The Portland daily press., 1884-03-12

eAAN~S
Dan shall be a serpent by the, way. an adder in
the path, that biteth the horse heels. so that his
rider shall fall backward '-GEN. 40: 10, II.
Planted down in the heart of the CONT
nent, and "by the way" sin the path," of
the weary pilgrims journeying to the remote
West, you can well see how the Mormon ell
ders put their fingers on this text, and told
their ignorant following that they were the
chosen people referred to here; that they
were the children of Dan; that they should
judge the people who came that way; that
they, the Mormons, as the children of Dan,
were "the serpent by the way" San adder
in the path"
In the large reading of the text, and lib
9ral view and look of it all, it seems plausi-
BILE, almost, even to us. How certain then
did ii seem to these ignorant and merciless
followers of the dread order of the Danites,
established there 'by the way" sin the
path" that they were, as they sat in the
heart OF the desert, to be the Judges of
those who passed by!
Back Of this Bible lay much bitterness, in
duced by sad history, much suffering and
persecution. The Mormons firmly believed
that the order Of the Danites was necessary,
not only for the purpose of Judging" the
earth, but for their own preservation.
More than thirty years ago first encoun-
tered these people. My father and his little
Sunday train-that is, a train that would not
travel on Sunday in crossing the plains be-
cause of religious scruples-pitched tent on
the banks of the Missouri at Council Bluffs,
right in their trails. We saw there thous-
ands Of caves, little mud huts, novels, all
sorts of miserable little habitations, where
the whole mass of Mormons had wntered
few seasons before, in their exodus from
the United States to what was then sup
posed to be Mexico When our train crossed
the Missouri and pushed west to try to reach
the Pacific, we still we're i'll their trails, fol-
loving the marks their great moving cara
van made as it drew its notified length like
shining serpent across the great deserts to
Salt Lake.
- l was but small lad at that time, not big
enough to bear arms, or indeed to under
stand much of anything But this much
understood, and understood SO we'll that it
became part of my life: that we were in
peril. II was not Indians we feared. My
father was a Quaker, and he feared no man
whom he could look in the face. But he
did fear the Danites, whom no man might
see till they did their bloody work.
Not that he or his had any part or hand
in their persecution; but this terror of them
was in the air, it was over all things. We
knew that our road lay through or by Salt
Lake. There was no escaping that. We
must follow on in their track till we came
in our journey to where Dan, who judged
his people, lay like ''serpent by the way"
San adder in the PATH
I forgot to mention that my father had
done something in his quiet Quaker-like way
to help, or try to help, beautiful young
woman who had come in great distress to
our camp one evening. while tented in the
old Mormon winter quarters on the banks
of the Missouri. But surely he had no cause
to fear evil for good.
The facts were simply these. This beau
tiful, black-eyed little lady was one of the
ten thousand emigrants starting out in a
long weary line toward The remotest West.
She was with her people-her parents,
brothers and sisters, and some other rela-
tives, ii remember correctly. This young
lady, girl of eighteen, gifted, graceful,
good to her parents, full of affection, was
suffering from an uncomfortable fear of the
Mormons. Her people, she told my father
- in terrified whispers, were from the same
settlement the Mormons originally started
from, and she knew that her people would
be Judged by the Danites when they
came to Salt Lake, on their journey to Cali
fornia
1t subsequently appeared, however, that
she had not told quite all the truth. There
really had been serious trouble between her
father and the Mormons nearly year be-
fore. And this was the nature of it. The
Mormons had grown up in the settlement
where the girls people lived, and were all
mixed up among the neighbOrs. 1t was not
easy to say who was Mormon and who was
not. Converts were new and numerous. A
man might be "Gentile'' to-day and a
Mormon tomorrow.
One of the busy womeu-one Of the med
dlesome and mischievous kind found in all
camps-who knew this poor girls history
better perhaps than she suspected, told the
secret of her marriage to one of the new
Mormon elders. 1t was a forbidden mar
rage too-a marriage on discovery of which
her father had become very furious, and
loud with threats TO all Mormons. 1t was
true, this busy and meddesome woman said,
- as she gadded about, as such busy women
will when idle in camp, that the Mormon
elder-to whom she was ''sealed' had never
quite got possession of her; that her father
even did not know his daughters pretended
husband, had never seen him in fact. But
for al that, the girl had been married or
''sealed'' to Mormon elder; and trouble
was going to come of il. That was why her
father was taking her out Of the country
and away to California, Kissed this garru-
lous and meddlesome woman; that was why
she looked so sad and seemed so frightened
all the time, continued the gadding and gar
rulous woman, mysteriously.
Now all in the world that my father did
on hearing the story of this beautiful and
terrified girl, was to go to her people, who
were camped close to her tent, and advise,
even protest, that they should take some 9TH
er route to the remote West than this one
that lay by Salt Lake. Surely this was not
much. Yet it was enough to put our little
Sunday train in perpetual terror of "judg-
ment' from the Danites as we pushed on
across the plains. We did not see this Miss
Lane. the Mormon elders "wife," again fol
months. Her father either did not see fit tc
be advised, or, which is more likely, found
it impossible then to turn aside and seek an
other route, and SO crossed the Missouri, a:
if it were a sort of Rubicon, and pushed Oh
ahead. AS he had horses and we only OK
en-, aud then, too, as he travelled on Sun
days, his party had soon left our little Sun
day train long way behind.
And oh! what a motley mass of wear,
people went stretching away, helpless
dazed, dying, across the sands towards the
setting sun! There were some men With