such prayer only as we come at by inheritance, prayer that is one of the
habits by which the fittest have survived.
Before two hours were past Halsey had returned. He was bruised and much
shaken, but appeared unconscious of injury, and made light of it. The
open fight had ended with no decisive victory for either party; the
chief result appeared to be that malice on either side was for the hour
exhausted. Whether because of this or because Halsey gave himself to
prayer on behalf of his brethren, the polls were opened quietly at noon
and the Mormons voted with the other citizens.
In the cool of the evening Susannah was sitting beside her husband
holding the sleeping child. The window of their humble room was open,
not to any broad, fair landscape such as their eyes were accustomed to
feast upon, but upon the yard of the small tavern. There is, however, in
new countries no crowding; space, like air and sunshine, is the common
heritage. Grass grew round the edges of the large yard, and an old white
horse was cropping it contentedly. A cool air was blowing, and over the
wooden roofs of the town stars were beginning to gather themselves from
out the pale dusk. An old negro and two mulatto boys were sitting upon a
log at the side of one of the sheds, quarrelling and singing slave
melodies by turns.
Angel took the hand of the sleeping child and Susannah's hand and folded
them in his own. "Susannah, it has been given to me to see this
afternoon more clearly than ever before the material triumph of our
people. They will rear high cities; they will lead armies; they will
command wealth; but it has also been shown me that Zion will not be, as
I had heretofore believed, pure from sin, for evil has already entered
into her. Because she has taken the sword her spiritual warfare will not
be soon accomplished; the wheat and the tares shall grow together, and
I do not yet see the end."
There was a pause. Susannah watched the slaves taking their evening ease
so light-heartedly. She looked down at the three hands which Angel had
gathered together. The dusk was beginning to make all things indistinct.
Angel went on. "I would have thee teach the child above all things the
unspeakable wretchedness of sin, for the least sin closes the eye of the
soul by which we see God and the things of God, clogs them with the dust
and dirt of the world; and when there is no more any clear vision,
selfishness is mistaken for love, malice for righteousness, and folly
for truth. So I pray thee, dear heart, be wary, and slay within thyself
the evil nature, for though I cannot see it, perchance God does; and
teach the child above all things from the first to fear sin more than
death."
"You shall teach him, Angel."
"Dear heart, I would not lay upon thee the burden of knowledge of coming
sorrow if I dared to withhold it, but I believe, Susannah, that it will
soon be given to me to die for the truth and for our people." After a
moment's pause he went on, and his tone, which had dropped
involuntarily, became again cheerful. "That is why I have to-day
determined to change the plan that we have made and to send thee and the
child to-morrow with the company who are about to travel to Far West,
where the prophet is now dwelling with his wife, for I know he will
never see thee want."
Susannah rose up. In the dusk of the low, small room her figure, the
child still in her arms, seemed to tower like a misty goddess or
Madonna, such as praying men have often seen appearing for their
succour; her voice came clear and strong from a heaving breast.
"Angel, I will never leave you, never," and then she added in a voice
that faltered, "Send the child if you will."