THE MISSIONARY'S RETURN.
Elder Charles Durant returned to Westminster just ten days after the
time of his meeting with Mr. Marshall, at the station. He was heartily
welcomed by the family, and being comfortably seated at the dinner
table, the conversation naturally drifted to a detailed account of
his experience since his first visit. His labors had been divided
somewhat in two or three different states. He had met with many kinds
of people, and with a variety of treatments, since leaving the home of
the Marshalls; he made many friends as well as a few enemies, but had
endeavored to perform his work in a way to meet the approbation of that
Being who had commissioned him to spread His word among the children
of men. Having performed his work to the satisfaction of those under
whom he labored, he was, as previously stated, released therefrom, for
a time at least, and had commenced his journey towards the land of his
birth, where dwelt his loved ones, when the telegram reached him from
the president of the Mission to the effect that several Elders had been
mobbed in a neighboring county, and asking that he visit his brethren
on his way home, as stated before.
After the meal, the family adjourned to the sitting room when the
missionary was requested to give an account of the mobbing of the
Elders whom he had just visited.
He said that they had been laboring for several months holding meetings
wherever they could get an opportunity, and had succeeded in obtaining
the permission of the trustees to hold their meetings in a schoolhouse
they being solicited to hold religious services by the people, and
explain the gospel to them.
A family named Brooks expressed a desire to be baptized, and the Elders
had consented to perform the ordinance on a fixed day, according to
their custom, and in conformity with the plan of salvation as pointed
out by Christ, the early Apostles, and by John the Baptist who baptized
openly in the river Jordan, and near "Aenon near to Salim because there
was much water there."
At the appointed time the ordinance was performed, a number of persons
being present who came for the purpose of sneering at the rite, and
making sport of its sacredness, which they did, but which the Elders
paid only little attention to, being accustomed to the jeers of the
wicked. On the same evening there was a pleasant association at the
residence of the newly-baptized family, the time being spent in singing
sacred songs, and in conversation. Retiring at 9 o'clock, leaving their
bedroom door open owing to the heat, they were at 11 o'clock rudely
awakened, ordered to get up, to accompany a mob of about fifteen men to
the woods.
"You are a pretty-looking lot of fellows," said one of the Elders as he
counted them, and glanced at their masked faces.
"What do you consider the Savior would think of your mission, if He
were here? Why do you disturb the slumbers of the peaceful citizens at
night, thus hideously masked? If we have transgressed any law, we are
amenable; take us before your magistrates, and we will answer to any
charge you may prefer."
"We don't want you to preach any more in this locality," said one of
the masked men.
"Then the best way to stop us is to induce the people to cease
attending our meetings."
At this juncture the inmates of the house were alarmed, and Mr. B. came
in, taking a glance at each of the disturbers.
A voice on the outside was heard to cry: "Captain! captain! enough
said, enough said."
The mob then withdrew, and the Elders retired again, still leaving the
door unlocked. They remained there the following day, but subsequently
spent some time visiting friends in other districts. In the course
of two weeks they returned to the same place. On their way thither,
there were a few who hurled insults at them, but to this they paid
no attention. They arrived at Mr. Brooks' house at 5 o'clock in the
evening where they met companions, and where the time was spent in
speaking of the gospel, singing hymns, and in conversing upon a variety
of subjects concerning Utah and her people. No signs of disturbance
appeared, save an occasional ominous bark of the house dog.
The Elders retired with sweet recollections of home, to be roughly
awakened at 2 o'clock at night, by the harsh cry of "Surrender." They
were surrounded by a horde of ruffians, armed with guns, pistols and
clubs; and in the most blasphemous language, were ordered to get up,
the mobbers in the meantime brandishing their weapons in the faces
of the Elders. Not obeying orders as rapidly as the mob wished them
to, they were each (there being four of them), seized by two of the
cowards, one on either side, dragged from their beds in an inhuman
manner, and marched along the road, an eighth of a mile, dressed only
in their thin summer night-clothing. Resistance was impossible, and
the attempt of the proprietor of the house to assist them was met with
curses, a blow across the forehead, with the exclamation: "If you show
your head out of this house before 6 o'clock tomorrow morning, we will
kill you."
The train marched on, the vilest curses and the blackest oaths being
uttered against them that mortals can express. There was no charge
preferred against them, and they said: "If we have broken any law, take
us before the courts," but the only reply was:
"We are law enough for you."
What was to be their fate, they knew not, until the mob began cutting
and trimming limbs of trees from four to six feet long, having ugly
knots. Soon the Elders were ordered to bend over a fallen log about
two feet through, when their doom was made plain to them. They were
terribly whipped, receiving lash after lash upon their backs without
a question being asked, or an opportunity being afforded to appeal
from this inhuman treatment. Occasionally they raise to say a word,
but are immediately thrust down again by some of the mob using pistols
or clubs. In this way three received severe scalp wounds. The woods
resound with the lashes and the groans of the tortured; thirty-five
stripes have been laid upon them, when they are requested to leave
the country. Too faint to comply, their hesitancy is construed as a
refusal, and they are once more belabored with redoubled fury, causing
them to cringe beneath the cruel beech-limbs wielded by a sturdy fiend
weighing over two-hundred pounds. Fifty stripes each, they received,
and yet they had injured no man! How terrible! but it was all for the
sake of the gospel. Finally after such torture, they were released,
upon promising to leave the country the next day.
They returned to their friend and brother! but in what a lacerated
condition. They found him sitting in the door bleeding from his wounds.
They dressed each other's wounds as best they could, then lay down in
troubled rest till morning, when they departed to the place where Elder
Durant met them, perhaps never to return.
While rehearsing not only his own experience but that of his wounded
brothers, no one listened with more marked attention than Claire's
husband. From the moment he was introduced to Durant, at the depot,
they became very much attached to each other, and, as expressed by Mr.
Sutherland, it seemed as if they had always been acquainted.
Later, while these two were conversing upon the veranda, Mr. Sutherland
interrupted the Elder by asking: "How do you account for the peculiar
feelings attending the formation of new friendship, Mr. Durant? Have
you not noticed that upon many occasions when introduced to a person,
you feel as well acquainted as if you had known him for years?"
"Yes," replied Elder Durant, "I have noticed it often, and have
frequently wondered if occasions where such feelings are manifested
were really the beginning of acquaintance."
"I have certainly been very much impressed with this sensation at times
when I have been absolutely certain of its being the first meeting,"
replied Sutherland; "for instance, to be frank, it is the case with
you. I am certain beyond question that you and I have never met
previous to this day, and yet I followed you while giving the account
of your labors and the troubles of your brethren, with as much interest
as if you were my own brother; and I have felt all day long that we
have always been acquainted."
"Mr. Sutherland," said the Elder, "who knows but before now we have
been better acquainted than you are with any gentleman in your village,
and that we have merely forgotten our former associations together?"
"I do not understand your meaning," said Sutherland, "I am certain we
have never seen each other before, and consequently I cannot comprehend
your idea when you intimate that perhaps we have been well acquainted.
You came from the West, while I have always lived here, where you have
never dwelt except during your former visit to Mr. Marshall's home, and
how, therefore, can it be possible for us ever to have met before?
"I do not claim for an instant that such is the case, Mr. Sutherland,
but the idea afforded me such a splendid chance to open a conversation
upon a principle believed in by my people, that I could not resist the
opportunity of saying what I did, and, as you say you are desirous of
learning all you can about our views upon religious principles, you,
yourself, gave me a thought, serving as a text, for dwelling upon one
of the most important of these."
"If that is the case, I am very glad. What is the principle?"
"You know that all Christians believe that after death there is life?"
"Of course, or why should they take the pains to prepare for death? But
what has that to do with having met you before?"
"Neither that nor what I am going to say has anything whatever to do
with it, but, Mr. Sutherland, if it is reasonable for you and me to
believe we shall live after death, why should it be unreasonable for
us also to believe that our spirits existed before the birth of our
earthly tabernacles? There is certainly something connected with the
intelligence of man that should appeal to us as if to say that the
spirit is older than the body, and emanated from a more exalted place
than this earth of ours."
"Why, Mr. Durant," exclaimed Sutherland in astonishment, "I never heard
such a doctrine as that."
"Let me ask, have you ever read the Bible to any great extent?"
"Yes, I have always been a lover of the Divine Record, and have spent
many hours in its perusal."
"I am glad to hear this, and I think, as we proceed, you may
change your mind regarding never having heard such a doctrine as
pre-existence. You will perhaps admit that while reading, you failed
to understand fully what you read. As an introduction to this grand
and glorious principle, let me read a beautiful poem I have here from
the pen of one of the gifted women of Utah; she is dead now, and the
intelligent spirit, sent from God to dwell in her earthly tabernacle,
has been recalled by the Being who sent it, or, as the Bible declares,
'has returned to God who gave it.' Her name was Eliza B. Snow Smith,
and that name, as well as this poem, will live while time endures:"
"O my Father, thou that dwellest
In the high and glorious place!
When shall I regain thy presence,
And again behold thy face?
In thy holy habitation,
Did my spirit once reside?
In my first, primeval childhood,
Was I nurtured near thy side?
"For a wise and glorious purpose
Thou hast placed me here on earth,
And withheld the recollection
Of my former friends and birth;
Yet oft-times a secret something
Whispered, You're a stranger here;
And I felt that I had wandered
From a more exalted sphere.
"I had learned to call thee Father,
Through thy Spirit from on high;
But, until the Key of Knowledge
Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heavens are parents single?
No; the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me, I've a mother there.
"When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, mother, may I meet you
In your royal court on high?
Then, at length, when I've completed
All you sent me forth to do,
With your mutual approbation
Let me come and dwell with you."
"That is one of the most beautiful compositions I have ever listened
to, Mr. Durant. The words appear to carry a strange conviction with
them. Can it be true? and if so, are we here as school children, sent
by exalted parents, to become acquainted with sorrow in order to
understand happiness?"
"Either this is the case, or else our faith in a hereafter is a
myth. You prove to me that our birth is the commencement of the
intelligence of man, and you also convince me that death is its end.
But we have enough given in the scriptures to convince us that birth
is not the beginning, and likewise that death is not the end. Christ
said He came forth from the Father (John xvi: 28), and it was His
prayer that the glory which He had before coming would be His when He
returned. (John xvii: 5.) In His teachings to His Apostles He must
have familiarized them with this exalted principle of pre-existence,
for upon one occasion they came to Him with a question, concerning a
blind man: 'Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born
blind?' (John ix: 2.) Surely had this been a foolish question, Christ
would have corrected them, but He answered them in a manner leading
us to understand that it was a principle firmly believed in by them
all; and comprehending this, as certainly they did, they, more than
our generation, could intelligently lisp the prayer taught them by the
Master: 'Our Father who art in heaven.' Our Divine Record says that
God is the Father of the spirits of all flesh (Num. xvi: 22), in whose
hand is the soul of every living thing (Job xii: 10); and we find in it
that when death comes, the spirit of man will return to God who gave
it. (Eccl. xii: 7.) Job was asked by the Lord where he was when the
foundation of the earth was laid (Job. xxxviii: 3-7), and the Almighty
declared He not only knew but ordained Jeremiah to be a prophet
before his earthly birth. (Jer. i: 5.) From these passages, and many
others that might be cited, it should be very easy for Christians to
understand that there is a natural and a spiritual body." (I. Cor. xv:
44.)
"Mr. Durant," said Sutherland, "whether this principle is true or
otherwise, it cannot be gainsaid that you have scripture to support it."
"Why should we not have, Mr. Sutherland? It is truth, and it is only
natural that the truth should appear reasonable. As quoted, God asks
Job: 'Who laid the corner stones of this earth, when the morning stars
sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?' (Job xxxviii:
7.) Now I sincerely believe that we were there, that we helped to
compose that large congregation of sons of God, and that we _did_
shout for joy at beholding the time approaching when we also would
have the privilege of visiting an earth where our Father would give us
an opportunity to become possessed of bodies which should eventually
be eternal abiding places for our spirits; that when we came to this
school we should have our judgments taken away, or, in other words,
that all recollection of our former existence should be withdrawn, in
order that we might be able to use the greatest gift of all, which is
'free agency,' to do good or evil and become to a certain extent Gods
in embryo, and then when we returned home from this school our Father
could reward us, his children, according to our works."
"Your explanation carries with it conviction. I have been very much
interested and desire to talk further with you on this subject, but
fear I am doing you an injustice by requiring you to speak so much. I
must not forget that the neighbors are coming in tonight, and I should
therefore not weary you."
"You need not fear, I assure you: I have been talking now upon these
principles for two years; it is my mission, and I am well pleased to
find people who are willing to hear."
"I am very anxious to listen, I can assure you," replied Mr.
Sutherland. "Let us walk through the village, you can view our
improvements, and perhaps shake hands with many whom you met when here
before; we might then return in time for supper, and rest awhile before
our evening chat."
This proposition was agreed to, and taking their hats, the two men went
out. The first person met on the ramble was our medical friend, who,
learning of Mr. Durant's intended return, was hastening to the Marshall
residence to welcome him. The greeting which the young missionary
received from his true and lasting friend was unaffected and sincere,
meaning more than language can express. Questions and answers regarding
the missionary's trip, and matters, which to the general reader would
amount to mere commonplace, were exchanged by the conversation, and
must have been interesting to them, for it was continued during the
whole of what proved a very long walk.
"I begin to feel quite like a resident here," said the Elder, "though,
perhaps, I ought to say that my acquaintance is not the only cause for
that feeling, for I try to be at ease wherever I go."
"And succeed I should say. If your experience elsewhere has been
anything like that at Westminster."
"Yes, indeed, and in so doing I find no little comfort in the words of
an eminent man who is classed as a 'pagan,' an agnostic, and so on,
but who, I verily believe, was as much a Christian at heart as most of
us certainly much more so than many who engage in the promulgation of
Christianity as a profession: 'The world is my home, and humanity my
kindred.'"
By this time they had reached the home of Mr. Marshall, and after
supper, preparations were made for the evening gathering.