The Lord has so abundantly blessed the labors of His people in that once barren region that truly the desert does rejoice and blossom as the rose. That Salt Lake valley was a most forbidding place cannot be denied. James Bridges, an old trapper who had seen Salt Lake valley before the Pioneers, was so confident of the perpetual sterility of the soil, rendered so by having little or no water, scarcely any rain, and frost nearly every month in the year, that he said to President Brigham Young: "I will give you a thousand dollars for the first ear of corn that can be produced in Salt Lake valley." Our geographies designated that country as the Great American Desert. Daniel Webster, the great statesman and orator, earnestly opposed the annexation of that section of the country to the United States on the ground of its almost utter worthlessness, claiming it would be a financial burden to the government. Notwithstanding these forbidding aspects, the Prophet Joseph Smith predicted on the 6th of August, 1842, that the Latter-day Saints would become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. This prophecy will be found readily in a work entitled "A New Witness for God," by Elder B. H. Roberts, which work also contains really other predictions of the prophet Joseph Smith, and shows their fulfillment. The following in the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter thirty-five, "For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty lands springs of water," has been fulfilled in the settlement of the Rocky Mountain region by the Latter-day Saints. As the judgments of God come upon the earth the gathering of Israel will be accelerated, and the words of the prophet Isaiah will be fulfilled wherein he asks the question, "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?" (Isa. lx:8.) As they come together from their long dispersion, and from the north country, in times of famine, pestilence and bloodshed, the Lord will strengthen them by saying, "Fear not; for I am with thee; I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, give up; and to the south, keep not back; bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name." (Isa. xliii:5 6.) How universal will be this gathering from all points of the compass, and which will apply to all who are truly called by the name of the Lord!