SOME OLD MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH--THE SPIRIT PROMPTS PROMISES TO THEM
WHICH ARE LITERALLY FULFILLED--HELP FROM A CATHOLIC WHO IS SUDDENLY
CONVERTED AND WHO AS SUDDENLY APOSTATIZES--A SPONTANEOUS PROPHECY--THE
JOURNEY HOME--A CAREFUL OBSERVER--SAFE IN ZION.
One day while visiting at a little village called Greytown, I met a
lady whose name was Mrs. Reid. She had belonged to the Church fifteen
or sixteen years before, when she was a girl in England. She had been
quite a devoted member of the Church, and some of the Elders promised
her that through her faithfulness and her kindness she should be
enabled to gather to Zion with the Saints. This was the dearest wish
of her heart, and she fondly anticipated the time. But she was courted
by a man whom she subsequently married, and he came into the Church
for the purpose of gaining her hand. The time was almost set for her
departure to the Valley; but he insisted that they should be married
in England. The Elders advised her to wait until she and her affianced
could reach Zion; but she was persuaded by the pleadings of Mr. Reid,
and married him in England. No sooner were they united than he took
her to another part of the country, and later he carried her to New
Zealand. He had not been sincere in his protestations of faith, but had
merely joined the Church for the purpose of gaining her hand.
She had repented bitterly this error of her life, and when I saw her
she was a most lonely and miserable creature. Her mother and sisters
were in Utah, but she had no hope of ever seeing them. Her husband was
a besotted wretch who made her life one continued agony.
She unfolded to me all the troubles of her life. She recalled clearly
all that had been promised to her by the Elders, and she wept when she
thought of how she had robbed this sacred promise of its fulfillment by
her own lack of fidelity. She blamed no one but herself, but she said
to me very sorrowfully before we parted:
"I know that my husband will not permit me to be rebaptized. He is
angry because you come here; for he thinks that the "Mormons" have
again hunted me out. But before you go away I want you to bless me and
my children."
I complied with her request, and when my hands were on her head I
felt led to promise her, in the name of the Lord, that she should be
released from her trouble, and that very shortly. A few months later I
learned that she was dead. I did not understand the full significance
of the promise which I gave, at the time. I only spoke the words in
obedience to the inspiration of the Spirit; but I am satisfied that
this was the only relief which could come to this poor, oppressed
woman, and God sent it in answer to her humble and faithful prayer,
and her reliance on the promise which was made by an Elder of Christ.
A similar experience occurred to me at Koroira, at which village I
found an old man named Eagles. Years before he had lived in Salt Lake
with his family; but his wife and children grew dissatisfied, and, in
fact, apostatized. They departed for New Zealand, and the old brother
followed them away from Salt Lake in the hope to bring them back into
the Church, and induce them to return to Zion. But his effort had been
in vain; and now he was old and fast failing and was the object of
their contempt and persecution. They refused to permit him to observe,
even in the simplest matters, the religion to which he was honestly
and irrevocably devoted. I had heard that there was such a man in the
neighborhood, though I had not seen him, and one day when I was passing
along the road I met him. I knew that it was he at once. I called him
by name, and then explained that I was a "Mormon" Elder from Utah.
Brother Eagles expressed great gladness and soon told me his troubles.
I asked:
"You came away without any counsel?"
He responded that he had left Utah without counsel; although he had
made two or three vain efforts to get a conference with President
Young. But he confessed that he had been in too great a hurry; and that
it had been a bitter misfortune for him that he had ever left Utah
without having counseled with the proper authorities and learned the
right thing for him to do.
"I was a Sunday school teacher in Huntsville, and I labored on the
Temple Block in Salt Lake; and there among the Saints I was well
respected--but here I am treated like a dog. I am very sorrowful and
unhappy."
I saw that he was wearied and despondent, and I said to him:
"Never mind, Brother Eagles. Do not feel bad about your troubles. The
Lord is looking down upon you in mercy. He sees your afflictions,
and He will soon release you. I am very sorry that you came without
counsel; but you will be rewarded for the faith that you have had and
the labors you have performed."
He answered me that he really hoped the Lord would soon release him,
for his burden was very heavy.
We parted and I walked away; and after traveling a short distance I
felt a sudden regret that I had spoken to the old gentleman in this
way. I thought to myself that he would feel bad, and my words might
increase his despondency. I turned around to look for him, and I saw
that he had mounted nearly to the crest of a hill, and that he had
stopped by the roadside and was leaning upon his stick. The loneliness
and the unhappiness of the old man came fully to my mind. I thought to
go back and recall what I had said; but the moment I started towards
him the voice of the Spirit came to me distinctly, saying:
"Proceed with your journey. Let the old man alone."
I went to Alfred Forest, but returned a few days later; and on my
return to Christchurch I called at the post office. The first letter
I received was from a friend at Koroira. He stated that on the Monday
following my conversation with Brother Eagles the old man had taken
to his bed. He had not seemed to suffer any bodily pain, nor to be
afflicted in mind. He quietly sank away, apparently in perfect peace
and contentment, until the following Saturday, when he died.
After nearly two years of labor in New Zealand, I was preparing to
return home. My release was expected every mail. I had not the money
with which to pay my fare from Christchurch even to Auckland; but I
knew that the way would open and I trusted the Lord implicitly. I had
been directed to proceed northward and perform my final labors in the
region of Wellington and Hawkes Bay, and I needed the means with which
to perform this labor. The Saints in the vicinity of Christchurch were
poor. Besides, they had just assisted one missionary with the means to
carry him home, and I could neither ask anything, nor were they in a
position to give.
The last Sunday but one before I was to start northward, I preached in
Christchurch on the restoration of the gospel. One listener was a man
named Brownrigg, who was not a member of the Church. He was a man of
considerable means and a Catholic.
A day or two later I went up the country a short distance to bid the
folks farewell, and then returned to Christchurch. I found that in the
meantime Mr. Brownrigg had become Brother Brownrigg, having requested
and received baptism at the hands of the Elders during my absence.
On the last Sunday of my stay in that region I again preached in
Christchurch and bore my testimony to the assembled Saints. Brother
Brownrigg was there--an attentive listener. The next day he called me
into his business establishment and told me that he had been converted
by the sermon which I had preached on the restoration of the gospel.
He enquired what my means were, and when I answered that I was without
money, he said:
"You cannot travel without means. Here are five pounds for you. This
amount will help you some."
On the following Friday (the day before I was to start away) he again
called me into his store, and this time presented me with an additional
sum of three pounds--making a total of eight pounds, or $40, which he
had given me within a week.
This circumstance impressed me very seriously. There was not a Saint in
that mission who was able to give me the money needed for my journey
until Brownrigg became a member of the Church; and he was so quick and
generous with his gift that I was enabled to sail on the day appointed,
without any further trouble or annoyance. But if I were impressed at
this time, imagine my feeling when I learned shortly after that no
sooner was I gone than Mr. Brownrigg apostatized, and called the whole
system of the gospel "a pack of nonsense!" I then felt ready to admit
that I had converted Mr. Brownrigg by the sermon on the restoration of
the gospel; because if the Lord had converted him, he would not have
been so ready to deny the truth. I do not like to call such a sordid
matter as this a miracle, and yet it seems little short of miraculous
that this man should have come into the Church, have given me the money
necessary for the fulfillment of the Lord's direction to me--and then
have apostatized. He was a Catholic and would not have given me the
money without joining the Church.
I reached Auckland in due time; and on the last Sunday in June, 1880,
I preached in Orange Hall, in Newton, Auckland, my farewell sermon in
the Australasian Mission. I was greatly moved in delivering this final
message of truth; and in the course of my address I bore a sincere
testimony to the truth of the gospel, and then the spirit prompted me
to give to the people assembled a solemn warning. I said:
"Other Elders will come to you; but you shall reject their testimony as
you now reject mine. But after that, and before six years shall pass
away other testimonies will be sent by the Almighty, which you can
neither reject nor gainsay. These testimonies will be the testimonies
of earthquakes and famines and pestilence; and they will continue to
afflict you until but few of you shall live."
While uttering these words I felt so strongly impressed, so confident
of their truth, that I told the people to write my utterance down, and
watch for its fulfillment. But when I had finished and the Spirit had
left me to my own thoughts, I felt almost horrified at the nature of
the prophecy which I had almost unconsciously made. I felt my humility
and my weakness most vividly, and I also felt almost ashamed, and
certainly very fearful concerning the fulfillment of what I had said.
That feeling of doubt and almost anger with myself came upon me during
the years following, whenever the subject recurred to my mind.
In June, 1886, I received a visit from a brother who had recently come
from New Zealand. We were talking about the experiences of my mission,
and I said to him:
"It is now just six years since I left Auckland on my return."
No sooner were the words uttered than there flashed through my mind a
recollection of the strange prediction which the Spirit had uttered
through my lips in Orange Hall; and I thought to myself: "I must have
been misled. I have watched the papers carefully, and there is no sign
of any such disaster as that which I predicted. If those people did as
I requested--if they wrote down the prophecy as it was uttered, some of
them now will say, 'There is a falsehood which a Mormon Elder told.'"
This thing worried me for a week, but before ten days had elapsed I
saw by the newspapers that a few days before the term of six years
had expired a mighty and destructive earthquake occurred at Lake
Rotomahana. The effects of this earthquake had been to sink the famous
pink terraces of Lake Rotomahana; to substitute for the lake itself a
mud volcano and five or six vomiting volcanoes sending forth streams of
mud, dust, hot water and other debris which covered the country round
about for miles in every direction to a prodigious depth; to destroy
lives and to extinguish one village with most of its inhabitants.
I sailed from Auckland on the steamer _Zealandia_, on the 28th day of
June, 1880. On this ship I had the pleasure of rejoining my dear friend
and companion Elder May, from whom I had been so long separated. He was
on his way home from Australia bringing with him a family of Saints.
On board the _Zealandia_ were three members of the new South Wales
commission, who were going to England on political business. They were,
Hon. Alexander Campbell, Captain St. John and another whose name I did
not obtain. Mr. Campbell was a gentleman of great suavity of demeanor,
fine appearance and wonderful intelligence and information. As soon as
he found that "Mormons" were on board he became deeply interested in
them. In conversation with us he said:
"I have given some study to your question for the last thirty years.
I have watched the course of your people; and I am satisfied that
you are working out great social problems. To grapple with these
problems successfully has been puzzling to the wisest of statesmen for
centuries. I am not one of those who look with contempt upon people who
profess strange beliefs. I understand that your community is largely
composed of the Anglo-Saxon race; and I know that you cannot find a
place on the face of the earth where an enduring community of this kind
has been built up for the purposes of lust. Your enemies say that this
is your motive, but I am convinced to the contrary. The Anglo-Saxons
never descend to that. When they unite in great movements they have a
grand object in view."
A few days later when we were crossing the line he came from the cabin
with a newspaper in his hand, sat down alongside of me, and said:
"Mr. Shreeve, I understand from your jubilee report that you have about
50,000 children enrolled in your Sabbath School Union?"
I answered, "Yes sir--I believe that is about the number."
He said, then, "Do you know if these children are trained aright that
you have growing up in your mountain community a power which the world
has not seen since Adam stepped out of the Garden of Eden? I assure you
that it is so. These children have not the tradition of ages to combat,
but their minds are unhampered and pure, and you can mould them to the
fulfillment of a great purpose. I repeat it, you have growing up with
these children a power which the world has not seen since father Adam
stepped out of the Garden of Eden."
Mr. Campbell stopped a brief time in San Francisco; and had intended to
make a lengthy stay in order to be in Salt Lake on the occasion of the
grand celebration to be given there on Pioneer's Day. He succeeded in
reaching our beloved city in time, and he was an admiring witness of
the exercises in which thousands of the young Saints participated. Mr.
Campbell watched with sparkling eyes, and he drew a long breath as he
said to a companion: "My friend, the half of this people's greatness
has not been told."
* * * * *
I reached my home in July, of the year 1880. Only returning Elders can
understand my joy. By the favor of God I had been enabled to perform
my duty; and every blessing pronounced upon my head had been literally
fulfilled.
I would not to-day exchange the experience and the Helpful Visions of
my mission for the wealth of the world.
TRAITORS.
Solemn Warnings--A Traitor can Never be Anything but
Despicable--Examples of the Past.
By Ben E. Rich.
The traitor is the moral cannibal. He feasts on the mental worth, the
social reputation, the political welfare and the earthly life of his
trusting and betrayed friend. He is the human serpent, which nurses and
revives at the fire of charity, and then darts his strengthened venom
at the bosom of his benefactor. What the grub is to the heart of oak,
the gnawing rat to the ship's timbers, the flaw to the diamond, the
poisonous asp to the sheltering flower--all that, aye, and more, is
the traitor to mankind. No cause is so sacred, no being is so exalted
as to be free from the pollution of his betraying touch. Even the
celestial legions had their archtraitor. Earth, from the day of Eden,
has never been free from his treacherous kiss. Since the hour when man
first learned to owe allegiance to his fellow-man, profane, rebellious
betrayers have worked their insidious way, like devastating worms,
through all the pillars upholding holy men and noble causes.
The traitor is the worst of all thieves; for he steals sacred freedom
from his trusting associates. The traitor is the worst of all
murderers; for he plunges the assassin's knife into the back of his
believing friend.
Two soldiers are standing at the picket post--in the dark night, the
silent forest. They are sworn and trusted comrades. The army of the foe
surges around them; and they know that ghastly death is grinning at
them from every glade which opens from the dark center to the blacker
depths beyond, and whispering to them upon every wind that stirs the
odorous branches. But they fear no blow from a foeman's shaft--that
noble death is but the chance of war. Secure in mutual confidence,
they tremble not. They speak of country, home; of wives and little,
prattling babes. And yet, while the words of soft, pathetic love are on
the lips of one, the other plunges a traitorous knife, hilt-deep, into
a friendly, loyal heart. And then the assassin sweeps like the shadow
of a lost soul over the face of the betrayed sentinel; he creeps across
tender moss and between the trunks of mighty trees--everywhere leaving
the crimson, accusing stain--until he reaches a distant campfire; and
at the feet of the waiting enemy he lays down his reeking knife and
takes his purse of gold. This is the traitor. And when the moon comes
up, stealing amidst the rustling leaves, he looks upon the cold, white
face of a betrayed friend, whose last word was of confident love told
to the ear of a hired assassin.
Two men are joined in a patriotic cause. To the maintenance of the
principle of just freedom they pledge their lives, their fortunes and
their sacred honor. History will call the men who are true to this
cause loyal and brave. The tyrant whom they seek to overthrow calls
them conspirators. They meet in a darkened room, with curtains closely
drawn. Soft mats hush the sound of the firm footfall. Stern voices,
more used to the vast circumference of the field or the resonant
heights of the forum, are stilled to a woman's whisper. These two men
are meeting to sign and yield to each other, for distant comrades, the
pledge of mutual fidelity. The one who is master of the house places
his guest at a table and spreads before him for final execution the
plans of insurrection, the lists of friends and confederates, the oaths
of reciprocal fealty. As the visitor attaches his name to the solemn
instruments, he sighs and says:
"Oh, trusted friend! I yield to this cause not only my life, my fortune
and my sacred honor; but I pledge to it and to the integrity of you and
our allies my sweet wife and my only son--both at once my present pride
and future joy!"
While the words are uttered, the bold and noble hand traces its way
in affirmatory signature across parchment and paper. Scarcely has
the thrilling whisper of the patriot ceased to agitate the damask
curtains, when the hangings are parted by the vulture hand of the other
conspirator; and between their open folds steal the soldiers of the
tyrant. These warlike hands grasp the shoulders of the patriot; and as
they drag him forth to dungeon and to death, the betraying host cries:
"Bind him fast, lest he should escape and slay me!"
The coward, muffled in a cloak, soon steals from the sombre chamber to
the palace of the minister and lays before that waiting officer his
trophies of broken plans and fatal lists. He gets in return his patent
of rank, his gift of confiscated estates, his pledge of his personal
security. This is the traitor. And when the sun of the third day shall
rise, its first pitying beams will fall upon the gory block, the black
executioner, the basket with its dread burden, and the headless trunk
of the patriot whose trust and hope had been in a false friend.
* * * * *
Two men are joined with others in proclaiming an unpopular but holy
doctrine. Hand in hand they go through the earth testifying to men, to
cities, to nations, the mighty truths. They say to all lands and to all
peoples:
"We know that this is the living, burning truth. God has spoken from
the heavens, and we are His witnesses."
To each other--in all the sacred friendliness of long association, of
missionary labor, and of a communion together when every human law and
hand seemed against them--they speak in faithful hope of the glorious
cause which they espouse, and of the divine necessity which they are
under to be faithful to God and their brethren. Their views are not in
accord with public sentiment and suddenly they are dragged before a
cruel tribunal and charged that they are teaching crime. But the law
of the land says: "No man shall be punished because of his sincere
religious views or practices." And the judge before whom they are
arraigned calls to them:
"Continue to declare that ye are doing the will of God, and in prison
ye shall rest. But acknowledge that ye are proclaiming a man-made
system, and pledge that ye will cease, and ye shall go free."
And one of them who are arraigned says:
"Oh, judge! I acknowledge thy supremacy. I will obey thy law. I will
not advise others to break it. So long as thou and thy masters shall
command, I will worship the graven image."
And then he takes his seal of amnesty, bought at the price of a
people's freedom, and creeps from the presence of the court a man--nay,
a creature--inviolable of his fellows, but haunted ever by the shadow
of Judas. This is the traitor.
And when the other prisoner is arraigned he cries:
"This is my religion! God gave it to me! Ye may take my earthly life,
but ye cannot sap my manhood nor strangle my conscience."
Then the judge, who has a mission to learn if these people are sincere,
answers to the prisoner and for the far-off masters of the court:
"Thou canst not come within the law; because thou canst not claim
sincerity. Thy brother and fellow-laborer hath just now recanted, and
this is proof that thou art not sincere, but wickedly obstinate. If thy
brother had with thee remained firm and immovable I might have believed
in thy cause. But what man hath done man can do again. Therefore,
recant or rest thou within the cold and lonely walls."
And the sun and moon of another month, stealing through iron-bound
chinks of rock, see the patriot pacing a dismal cell.
The traitor calls himself a reformer. He is merely a coward. And of all
the wretches whose presence taints the air of earth and heaven, the
coward is the worst. Great Caesar said:
"The coward's fears make him die many times before his death.
"The valiant never taste of death but once,
"Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange
that men should fear seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when
it will come."
The traitor professes to believe that his act of betrayal will disrupt
the cause which he deserts. This is the coward rebel's wish. How
abjectly and miserably he fails! Sometimes the traitor lops from the
sturdy trunk a straggling branch; but does the tree thrive less for
that? Nay. The other twigs only bear blossoms the more redolent and
fruit the more rosy. Sometimes the traitor tears away a cracked, a
seamed, a shaling stone from the half-completed structure. What if a
measure of disaster follow? Cannot the builder renew? And does he not
choose better rock to bear the weight of his fair edifice? Sometimes
the traitor only hastens the success which he seeks to avert; sometimes
he delays the triumph against which he rebels. But always ultimately
the car of destiny moves to its appointed end. And the cowardly
betrayer who thought to stop its career by holding back with his puny
arms is dragged by it to his miserable end, while his associates--dead
or alive go with it to the day of triumph.
* * * * *
There was once a man of mighty prowess, endowed from his first breath
with a wondrous strength. When he grew to manhood, brutes, men and even
armies fell in the dust at his feet. It had been divinely promised of
him that he should be a marvel of strength, and that he should begin
to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines, and men and
chains, and bolts and gates could not prevail against his manly, heroic
lustiness. But there came a woman, with her soft, betraying touch. She
caressed him and begged for love of her that he would reveal the secret
of his miraculous strength. In a foolish moment he yielded; and then
were his Jove-like locks shorn from his head; and he became a blind
lackey, the serf of the Philistines. Delilah, the betrayer, with her
traitorous kiss upon Samson's lips, and her traitorous whisper through
the tent to his waiting enemy, could do what no thousand of open foes
could accomplish. She made the proud, superb, perfect lion a weak,
whining whelp.
* * * * *
A mighty king had a well-beloved son to whom he had given and forgiven
more than is usually bestowed upon one of human kind. And yet the son
traitorously plotted the downfall and even the murder of his royal
sire, and the usurpation of the throne. He might have succeeded in his
cruel, parricidal treason, but that he himself was in turn betrayed
and finally slain. And when the grand, great-hearted, poetic monarch
learned that Absalom, the sweet, the beautiful, the dearly-beloved, was
dead, he wept before all Israel, and as he went his sorrowful way thus
he said:
"O, my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for
thee, O, Absalom, my son, my son!"
If that arrow-pierced heart of the betraying and betrayed Absalom
could have quickened but for one moment, how much sharper than the
physical death-thrust would it have felt King David's cry of infinite
forgiveness! But the past was irrevocable. Israel's lordly king, the
beloved of God, was moaning in anguish at the gate of the city; and the
beautiful Absalom, with the fatal hair, the beloved of his royal sire,
was lying dead in the pit in the deserted wood, with ignoble stone
crushing his lifeless body.
War, murder, exile were powerless to bring such desolation to these
royal hearts; but when Absalom, the forgiven murderer, became a
betrayer infinite woe fell around the name of the dead prince and the
bowed head of the living king. But though the great tenderness of the
psalmist could compass remission for the crime of Absalom, the nation
and history must be more harsh. When a subject, for self-agrandizement,
rises against a king, he is a traitor; but he is a thrice-damned
traitor when that monarch against whom he rebels is his own father.
* * * * *
Women are often false to their lovers; subjects to their sovereigns,
and even sons to their sires. Divinity itself is no invulnerable shield
against betrayal. A merciful Christ came to save mankind from torment
and lift them into eternal radiance. He chose and trusted His apostles.
He ministered to them and with them. They each could give a testimony
that their Master was the anointed Savior, the Son of the living
God. Persecution came upon Him like the storm cloud lowers upon the
snowy mountain and enfolded Him in a gloomy embrace. The prospect of
suffering with this God-like Master, whom he had served as purse-bearer
when the danger was not great, made Judas weak unto betrayal. Cowardice
and avarice worked together in the traitor heart. He kissed and cried:
"Master, master! Hail, master!"
Then he took his thirty pieces of silver; and with them he accepted a
hatred of all mankind.
The compassionate Redeemer of the world hung upon the cruel cross with
drops of agony upon His radiant brow, while his lips were wreathed in
a pained but forgiving smile. And Judas, the traitor, already tasting
the infernal torments, called in vain to stay the progress of his dread
act. The black-hearted deed was done. The mocking trial had passed,
sentence had been pronounced and executed; and then the betrayer
groaned and flung the money from him as a sinful, burning thing which
had no worth. Upon the bloody field he cast himself and his bowels
gushed forth in useless contrition. He died upon the spot which his
blood-money purchased for the burial of strangers and criminals in the
land.
* * * * *
A brilliant general fell into disgrace with his military superiors
and with the civil government of his country. He was impetuous and
impatient of restraint. He was proud even to arrogance; he was
extravagant even to the furthest limit of honesty. Other men had been
advanced to higher posts--he felt himself degraded. His disbursements
upon one of his heroic expeditions were still unsettled--he felt
himself defrauded. A tyrant foe invested his country and sought to
subjugate her people. He listened to the voice of ignoble avarice, of
proud passion, of offended arrogance. With deliberate humiliation he
sought a place of vast trust among the defenders of his country. He
was appointed to the command of a great river fortress--the key to the
interior, the storage house of munitions dearly bought, highly prized
and absolutely necessary for the repulse of the invaders. He sold his
rank, his honor and his interest in his native land. Just at the hour
when his bargain was to be decided, his old friend and admirer, the
noble commander-in-chief, said to him:
"My dear Arnold, I am now forming my army for active operations in the
field. I want a fighting general. Come, I offer you the command of the
left wing, at once the post of danger and of honor."
The traitor's face flushed with shame. He pleaded an old wound as
reason why he should not go into the battle-field. Then he went to
meet Andre and give the last assurance to his British masters that he
was theirs, body and soul. By the interposition of America's sublime
destiny his plot was discovered and foiled.
Arnold, the traitor, crept away to escape a betrayer's death. He
received his British uniform, his British gold, his British sword. He
even came back with his mercenary horde to ravage, burn, destroy the
little town in Connecticut where first he saw the light.
Years later, the great Frenchman, Talleyrand, met a
distinguished-looking man at an English country inn. The two gentlemen
were total strangers to each other; but they soon engaged in
conversation upon the great question of Democracy. When they were about
to part, Talleyrand said to his companion:
"From your knowledge of all that relates to the United States, I am
sure that you must be an American; my name is Talleyrand, and I am
about to visit that country; perhaps you will be kind enough to give me
letters of introduction to some of your friends there."
When the illustrious diplomat had finished his request, the other
gentleman bowed low; and when he looked up his face, even to his lips,
was gray as ashes. In a voice which sounded weird and cheerless as the
moan of a November wind across a deserted marsh, he answered:
"Yes, I am an American. I was born in America. I have spent nearly
all my life there. But I am probably the only American living who can
say, 'I have not one friend in my native land.' No, not one. Sir, I am
Benedict Arnold."
Talleyrand turned away from Arnold with a shudder, while the miserable
traitor crept silently from the room.
When the unhappy wretch was dying in the midst of contempt and poverty
he grew delirious. At the last moment of his ruined life he called to
the devoted wife who had been the sharer of all his woe:
"Bring to me, I beg you, the epaulettes and sword knots which
Washington gave me. Let me die in my old American uniform, the uniform
in which I fought my battles. May my God forgive me for ever having
worn any other!"
* * * * *
The greatest army which the world ever saw was gathered at Thermopylae
more than two thousand years ago.
This was the Persian host assembled to do battle to the little band of
Spartans. So intrepidly did the Greeks defend that sacred defile which
gave entrance to their beloved land that Xerxes became out of all hope
of forcing his way through the Spartan ranks. This was the moment for
the traitor. Before the proud Xerxes could withdraw his myriads, the
betrayer came--a Greek, a native of the sublime country. With servile
words he flung himself at the feet of the gorgeous Persian. He offered
to lead the invaders to an eminence overlooking the heroic defenders of
Greece. His coward wish was granted; and when the next morning dawned
Leonidas and his followers saw the spears and helmets of their foes
flashing at them from the heights.
The rest is the most sublime tragedy of profane history.
And the traitor who betrayed the noblest souls of Greece to their death
received his gold and precious stones. He might have died in the honest
obscurity in which he was born and reared, but for his coward act.
Ah! such notoriety is purchased at too high a price. It would be
better for a man to stand modestly and firmly before his country's
foe; to fall unrecognized and without praise; to fill a grave over
which the words shall stand cut into ineffaceable granite, "An unknown
soldier, who died in defense of his country." Ah, yes! far better thus
to fall and fill an unknown grave--to be unremembered forevermore of
men--than to win a name of infamy, to fill the pages of history and be
recollected of all human-kind while men shall hate a traitor.
* * * * *
A prophet of Almighty God came in the full sunlight of this great
nineteenth century to lead men back to the glory of their Creator. His
open enemies sought his life; but for years their murderous effort was
in vain. He continued his sacred ministry upon the earth, with a power
which was divine, until the hour for the traitorous kiss. When Bennett
sinned and then through hate betrayed, the shadows of martyrdom began
closing around our grand Prophet and Patriarch. When the Laws and the
Higbees, the Fosters and the Cowles, became traitors and gave their
efforts to aid the assassin persecutors of their sworn brother and
leader; then, indeed, was the fate of Joseph and Hyrum sealed.
A governor of a sovereign State betrayed them to a cruel death; and
Carthage repeated the divine tragedy of Calvary. The Prophet and
Patriarch have passed to their glorious immortality; their names shall
fill a thousand hymns of praise on earth and welcome in the heavens.
But the traitors--miserable reptiles--will be scorned through countless
ages.
It is always the same--prince or peasant, apostle or soldier--if a
man be a traitor he is remembered for that and nothing more. If his
station be lowly, he will seek in vain to hide his shame in his native
obscurity; for it will burst forth in lurid, bloody letters to the
sight of all the ages that shall come. If his station be exalted he may
try and try again, but vainly, to cover his treason with the glory of
his rank or wealth; for it will blacken all his brilliance and leave
his place a plague spot; his fame, a grinning skeleton of dead despair;
his career, an undying infamy.
But whatever may be the varied circumstances and results attending the
wretched lives of traitors, there is this lesson which all humanity
may draw: Successful or unsuccessful in their treason, betrayers are
always execrated; successful or unsuccessful in their treason, they
always live long enough to repent; successful or unsuccessful in
their treason, they may never in this life know a waking moment when
their own coward fears do not make them doubt the fidelity of every
soul about them; successful or unsuccessful in their earthly treason,
when they shall stand in that other world face to face with their
betrayed friends, they will know that the blackest of all offenders are
_cowardly_, assassin traitors.
At that great day Judas Iscariot will not be the only traitor to cry:
"It had been good for me that I had not been born!"
Every crisis at every period and with every nation exposes traitors
just as it exalts to view patriots.
This Church has seen at every critical point of its career, the
betrayer as well as the savior springing to the front. The present
emergency with the people of Utah is no exception to this rule.
Just as there are men sacrificing comfort and earthly prosperity to
the cause, and men who are willing to give life itself to defend God's
work from the attacks of its enemies; so there are people who will sell
their own sacred heritage and the freedom of the community, for wealth,
popularity or personal safety.
And more than this--the people are surrounded by men placed here to
represent the government who are false to every trust, and whose
opposition can be estimated in dollars or coerced by bigotry.
We have some traitors to ourselves within our homes; we have more
traitors to truth and justice outside our walls.
Less than two thousand years ago the great Roman republic was at the
zenith of its power. Some of the free and enterprising citizens of that
mighty land emigrated into the cold, mountainous regions of the north
and established a colony which they called Beville. They set up the
Roman standard, and claimed the territory in the name of their country.
After overcoming untold difficulties, they sent messengers to Rome
asking for recognition; and saying that, inasmuch as they had given a
grand, rich domain to their beloved mother land, they should be placed
upon an equal footing with their free-born fellow-citizens. But the
politicians at Rome would not listen to this request; and Beville was
kept in the vassalage of a conquered province.
All the governors, judges and many of the local officers were sent
from some other part of the republic; and they treated the people of
Beville with the most dreadful severity, while they dispatched to
Rome the most vicious and cruelly false reports concerning the honest
citizens of the province or colony unto which they had been sent to
govern and to judge. Many of them were most contemptible knaves and
traitors. They once had a governor who traitorously violated his oath
to give a certificate of election to a man who had one vote in a dozen,
and whose only claim to consideration was his wealth and willingness
to make loans on desperate political titles; a governor who deprived
a good public unsectarian university of its needed support and then
declared that the people of Beville opposed education; a governor who
broke his plighted word in order that he might leave upon the fair land
the espionage of an unjust and unaccountable commission; a governor
who basely betrayed the consul that maintained him in office by saying
with egotism which is bleached white with concentrated lye: "I wrote
all of such and such portions of the consul's message;" a governor
who was called a thief upon the floor of the Senate; a governor who
had a list of wildcat, highway-robbery mining stocks which bore his
name and title--all for sale under the glare and glamor of his civil
position; a governor whose brains were rattling chestnuts, whose heart
was infinitesimal, bearing proof that a single atom can exist, and
whose beauty--his only virtue--was that of the painted harlot and the
whitened sepulchre.
Then they had one judge, a man who should now be where Deacon Bitters
was supposed to be years ago--measuring sulphur to make orthodox hell
fire; a judge whose class-meeting morality was so dreadfully shocked
by an advocate's grand conduct that the advocate was disbarred from
practice because he refused to cast off and make a wanderer of the wife
who had loved and honored him, and who had borne him sweet, confiding
children; a judge who could then send lechers forth from his court
crowned with bay and laurel and bearing their edicts of license in
their hands; a judge who practically said to the libertine, "Go your
way rejoicing. Prey upon virtue without stint. Bring ruin into your
own home, and then spread disease and deadly desolation wherever else
you can gain an entrance. You are free to come and go. My thunderbolts
of justice, forged at the fire of fanaticism and fanned by the wind of
protection for my own son, all these shafts are for our over-scrupulous
opponents, the people of Beville;" a judge whose brain was honeycombed
with the devious turnings of treacherous thoughts, whose heart was an
icicle, and whose alleged moral desire--his only virtue--was the great
enfolding cloak which could cover every prostitute and paramour in the
land.
* * * * *
They had another judge: a creature whose miserable physical appearance
was but the photograph of the horrid, ugly soul within; a judge who was
willing to slay women and children, and to tread over their corpses
to gain his nomination; a judge who became known within one brief
year as an infamous wretch, who practiced cruelty with most Satanic
ingenuity; a judge whose brain was a tape-worm lie, with five hundred
self-sustaining and specie-propagating joints. Whose heart was a pain
in his stomach caused by a vacuum, and whose ability to sermonize, his
only virtue, was an adulterous union of vanity and falsehood.
* * * * *
These men were all traitors--traitors to God, to their country and to
the parents who vainly tried to endow them with manhood.
But to-day we in Utah have a few traitors a little nearer home. There
are men who say:
"I once loved the cause well enough to die for it; but now I hate the
work and the people, because a leading man once did me an injury. I
will become an informer."
There are still others--the careless traitors--the men and women
who cover their thoughtless treason with a joke, and clothe unmeant
betrayal with a smile. These are the people who learn the sacred
secrets of a friend, a brother, and then tattle the forbidden words
here, there and everywhere. And when the careless gossip reaches the
ears of our persecutors--as it does all too often--it becomes, not
friendly joking, but a stern, almost tragic accusation. And when the
victim is brought to sad disaster, the very people who have helped the
wicked betrayal are among the first to say:
"I am not surprised that he should come to grief; he is so careless.
The great wonder is that it did not happen before, because everybody
has been talking about his affairs."
Ah! to-day we see Delilah who betrays her husband; and Absalom, who is
traitorous to his father; and Judas, who is traitorous to his father;
and Judas, who would betray his master for gold or popular approval;
the Arnold who says, "It is a losing cause, and I may as well desert
while there is yet time."
Yes, there are cowards and traitors in the land. Well, let there be,
then, since such are necessary to make the sum of human existence--let
them live as hyenas do.
Grand Harry the V., of England--superb, glorious Harry--stood once
upon the shore of France with his little band of soldiers to face the
countless legions of his hereditary foe. He heard a murmur as of fear;
and turning to his nobles he looked at them from flashing eyes and
spoke these very significant words:
"He which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart, his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company,
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
I speak not this as doubting any here!
For, did I but suspect a fearful man,
He should have leave to go away betimes;
Lest, in our need, he might infect another,
And make him of like spirit to himself.
If any such be here, as God forbid!
Let him depart, before we need his help."
Transcriber's Note
Some obvious printer's errors in the original, including numerous words
with missing, substituted, or extra letters, have been corrected as
seemed appropriate. Chapter III of "Briant S. Stevens" was missing from
the table of contents in the original.