THE GATHERING OF THE TITANS--HEBER'S TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH AND THE
TWELVE--THEIR MIGHTY MISSION--THE TEST OF FAITH--ZION'S CAMP.
Joseph, Brigham and Heber together in Kirtland! By what strange
fatality were these mighty lives thus interwoven? We have seen how
Brigham and Heber came together, and how, from thenceforth, the
currents of their lives and fortunes ran parallel. Now they were
joined with Joseph, their prophet chief, like streams that swell a
river.
Interesting is it also, if only as a coincidence, that so many of the
leading spirits of the latter-day work should have been natives of
Vermont--a diadem for thee, proud State, and one which thou wilt prize
in coming time!--from whence scattered, ere acquaintance with the
Gospel or with each other began, to meet as co-laborers in the same
great cause, among the hills and dales of Northern Ohio. As though the
heavens had decreed their lives should thus commingle.
And the heavens had so decreed. It was not chance, it was destiny
"shaping their ends," and fulfilling her mission in their behalf. And
though from the ends of the earth--what matter names or nativity?--it
had been the same. "He that scattered Israel will gather him." From
all nations that fated blood, when goes Jehovah's fiat forth, like the
rain-drops sprinkled upon the hills, must trickle back to the Ocean
whence it came.
It was a coalescing of divine affinities, the relinking of a spirit
chain, which, though it often part, is never broken, and though
seemingly divided, forever inseparable.
"Are you ever going to be prepared to see God, Jesus Christ, His
angels, or comprehend His servants, unless you take a faithful and
prayerful course?"
"Did you actually know Joseph Smith?"
The questions are Heber C. Kimball's, addressed in later years to a
congregation of the Saints.
"No," he answers for them, and continues:
"Do you know Brother Brigham? No."
"Do you know Brother Heber? No; you do not."
"Do you know the Twelve? You do not; if you did you would begin to
know God, and learn that those men who are chosen to direct and
counsel you, are near kindred to God and to Jesus Christ, for the
keys, power and authority of the kingdom of God are in that lineage."
This, then, was the purpose, the divine intending, for which they were
now in conjunction; "noble and great ones," great in the heavens and
great upon the earth, ordained as "rulers" ere morning stars sang
gladsome greeting, or Sons of God shouted for joy around the cradle of
the infant world. This, the object of their descent from celestial
empires; to build up a Kingdom unto God, and prepare the world for the
coming of Him "whose right it is to reign." Jewels from Jehovah's
diadem, diamonds in the dust, unseen of saint or sinner in all their
lustre, concealed from a world unworthy of the light it could not
comprehend.
Had Heber's inspired mind probed the secret of Joseph's thought,
expressed in his own oft-quoted words: "Would to God, brethren, I
could tell you who I am!"
As Prophet, Seer, and Revelator to the Church of Jesus Christ, its
president and earthly head, and holder of the keys of the last
dispensation, Joseph was already in the high and holy office for which
he was predestined and fore-ordained. Not so, Brigham; not so, Heber;
not so their apostolic compeers. A trial of their faith was first
necessary, a trial now near at hand, to prove them worthy in the flesh
of the great calling whereunto they were called in the eternal
councils.
In the month of February, 1834, came a commandment from the Almighty
unto His prophet, to "gather up the strength of His house," and "go up
and redeem Zion;" in other words, to recover from the hands of a
fierce and merciless mob the lands in Jackson County, Missouri, from
which the Saints had been driven.
Such were the origin and object of Zion's Camp. Such, the nature of
the perilous duty laid upon them.