The Mormon Prophet and His Harem: Or, An Authentic History of Brigham Young, His Numerous Wives and ChildrenWaite, C. V. (Catherine Van Valkenburg)
History
The Mormon Prophet and His Harem: Or, An Authentic History of Brigham Young, His Numerous Wives and Children
Waite, C. V. (Catherine Van Valkenburg)
Latter Day Saint churches; Young, Brigham, 1801-1877
Brigham, with true Napoleonic foresight, saw his opportunity, and was
not slow to improve it. He came hurriedly to Nauvoo, denounced Rigdon as
an impostor and his revelations as emanations from the Devil, cut off
both him and his adherents from the true church, cursed Rigdon, and
"handed him over to the buffetings of Satan for a thousand years," and
was himself elected President by an overwhelming majority.
This exhibition of energy silenced all opposition. Those who did not
love, feared him; and all suffered themselves to be led, because they
dared not resist, a man so determined to rule.
Thus much accomplished, and visions of future power and aggrandizement,
perchance of temporal sovereignty, floated through the brain of this
modern Mohammed. He dreamed of the kingly robe and the jewelled crown in
some far-off valley of the Rocky Mountains, where gentiles or their laws
could not annoy the saints, or hinder the normal development of
Mormonism. How and in what manner these dreams came so near fulfilment,
will be seen as the reader peruses these pages.
But he did not lose sight of the present in these glowing visions of the
future. He completed the Temple, the Mansion-House was in a forward
state, Nauvoo was increasing rapidly, and with it his power and
popularity.
Brigham, however, with his usual foresight, saw the storm arising. The
saints were again to be driven. So he hurried the people through their
endowments, bound them to him by oaths which made them shudder to
recall, and still, by an art equal to that of Loyola, so inwound himself
in their affections that they loved and reverenced him the more. He
aroused their deepest hatred toward the "gentiles;" wrought upon their
pride, ambition, and revenge, until they were ready to do and dare
anything for their religion and their leader. When his power was thus
fully established, he revealed to them "the will of the Lord concerning
them." They must leave their beautiful Nauvoo, their sacred temple,
their altars and their homes, and follow him as the Moses of the new
dispensation, and he would find for them a Canaan, a land flowing with
milk and honey, where the gentiles should never come. This was a trial
of their faith. Should they yield to the temptation, and, hankering
after the flesh-pots of Egypt, lose their birthright? They wept, they
hesitated, but the strong will and iron nerve of Brigham conquered, and
they obeyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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