The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1884-01-20

exactly this way. 1nquiring how
different people see these distractions
is o pleasant social Amusement for
the holidays.-Charles Dudley War
ner, in Harper's Magazine.
A MOrmOn's Belief and Testi-
mOny.
SOUTH COTTONWOOD,
January 18th, 1884.
Editors Herald:
While there is so much agitation
about settling the Mormon ques-
ton, l have been thinking how long
it will take if the ''settlers" make
haste as slowly 10 all time to come
rs they have in the fifty>:our years
past, and thought that few of the
inc dents connected with scme Of
the past settling of the problem
might interest some tho FEEDERS of
The HERALD.
In the fall and win ter of 1888,
when few hundred not more
than two or three thousand of the
saints, ca led Mormons, were driven
from their homes into the city of
Far West, Davis Co., Mo-, and sur
rounded by the State mob, called
militia, of $500 men. and the Pro-
phet Joseph Smith and q few Of his
brethren we're betrayed into their
hands, shout of triumph went up
from the mob that all who heard
will never forget; proclamation was
read to the few saints on the public
20 uare that all the men, about sixty
III number, who were in the battle
on Crooked creek, should be deliv-
cred in the morning with all the
arms o. the Saints up to the mob,
the men to be tried by court mar
tial; that the great Mormon ques.
ton was forever settled, and that
was the last of it. Then, as now,
always was and always will be,
men propose, but God disposes.
The sixty men who were to be exc
cuted (for they had already been
sentenced) felt and did like man
who was sentenced by Judge in
New York, who, in passing sen.
tence IN court. said: "YOu are to
be hung by the neck until you are
dead, dead, dead"; and the man
said: "Judge, 1 shan't be there,
you"
fter the proclamation was read,
and a double guard placed around
the city, my father, being one of the
condemned men, was met by Presi-
dent Brigham Young, and asked
wha. he should do, drew his sword
and raised it as high So he could
reach, and said: I" swear, by the
God of Joseph, that will never see
one of those men delivered, nor
myself, into the hands OF that
mob" And before morning they
all passed by the guard and were led
to the Mississippi River by P. 81.
Young. They Travelled hundreds of
miles in the dead of winter in an
unsettled country, with but little
food only what they could procure
by killing game, and gathering elm
bark. And they went "there."
Their families, like all the rest of
the saints, had to leave the State.
My mother had her last cow shot
down near her door, the next day by
some of the mob; and after living
on frozen potatoes for few weeks,
while we had hundreds of bushels
of grain within eighteen miles of
US, in the possession of the mob,
which we could not get. She, with
many other familias was taken in
wagons without covers in most
cases, distance of 200 Or 800 miles,
camping in the woods at night with
but little to eat. One night, [ shall
never forget, for it was then l
learned why it was that the end
was not yet, and never will be till
Gods kingdom is fully set up,
and our enemies silenced, which
they will be. After mother had got
q fire by big log, and we had eaten
q little cold corn bread, and drank
some water, and she had spread
down what little bedding she had,
she knelt down with her five chill
dren and offered up a prayer. She
did not ask to be taken back into
comfort and ease, but she did ask
God, in the name Of Jesus, to de-
liver Joseph and his brethren from
their enemies, that he might still be
with and comfort Israel; and that
those families who were in exile,
without fathers and husbands,
might be preserved to meet them;
and saw and knew, and still know
that God heard her prayers in COM
mon with the prayers of the saints,
and to-day the prayers Of 100000
earnest people ascend to the same
God, and the problem" will never
be settled as man proposes; but the
great latter day work will continue
I'LL Gods will is done on earth as it
is in heaven. Respectfully.
w. q. Young.