The Mormon Prophet, Lily Dougall [young adult books to read TXT] 📗

sermons he began to preach. The answer that his logic deduced carried conviction to many of his hearers, but in Susannah's mind the question alone made way.


BOOK II.


CHAPTER I.

In the next year, 1831, the new church was formally organised, and this was the "revelation" given for her direction by the mouth of Joseph Smith--"And now, behold, I speak unto the Church; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie; thou shalt love thy wife, cleaving unto her and to none else; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not speak evil of thy neighbour, nor do him any harm. Let him that goeth to the East tell them that shall be converted to flee to the West."

The reports of the first missionaries, who had travelled westward, preaching both to the Indians (called by the "Saints," Lamanites) and to white men, were received in the beginning of this year, and the point designated for the first station of the Church on its way westward was a place called Kirtland, on the banks of the Chagrin River, in northern Ohio. Thither Halsey was sent, having commands to preach by the way.

At Halsey's wayside meetings the old hymns and the old tunes were sung. The new doctrine embraced all that was supposed to be alive in the old; it repudiated only what was supposed to be dead. It offered that enlargement of human powers which the belief in wonders implies, a new form of church government, a new land to live in, a new hope of a visible and glorious church, and, above all, a living prophet. If the personality of the prophet seemed more attractive to those who believed, not having seen him, to Susannah, who knew the baseness of his origin so well, the sudden increase of his influence over hundreds of people seemed the greatest of marvels; and it was impossible but that even his person should gain some added grace from the reflected light of success. Halsey was only one of a dozen successful Mormon preachers who were converging with their train of followers upon the first station of the new church.

There is no spot in northern Ohio more lovely than the five hills or bluffs that rise from the banks of the Chagrin River and its tributary brooks twelve miles to the south-east of what is now the city of Cleveland. On the shores of the river and its streams lie green levels; from these the bluffs rise steeply for some one or two hundred feet to tablelands of great fertility.

The site for the first Mormon temple was on the highest of these hills overlooking the three valleys. Its foundations were quickly laid. Around it upon the slope and tableland, up and down the valleys, and upon the opposite hills, the wooden houses of the converts began to spring up, not unlike in colour to a crop of mushrooms, and very like in the suddenness of their growth.

Not long after Susannah and Halsey had reached Kirtland, Joseph Smith, with a convert named Rigdon, went on, with missionaries who were travelling farther west, in order to find in the wilderness the place that was appointed for the building of Zion or the New Jerusalem. At the same time all those men among the converts who were deemed fit were sent out in couples to preach the new Gospel, some back to the eastern States whence they had come, some to Canada, some to the south. To Joseph Smith it was given to know who was to go and who to stay. Halsey was directed to remain, to receive and establish the new converts who came, to tithe their property for the building of the temple, and to found, according to Smith's direction, a school of the prophets.

"And to thy wife, Susannah, it shall be given to teach the children such worldly learning as she has herself acquired, until it may be possible for us to appoint for them a more learned male instructor."

Joseph Smith spoke these words in the room which served him as business office and chapel. He was drawing on his gloves, ready to go forth upon the journey to Missouri.

Several of the elders and their wives were present, some busy on one errand and some on another. Susannah, being with Halsey, received the command in person, although it was not directly addressed to her. She had observed that since her arrival at Kirtland the prophet never addressed himself to her directly when in public. In many ways his manners were becoming gradually more formal, and his relapses into his native speech less frequent.

Susannah could not criticise keenly, so much she marvelled at the man. His activities before starting on this journey were almost incredible. Every hour he had made decisions, for the most part successful, concerning the adaptability of men whom he had only seen, for labours of which he knew as little. He had preached continually. He had baptised newcomers in the icy floods of the April stream. He had advised as to the choice of lands and their manner of cultivation, as to the size and form of houses. He had visited the sick and planned merry-makings for the young. In addition to all this, even while preparing for the long journey into an unknown region, he was busy learning three languages, and was laying plans, not only for missionary campaigns that were to spread over the whole earth, but for a new translation of the Old Testament. If the better clothes that he had begun to wear sat somewhat pompously upon him, if his manners now sometimes indicated an attempt not only to be, but to appear, a prophet, such small affectations sank out of sight in the light of such extraordinary ability.

After Smith and Sydney Rigdon had started westward, Susannah went over to console Emma. The prophet's wife was at that time living in a building of which the front part was the general store whence the material needs of the growing church were as far as possible provided. Susannah passed through between bales of cloths, boxes, and barrels of provisions. It was dusk; a young man who served in the store carried a candle before her, and the odd-shaped piles of merchandise threw strange moving shadows upon the low beams of the roof and walls. The young man held the candle to light the way up a straight staircase. "Mis' Smith," he shouted, "here's Mis' Halsey come to see you."

At the top of the staircase Susannah was met by a cooing, creeping baby, who beat with its little fist upon a wicket gate fencing off the stair.

"It was the last thing he did before setting out, to nail that gate together and fasten it up with his own hands, so as I wouldn't need always to be running after the young one, lest he should fall down the stair." It was Emma Smith who spoke; she emerged dishevelled and tearful from an upper room. "When he has so much to think about and all, and Elder Rigdon waiting for him at the office till he'd finished. Mr. Smith, he's always so kind, and he knew as that would be the thing as would give me the most help of anything."

Emma subsided again into tears--tears that were the more touching to Susannah because Emma was not like most women; she seldom wept.

"I don't mean to give way," Emma continued, "but if it was your husband as had gone, you'd know how it was, and it's the first time I've ever been separate from him so long."

Susannah sat down with the child in her arms. When the question was brought home to her she did not believe that temporary separation from Halsey would cause her tears.

Emma began again with an effort at self-control. "It's a long way to Jackson County, quite across Missouri. It's all Elder Rigdon's doing, his going just now."

Susannah found something that she could say here in agreement. "It may be wrong, but I--I don't like Elder Rigdon."

"Well, of course the way he believed, and all his congregation, when the word was first preached to them makes Joseph think that he must be full of grace. Ye know, to see Joseph when he's quite by himself, ye'd be surprised to see how desponding he is by nature. He's that desponding he was real surprised, real right down taken by surprise, when he heard that Mr. Rigdon, so clever a minister as he was, and of the Campbellites too, had been baptized and a hundred and twenty-seven of his congregation with him. (That was first off, and ye know how many he's brought in since.) He could hardly believe it; he says, 'It seems as if I hadn't any faith at all.' And that night he couldn't sleep, but just walked up and down, and two revelations came to him before morning, and one of them addressed to Rigdon, so Joseph knows of course he's got the right thing in him. Then his education, too; he's got a sight more education than Cowdery. Joseph thinks a deal of education."

"I don't like him." Susannah sat upright; her hands were busy with the baby upon her knee.

"Well, I dunno." Emma spoke meditatively. "It said in one of Joseph's revelations that we should dwell together in love."

Susannah laughed; it was a bright, trilling laugh, and filled the large, low room with its sudden music. It almost seemed like a light in the growing darkness.

"I guess I'll light up," said Emma, "it'll be more cheerful."

Susannah was still playing with the baby, and Emma looked at her critically. "Joseph thinks a great deal of you, Mrs. Halsey; he's told ye to teach school?"

"I have got more time than most of the women, and my husband can afford to hire a school-room."

"'Tain't that," said Emma decidedly, "it's the same thing as makes ye say that you don't talk to any of the other folks except in a civil way. Ye're a bit above all the rest of us ladies in the way ye hold yerself and the way ye speak. I guess it comes of yer father's folks having been somebody, and then being so clever at books--ye see, Joseph sees all that; there ain't anything that he doesn't see."

Susannah perceived that there was something behind this. "You're not vexed, are you?"

Emma continued with more hesitation in her tones. "No, I'm not vexed. Why should I be? And besides I like you and Mr. Halsey better than any of the folks, although I couldn't let it be known."

"There's something that you are thinking about."

Emma sighed deeply; her mien faltered; she subsided again into her seat by the wall and into tears. "It's only that I feel that Joseph's getting to be such a great man. Why, there's more than a thousand folks now looking to him all the time to be told what to do, and thousands more drawing in, and Joseph beginning to wear the kid gloves whenever he goes on the street."

There was an interval of sighs and suppressed sobs.

"Aren't you glad? I thought you were glad about it."

"I declare papa and mamma were just wild when I ran away and married Joseph, because they said that he was a low fellow, and poor, and not good enough for me, and now--and now--I begin to feel that I'm not good enough for him."

Susannah went over and sat beside her, chiding indignantly. "You know very well that nobody could be the same help to him that you are,