Our Hebraic heroine is even more sensitive to the heroic and patriotic than to the poetic,--at least she has most self-gratification in lofty and patriotic themes. "That men are born poets," she continues, "is a common adage. _I was born a patriot,_--at least a warm feeling of patriotism inspired my childish heart, and mingled in my earliest thoughts, as evinced in many of the earliest productions of my pen. I can even now recollect how, with beating pulse and strong emotion I listened, when but a small child, to the tales of the revolution. "My grandfather on my mother's side, when fighting for the freedom of our country, was taken prisoner by British troops, and confined in a dreary cell, and so scantily fed that when his fellow-prisoner by his side died from exhaustion, he reported him to the jailor as sick in bed, in order to obtain the amount of food for both,--keeping him covered in their blankets as long as he dared to remain with a decaying body. "This, with many similar narratives of revolutionary sufferings recounted by my grand-parents, so deeply impressed my mind, that as I grew up to womanhood I fondly cherished a pride for the flag which so proudly waved over the graves of my brave and valiant ancestors." It was the poet's soul of this illustrious Mormon woman that first enchanted the Church with inspired song, and her Hebraic faith and life have given something of their peculiar tone to the entire Mormon people, and especially the sisterhood; just as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young gave the types and institutions to our modern Israel. Sister Eliza R. Snow was born with more than the poet's soul. She was a prophetess in her very nature,--endowed thus by her Creator, before her birth. Her gifts are of race quality rather than of mere religious training or growth. They have come down to her from the ages. From her personal race indications, as well as from the whole tenor and mission of her life, she would readily be pronounced to be of Hebrew origin. One might very well fancy her to be a descendant of David himself; indeed the Prophet Joseph, in blessing her, pronounced her to be a daughter of Judah's royal house. She understands, nearly to perfection, all of the inner views of the system and faith which she represents. And the celestial relations and action of the great Mormon drama, in other worlds, and in the "eternities past and to come," have constituted her most familiar studies and been in the rehearsals of her daily ministry. Mother Whitney says: