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BRIGHAM YOUNG'S ADDRESS TO THE SAINTS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD-MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES-THE GATHERING-UTAH TERRITORY-MORMONISM IN GREAT BRITAIN EMIGRATION FROM LIVERPOOL-AGRICULTURE AND THE ARTS IN THE SALT LAKE VALLEY- REPORTS BY RECENT TRAVELLERS OF THE PROSPERITY OF THE NEW COLONY.

THE narrative of Colonel Kane, which has been impugned by many persons in America as giving too favourable an account of the Mormons, relates to the most important incident in the history of the sect. We have reproduced it in extenso, not only for its interest, but because it is the only consecutive account of the exodus of the Mormons, from Nauvoo to the Valley of the Salt Lake, which

has been given to the world. Colonel Kane, in a postscript to his pamphlet, reiterates the truth of all he has stated, and bears a cordial testimony to the virtues of the men with whom he made the long and painful journey through the wilderness Having now traced the rise and progress of this extraordinary religion, of which the chief incidents have been enacted in America, we enter upon a new portion of our subject, and proceed to show what the Mormons have accomplished in the Great Salt Lake Valley, the means they have adopted to gather the "Saints" into that place from all parts of the world, and the developments, both social and doctrinal, which have resulted since the Church has been under the guidance of Brigham Young and Orson Pratt.

Prior to the arrival of the several detachments of the Mormon people at the Salt Lake, the following general epistle from the council of the Twelve Apostles was addressed "to the Saints throughout the earth," from Council Bluffs, the half-way station of the long overland journey to California:

"BELOVED BRETHREN,-At no period since the organization of the Church, on the 6th of April, 1830, have the Saints been so extensively scattered, and their means of receiving information from the proper source so limited, as since their expulsion from Illinois; and the time has now arrived when it will be profitable for you to receive, by our epistle, such information and instruction as the Father hath in store, and which he has made manifest by his Spirit.

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Knowing the designs of our enemies, we left Nauvoo in February, 1846, with a large pioneer company, for the purpose of finding a place where the Saints might gather and dwell in peace. The season was very unfavourable; and the repeated and excessive rains, and scarcity of provisions, retarded our progress, and compelled us to leave a portion of the camp in the wilderness, at a place we called Garden Grove, composed of an enclosure for an extensive farm and sixteen houses, the fruits of our labour; and soon after, from similar causes, we located another place, called Mount Pisgah, leaving another portion of the camp; and after searching the route, making the road and bridges over a multitude of streams, for more than three hundred miles, mostly on lands then occupied by the Pottawatamie Indians, and since vacated in favour of the United States, lying on the south and west, and included within the boundary of Iowa, we arrived near Council Bluffs, on the Missouri River, during the latter part of June, where we were met by Captain J. Allen, from Fort Leavenworth, soliciting us to enlist five hundred men into the service of the United States. To this call of our country we promptly responded; and before the middle of July more than five hundred of the Brethren were embodied in the Mormon Battalion,' and on their march for California, by way of Fort Leavenworth, under command of Lieut.- Colonel J. Allen, leaving hundreds of waggons, teams, and families, destitute of protectors and guardians, on the open

prairie, in a savage country, far from the abodes of civilized life, and farther still from any place where they might hope to locate.

"Our camp, although aware of a cold northern winter approaching, with all attendant evils,—famine, risk of life in an unhealthy climate, Indian depredations, and everything of a like nature that would tend to make life gloomy, -responded to this call of the President with all the alacrity that is due from children to a parent; and when the strength of our camp had taken its departure in the battalion, the aged, the infirm, the widow, and the fatherless that remained, full of hope and buoyant with faith, determined to prosecute their journey: a small portion of which went as far west as the Pawnee Mission, where, finding it too late to pass the mountains, they turned aside to winter on the bank of the Missouri, at the mouth of the Running Water, about two hundred and fifty miles north-west of the Missouri settlements; while the far more extensive and feeble numbers located at this place, called by us Winter Quarters, where upwards of seven hundred houses were built in the short space of about three months; while the great majority located on Pottawatamie lands. In July there were more than two thousand emigrating waggons between this and Nauvoo.

"In September 1846, an infuriated mob, clad in all the horrors of war, fell on the Saints who had still remained at Nauvoo for want of means to remove, murdered some, and drove the remainder across the Mississippi into Iowa, where, destitute of houses, tents, clothing, or money, they received temporary assistance from some benevolent souls in Quincy, St. Louis, and other places, whose name will ever be remembered with gratitude. But at that period the Saints were obliged to scatter to the north, south, east, and west, wherever they could find shelter and procure employment. And hard as it was to write it, it must ever remain a truth on the page of history, that while the flower of Israel's camp were sustaining the wing of the American eagle by their influence and arms in a foreign country, their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and children, were driven by mob violence from a free and independent State of the same national republic, and were compelled to flee from the fire, the sword, the musket, and the cannon's mouth, as from the demon of death. From that time to this the Latter-day Saints have been roaming without home from Canada to New Orleans, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and have taken up their abode in foreign lands. Their property in Handcock county, Illinois, was little or no better than confiscated. Many of their houses were burned by the mob, and they were obliged to leave most of those that remained without sale, and those who bargained sold almost for a song; for the influence of their enemies was to cause such a diminution in property, that from a handsome estate was seldom realized enough to remove the family comfortably away; and thousands have since been wandering to and fro, destitute, afflicted, and distressed for the common necessaries of life, or unable to endure, have sickened and died by hundreds, while the temple of the Lord is left solitary in the midst of our enemies, an enduring monument of the diligence and integrity of the Saints.

"Lieut.-Colonel Allen died at Fort Leavenworth, much lamented by the

'Mormon Battalion,' who proceeded en route by way of Santa Fe, from whence a small portion, who were sick, returned to Pueblo to winter; while the remainder continued their march, mostly on half rations, or meat without salt, making new roads, digging deep wells in the desert, levelling mountains, performing severe labours, and undergoing the utmost fatigue and hardship ever endured by infantry, as reported by Colonel Cooke, their commanding officer, and arrived in California, in the neighbourhood of San Diego, with the loss of very few men.

"Soon after the battalion left the Bluffs, three of our Council took their departure for England, where they spent the winter, preaching and setting in order all things pertaining to the Church, and returned to this place in the spring of 1847, as did also the camp from Running Water for provisions.

"On April 14, the remainder of the Council, in company of one hundred and forty three pioneers, left this place in search of a location, and making a new road, a majority of more than one thousand miles westward, arrived at the Great Basin in the latter part of July, where we found a beautiful valley of some twenty by thirty miles in extent, with a lofty range of mountains on the east, capped with perpetual snow, and a beautiful line of mountains on the west, watered with daily showers; the Utah Lake on the south, hid by a range of hills; north-west extending as far as the eye can reach, interspersed with lofty islands, and a continuation of the valley; or opening on the north, extending along the eastern shore about sixty miles to the mouth of Bear River. The soil of the valley appeared good, but will require irrigation to promote vegetation, though there are many small streams emptying in from the mountains, and the Western Jordan (Utah Outlet) passes through from south to north. The climate is warm, dry, and healthy; good salt abounds at the lake; warm, hot, and cold springs are common; mill sites excellent; but the valley is destitute of timber. The box, the fir, the pine, the sugar-maple, &c. may be found on the mountains sufficient for immediate consumption, or until more can grow.

"In this valley we located a site for a city, to be called the Great Salt Lake City, of the Great Basin, North America; and, for the convenience of the Saints, instituted and located the Great Basin Post-office at this point. The city is surveyed in blocks of ten acres, eight lots to a block, with streets eight rods wide, crossing at right angles. One block is reserved for a temple, and several more in different parts of the city for public grounds.

"Soon after our arrival in the valley, we were joined by that portion of the battalion who had been stationed at Pueblo, and a small camp of the Saints from Mississippi, who had wintered at the same place, who united with the pioneers in ploughing, planting, and sowing near 100 acres, with a great variety of seeds, and in laying the foundation of a row of houses around a tenacre block, and nearly completing the same on one side. Materials for brick and stone buildings are abundant.

"After tarrying four or five weeks, most of the pioneers commenced their return, nearly destitute of provision, accompanied by a part of the battalion, who were quite destitute, except a very small quantity of beef, which was soon

exhausted.

The company had to depend for their subsistence on wild beasts, such as buffalo, deer, antelope, &c., which most of the way were very scarce, and many obtained were exceedingly poor and unwholesome. Between the Green and Sweetwater Rivers, we met 566 waggons of the emigrating Saints on their way to the valley, at our last encampment with whom we had fifty horses and mules stolen by the Indians; and a few days after we were attacked by a large war party of Sioux, who drove off many of our horses, but most of these we recovered. Our route was by Fort Bridger, the South Pass, Fort John (Loraine), and from thence on the north bank of the Platte, to Winter Quarters, where we arrived on the 31st of October, all well; having performed this long and tedious journey, with ox as well as horse teams, and with little food except wild flesh, without losing a single man, although many were sick when they left in the spring, inasmuch as they were unable to walk until we had travelled more than one half of the outward distance.

"On the 11th instant, fifteen of the battalion arrived from California, with a pilot from the valley, having suffered much on their return from cold and hunger, with no provisions part of the way but a little horse-flesh of the worst kind. From these Brethren we received intelligence that the battalion was discharged in California in July, agreeably to the time of their enlistment; that a portion of the battalion, constituting a company, under Captain Davis, had re-enlisted to sustain a military post in California; that many had commenced labour to procure means to return; that a small portion had come on to the Great Salt Lake City, where they found the emigrants which we passed in the mountains alive and in good health and spirits, except three deaths; and that some of the battalion, who had left the valley with them, had stopped on the Sweetwater, searching for buffalo, who with others, in all about thirty, arrived here on the 18th instant, penniless and destitute, having suffered much from cold and hunger, subsisting on their worn-out mules and horses.

"All who possibly could went to the valley this season; and the Saints now in this vicinity have had to depend on their own resources in labour for their sustenance, which, on account of the absence of those engaged in the Government service, the sickness that has prevailed in camp, and the destruction of the cattle by the Indians, consists mostly of corn, with a few garden vegetables.

"The Saints in this vicinity are bearing their privations in meekness and patience, and making all their exertions to their removal westward. Their hearts and all their labours are towards the setting sun, for they desire to be so far removed from those who have been their oppressors, that there shall be an everlasting barrier between them and future persecution; and although, as a people, we have been driven from state to state, and although Joseph and Hyrum, our Prophet and Patriarch, were murdered in cold blood, while in Government duress, and under the immediate control, inspection, and supervision of the Governor and Government offices, we know, and feel assured, that there are many honest, noble, and patriotic souls now living under that government, and under other similar governments in the sister states of the great confederacy, who would loathe the shedding of innocent blood, and were it in their power, would wipe the stain from the nation,

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