conversion into fractional weakness, the strength of Israel is
accumulating and augmenting beyond all former precedent. The materials
of which this body of people is composed are not like the heterogenous
masses that constitute other nations; but they are select and chosen
ones out of every nation whose views--religious, political, social,
and pecuniary--are previously all cast in the mould of unity; like
the materials of Solomon's temple, they are all fitted for their
place and destination before they are brought together. The ten
millions of Mexico could not stand even before the ten thousand of the
United States; because the latter were united and subject to orderly
discipline; while the former were distracted and divided. The hosts
of Israel have never yet offered the first forcible resistance to the
violent and lawless assaults of their enemies; yet the principles of
self-defence are alike compatible with their feelings and their faith,
and by no means obnoxious to the practice of Abraham, Joshua, or David,
or even Jesus Christ.
When governments become too weak or perverse to protect their
subjects, it then becomes the divine and inalienable right of all men
to protect themselves by all lawful and just means. Whatever lessons
of forbearance and non-resistance Jesus Christ might have left on
record, suited to particular circumstances, there is a predominance
of scriptural instructions in favour of self-defence, and innumerable
examples to prove that the "Lord is a man of war." Time would fail to
make mention of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Sampson, David, and Barek. The
prayer of Sampson was, that he might destroy his enemies; and God not
only heard his prayer, but gave him strength to fulfil his request: out
of an opposing army, God even commissioned one of his angels (not so
holy a personage as some modern Christians) to kill _one hundred and
eighty-five thousand_ in one night! Indeed! say you; could God do such
a bloody deed? Surely; and he that causelessly strikes the second cheek
will be repaid, for "the day of vengeance is in his (God's) heart;" but
those who proudly say, that they have no further need of revelation,
will find that day to come upon them unawares, even as a "thief in the
night."
Sir, Zion is from henceforth and for ever invincible--she has run the
gauntlet and is safe. After being submerged in a series of sufferings
for seventeen years, she now stands purified, tried, and made white;
"she has passed the baptismal ordeal of suffering, and power is given
unto her to withstand and overcome;" she has put on her beautiful
garments, and the mighty God of Jacob is her strength; the keys of
power are given unto her, and the angels of God camp around about her;
she is entrenched in the munition of rocks, even the everlasting hills;
by her the ensign of truth and liberty is lifted up to all nations;
the pure and wise of all nations may safely rally around her standard,
and go up to the house of the God of Jacob and learn his ways. God
called his Son out of Egypt after persecutors had shot out the arrows
of their wrath in vain. If God's people have been able to stand under
persecutions while in the midst of their enemies, much more may they
expect to abide when separated by the distance of months' journeyings,
and by lofty mountains covered with perpetual snow. The mightiest
nations already heave with convulsive throes, and travail in great
pain; they have enough to do without wasting their blood, and treasure,
and unprovoked wrath upon the Saints; and God will soften the hearts of
the nations for the good of his people, from time to time, until their
palaces and towers will be the admiration and delight of all the ends
of the earth. The nucleus of the mightiest nation that ever flourished
on the earth is planted; the rapidly rising greatness of this people
will constitute one of the greatest wonders of the age; all the
elements of a great and mighty people have been clearly demonstrated
to belong to this people. Union, it is said, is strength; this has
already become proverbially a distinguishing feature of the Saints.
Driven, and scattered, and robbed in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois,
they have readily re-assembled and re-united. Knowledge is said to
be power; knowledge has been acquired in the practical school of
experience; they are almost universally familiar with the undisguised
operations of the hearts of their fellow men. No people ever had the
same opportunity to learn the diversified motives that govern the minds
of men and women; no people, as a body, ever had the acquaintance
with the laws, government, and religion, and usages of civilized and
barbarous nations, which has been enjoyed by the Latter-day Saints. No
people of modern ages ever had their ingenuity and physical ability
so extensively taxed in order for self-support, and the acquisition
of knowledge, and propagation and defence of the truth. The moral
virtues of forbearance, long-suffering, fortitude, love to enemies,
and self-command under fiery temptations, have been stretched to their
utmost tension; indeed, they are a tried people--the word of the Lord
has tried them. They have kept the commandments of God, and are not
found wanting.
This, sir, is Zion, the care of angels, and the delight of the Holy One
of Israel! Those who love righteousness and retirement from the din
of war, and from the plague, and assassin, and incendiary, will seek
her peaceful gates, out of every nation under the whole heaven. None
can injure this people or war against them with impunity, for the Lord
is their shield and defence. When ancient Israel entered the land of
Canaan, it is said that the Lord caused the fear of them and the dread
of them, to rest upon all the nations round about. The same God now,
will again cause all nations to dread the opposition of the people of
the Saints of the Most High.
Sir, it need not be disguised that the armies of heaven are leagued
with the Saints in the covenant of everlasting union. You are not
ignorant of God's judgments at the Red Sea, or of the destruction of
the companies of fifties, and of his interposition in behalf of Israel
in the valley of Gibeon. Neither is his arm shortened now, that he
cannot save; His wonders have been multiplied on every hand in this
day, according to the observation of thousands who are ready to attest
that the blind have been made to see, the deaf to hear, and the palsied
have been made sound, and many blasphemous opposers have been visited
with as swift and utter destruction as Ananias and Sapphira.
Now, sir, what more shall I say, in order to convince you and all
honest men, that God has set up his kingdom against which no power can
possibly prevail?
You kindly acknowledge that my testimony is credible; all my numerous
acquaintance must concur with you in this acknowledgement. I have told
you the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, and as I expect to meet it at
the final bar of righteous retribution. My sufferings and expatriation
for the gospel's sake, are the seal of my testimony in Christ. I have
literally sacrificed wife, and houses, and lands, for the truths which
I have inculcated in this volume. My motherless children are now in the
wilderness in their solitary cabin, surrounded with savage tribes, and
subject to privations that make a father's heart to bleed. Better men
of whom the world is not worthy have suffered even more in the same
cause. I know this to be the true gospel revealed from the heavens for
the salvation of this generation; and all those whom it does not save
through faith, it will damn through unbelief. If you have read these
truths carefully, your final destiny will hang on the decision you may
make--it is to you the voice of God, and the warning of the servant
of God. Wait not for an angel of God to speak in your ear, or for one
to come from the dead; if you hear not the servant of God, neither
will you be persuaded though one rose from the dead. Not only your
own salvation, but the interests of your family and your kindred will
probably be seriously affected by the decision you now make.
When the devout Jews, with reckless obstinacy, said, his blood be upon
us and upon our children, you know what afterward ensued down to this
day. With the knowledge which this gospel communicates, you cannot
be a neutral. The blood and sufferings not only of the Saints of the
nineteenth century, but also of all others from the days of righteous
Abel till now, will be chargeable to you if you obey not this gospel;
if you reject this gospel, your children's children, to the latest
generation, will for ever bewail the choice you may make. You stand
in some measure as the representative of your posterity, therefore
ponder well the decision you may make. I know that you are surrounded
by a knot of priests, distinguished for the wisdom of schools and
seminaries; and the obstinate creeds and usages of modern christianity
hold over you a threatening rod of proscription and slaughter; but
except you have courage to escape, and sufficient love of truth to
induce you to peril even all things for the gospel, your die is cast,
and your doom is with the lost and damned for ever.
I do not expect to coerce you by motives of fear, but I know that
judgments will and do follow this gospel; and knowing the terror of the
Lord, I persuade--I dare not say less; I would say more if the power
of utterance were given me. All is not right with you; you acknowledge
that you do not understand the prophets and the apocalypse; also that
modern christianity is weak, divided, and contentious--not having the
power and order of ancient prophets and apostles. Pause and consider
well before you reject the only light that can save this generation!
Your old friend and acquaintance asks you to pause. The deplorable
prospect of your kindred for generations to come, who may be involved
in the consequences of your rebellion, require you to pause; the
interests of the denomination that look to you for spiritual guidance,
require you to consider well the decision you may make. I know that you
are in a strait place; Paul was once in a similar condition; but the
sterling integrity of his heart saved him. He burst off the shackles
of false religions, and overleaped the religious usages of ages, and
received counsel and baptism at the hands of the most despised people
that ever lived.
But enough, perhaps, has been said; what I say to you, I say unto all
men--rulers and subjects, priests and people! I have set before you
life and death. If you reject the gospel, I am innocent of your blood;
if you receive it, glory, and honour, and immortality await you. The
apostolic fathers and the angels of God watch to record your decision.
With sentiments of high respect, I subscribe myself,
Your humble servant,
ORSON SPENCER.
FAREWELL ADDRESS.
_Liverpool, December_ 20, 1847.
Americans and countrymen!--Farewell! I have been exiled from your soil
for cherishing the inalienable rights of man. The principles of liberty
and heaven-born truth have been the exclusive cause of the lawless
banishment of thousands, of which number I am one. My wife and worthy
brother have fallen victims to this cruel violation of constitutional
rights. For nearly two years my six motherless children, between the
tender ages of six and fifteen, have been inhumanly forced into the
solitary wilderness--nine months of the time dwelling in a tent, and
the remainder in a floorless log-cabin--often without flour, meal,
or meat, and surrounded by savages of the fiercest tribes. From easy
competence reduced to want, banishment, and the severest inclemencies
of a northern climate! This is a faint outline of the picture of tens
of thousands who have fallen victims to the unprovoked cruelty of an
ungrateful country!
My honoured father, at the age of eighteen, mustered into his country's
service, under the united command of Generals Washington and Lafayette,
and was a youthful soldier at the siege of Yorktown, in the capture of
Lord Cornwallis. My grandsire was bankrupted of thousands of dollars,
held in promissory notes against the Continental government, which
the great expense of the war of revolutionary freedom disqualified
them ever to pay. My mother's sire was mustered among the superanuated
veteran soldiers at the siege and capture of General Burgoyne.
Of myself: many of my early associates are in the highest legislatures
of the nation, and among the roost distinguished citizens of the desk
and bar. To them, and to my countrymen at large, I offer this farewell,
and this monitory counsel. Americans! your sympathy for Greece, and
your liberality to Ireland, and your response to the liberal efforts
of the Pope, are relieved by a sad counter-check of cruel indifference
and bigoted violence to your best, most peaceful, and industrious
citizens at home. The shades of Washington, Henry, and Adams are ready
to burst their tombs with burning indignation, at the contempt cast
upon the sacred principles of liberty which they fought to establish.
The lofty scorn manifested towards the outraged innocence of your
suffering countrymen, cannot escape the pity and rebuke of all patriots
and freemen. By such foul deeds of inhumanity your country is mortgaged
and ready to be sold. The day of final redemption will soon be passed,
except a vigorous and mighty effort is made to roll back the crimson
tide of lawless misrule and popular outbreak.
Before our people experienced their sad disasters in the state of
Illinois, they took the timely precaution, dictated by the force of
alarming circumstances, to _forewarn_ every governor of the several
States, and many other distinguished citizens, of the necessity of
timely succour from our countrymen and rulers. Our property, liberty,
and lives were in danger from systematic organization of rapacious and
blood-thirsty citizens of Illinois and Missouri. The stormy clouds,
which we distinctly foresaw were ready to burst in desolating fury
upon our innocent heads, were distinctly pointed out to the nation. We
respectfully petitioned for an asylum, in any one of the States that
would grant us this boon of protection and citizenship, for which our
fathers had fought and bled in the war of independence. Our petitions
were barely answered, and coolly slighted. We were accounted as a
people too clannish, like the ancient Hebrews, and too peculiar and
exclusive, like the apostles of Palestine.
We had no alternative but to commend ourselves to the God of the
oppressed, and take precipitate refuge, in the dead of winter, in the
wild valleys of the mountains. To the God of justice, and the great
Arbiter of the destinies of nations, we look to avenge our wrongs, and
chasten the nation that has been deaf to the voice of her suffering
and loyal citizens. He will hear our cries and avenge our wrongs. The
time has come to set judgment to the line and righteousness to the
plummet. The last and noblest experiment of popular self-government,
and uninspired worship, has been tried in the young and giant Republic
of America! The eagle of liberty has fled to the mountains, and
there perched aloft to behold the desolation of nations. Proud and
enterprising nation! out-stripping all other nations in lofty bearing
and onward progress, your foot has stumbled in a hand's breadth of the
prize! Angels might weep at the spectacle of so sudden a fall; but God
is just, and the nation that will not serve Him shall be brought low.
You are weighed in the balances, and from henceforth, until you break
the rod of the oppressor and redress the wrongs of the injured, your
councils will be distracted, and your greatest chieftains will be
at variance. Hand to hand, and toe to toe, every one against his
fellow--your struggles will be sanguinary and obstinate. The people
whom you have trodden down in your pride, and banished by tumultuous
acts of violence, though comparatively few and but partially known,
happen to be the choice ones of all the earth and the favourites of
heaven. Their cause is espoused in the courts of the Lord of Hosts,
even the God of all the earth. Other people, in different ages,
have suffered as much, or even more than this people, but the time
of recompenses had not come. The time to end all controversy, and
establish a government that all nations could safely confide in, had
not come. It has now come. The land of Columbus, and the promised land
of Joseph, must be cleared of the briars and thorns, in order to make
room for the upright of all nations to assemble themselves together,
and enjoy a government of peace for a thousand years.
To the mountains, oh ye who would escape the convulsive throes of a
perplexed nation, and the indignant blasts of the Almighty, in these
years of "recompenses!" "Come out of her my people!" Patriots of
America--friends of peace--advocates of justice! all ye that fear
God and tremble at his word, separate yourselves from the tents of
wickedness, and flee to the strongholds of Zion. For the day of the
Lord cometh that will burn as an oven. The Lord reigns in the heights
of Zion. From thence his voice will go forth as in days of old, when
Sinai quaked under his feet. He will plead with all flesh. He is risen
up as a strong man to run a race, or as one that is full of wine. The
seeming insignificance of the Saints may tend to conceal the Almighty
arm that is about to be made bare, not merely to redress their wrongs,
but to humble all flesh. The light of your priesthood thickens the
darkness and gloom that overhang the nation, and their efforts minister
a soporific that renders the necks of your countrymen passive to the
executioner's axe.
Descendants of Washington and Franklin! is there no hope? Must the
best constitution, ever given to any uninspired nation, be made the
sport of traitors and demagogues? Must the loftiest efforts at freedom
and splendid nationality he crushed by a perplexing concentration of
every thing humiliating to national pride and human ambition? Must
the sons of venerated puritans so soon be covered with the inglorious
gore of assassinations and belligerent carnage? Must thy cities be
laid waste, whose lofty spires rival the mountain-tops, in courting
the earliest sunbeams of the morning? Must thy daughters, the fairest
workmanship of their Maker, be given to rapine and violence, when the
eye of pity is turned away, and the aegis of angelic guardianship is
reluctantly withdrawn? Except you bind up the broken in heart, and make
restitution for robbery and rapine, and unprovoked banishment of loyal
citizens, who poured out their blood as water at the voice of your
governors and the mandates of your laws,--the vials of wo are in store
for your unhappy country! No intercessor can stay the blast of divine
indignation when the Almighty rises up to make inquisition for blood.
The Most High solemnly interdicted any man to show mercy to Canaan when
the cup of her iniquity was full. Jerusalem, the queen of cities! whose
Temple was the pride and admiration of nations, having rejected the
Saints, was made a heap of ruins under the curse of heaven.
Yet there is hope for America: let her senators teach wisdom, and her
officers exact righteousness, and undo the heavy burdens, and redress
the wrongs of her banished. Then the fruitful field shall not become
barren, nor every man's hand be turned against his fellow; and the
voice of mirth shall supersede the voice of mourning.
Land of my birth, and home of my fathers! my earliest impressions
were devoted to your praise and glory. In my riper years I have never
infringed your laws or quenched the spirit of your philanthropy. You
have robbed me of my houses, and my farms, and martyred my dearest
friends, and stripped me of reputation, and expelled me from your
borders, without the shadow of impeachment, or of trial by jury.
Contrary to my strongest predilections and educational attachments, you
have sought to eradicate every vestige of my patriotism, and render
frigid my warmest love to everything that endeared me to the friends
and citizens of the country that was ever my pride and boast! My heart
still yearns fondly over the land that was marked out in the council
of Heaven to be the nursery of freedom, enterprise, and genius. And
now, as I recede from your borders, and from the scenes of my toils and
fond attachments with my desolate family, through extensive wilds to
the mountains for safety and a home, my heart overflows and bursts with
the sentiment--"Oh, that thou hadst known in this thy day the things
that belong to thy peace!" In the meridian of life I go from the tombs
of my fathers to build and plant, where the eagle of liberty soars
aloft in the sunbeams of truth! My associates are called, and tried,
and chosen; they are the virtuous and honourable of all the earth; the
refuse of all nations, but accepted of God and escorted by his angels.
Their bosoms beat high with every noble impulse of philanthropy and
virtue; they are a magnanimous people, fitted to foster and garner up
the scattered virtues of the human family, and open up a safe asylum
to the oppressed of all nations; they have stood in the Thermopylae,
and passed the Rubicon. The Roman Mutius could deliberately burn his
hand to cinders as a token of the courage of his companions; so this
people have proved, indisputably, that they possess all the elements
of endurance and triumph. Their most arduous and perilous conflict is
passed; and millions comforted, enlightened, and redeemed will reap the
reward, and enter into _their_ labours. They are worthy. They have paid
the last debt which the angel informed John must be liquidated in the
blood of latter-day prophets, when the just could be avenged. Judgment
is given unto them, and the richest benedictions of Heaven now await in
Zion the upright and noble of all nations.
With sentiments of pure benevolence, I subscribe myself
Your exiled friend and humble servant,
ORSON SPENCER.
NIGHT OF MARTYRDOM.
The following articles, on the Night of the Prophet's and Patriarch's
Martyrdom, together with the suffering exit of the author's lamented
wife, are inserted in this volume in order to perpetuate the memories
of the "just," and render to the heavens a tribute of gratitude for
their manifest interest in the tried condition of Saints on earth:
Twenty-seventh of June, 1844. Eventful period in the calendar of the
19th century! That awful night!! I remember it well--I shall never
forget it! Thousands and tens of thousands will never forget it! A
solemn thrill--a melancholy awe comes o'er my spirit! The memorable
scene is fresh before me! It requires no art of the pencil, no
retrospection of history to portray it. The impression of the Almighty
Spirit on that occasion will run parallel with eternity! The scene
was not portrayed by earthquake, or thunderings and lightnings, and
tempest; but the majesty and sovereignty of Jehovah was felt far
more impressively in the still small voice of that significant hour,
than the roaring of many waters, or the artillery of many thunders,
when the spirit of Joseph was driven back to the bosom of God, by an
ungrateful and blood-guilty world. There was an unspeakable something,
a portentous significancy in the firmament and among the inhabitants
of the earth. Multitudes felt the whisperings of wo and grief, and the
forebodings of tribulation and sorrow that they will never forget,
though the tongue of man can never utter it. The Saints of God, whether
near the scene of blood, or even a thousand miles distant, felt at
the very moment the prophet lay in royal gore, that an awful deed was
perpetrated. O, the repulsive chill! the melancholy vibrations of the
very air, as the prince of darkness receded in hopeful triumph from
the scene of slaughter! That night could not the Saints sleep, though
uninformed by man of what had passed with the Seer and Patriarch,
and far, far remote from the scene; yet to them sleep refused a
visitation--the eyelids refused to close--the hearts of many sighed
deeply in secret, and enquired why am I thus.