Defense of the Faith and the Saints. B. H. Roberts

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      III.

      "THE LIONS OF THE LORD."

       Table of Contents

      I have just read the "Lions of the Lord," by Harry Leon Wilson. An extended friendly review of it in a leading Utah paper volunteers the statement that "Mr. Wilson gained his principal information during a few weeks' visit in Salt Lake last fall, and some time spent over the Schroeder Mormon library, now in Iowa." No one can doubt the accuracy of the statement; the treatment of the theme bears every evidence of the author's hasty and shallow thought upon the subject with which he attempts to deal. But he "spent some time over the Schroeder Mormon library;" yes, and what is more, he was undoubtedly "coached" by Mr. Schroeder while at work in the library; for the salacious fiction which that "gentleman" of unsavory reputation in Utah used to serve up to the delectation of the readers of his "Lucifer's Lantern" is altogether too evident in Mr. Wilson's book, and justly entitled him to recognition as collaborator with Mr. Wilson in its production.

      Since inadvertently the source of the author's inspiration and information is disclosed, a word respecting Mr. Schroeder, the should-be-recognized collaborator of Mr. Wilson, becomes necessary in this review. Mr. Schroeder is known to fame in Utah first as a lawyer who stands under the recorded public censure of the Supreme Court of the state of Utah for unprofessional conduct, as is witnessed in the tenth volume of the Utah Reports of the Supreme Court of the state. Secondly he is known locally as the collector of a library on Mormonism, in which prominence and preference is given to anti-Mormon works redolent of that putridity so delectable to men of debased natures and perverted tastes. Thirdly, and perhaps most prominently, he is known as the author, proprietor, and publisher of "Lucifer's Lantern," that may be described as an intermittent periodical-now some time since happily defunct—most worthy of its title and its author. It is into such hands Mr. Wilson unfortunately fell, and by such a person he was evidently "coached," in his study of Mormonism.

      The evidence of all this, apart from the inadvertent admission of the friendly Utah reviewer, is to be found in the identity of the sewer-stench that attaches to the work of both; in the use of the same materials; and the adoption of similar methods. As for instance: A somewhat eccentric writer in the early days of the Mormon Church characterized a number of the prominent Church leaders under what was to him descriptive titles, such as Brigham Young, "Lion of the Lord;" Wilford Woodruff, "Banner of the Gospel;" John Taylor, "Champion of Liberty." This evidently appealed to the erratic and fantastical intellect of Mr. Schroeder, and led him to adopt as the title of his intermittent, and now defunct anti-Mormon periodical, "Lucifer's Lantern;" and on the title page of the last number of the "Lantern" he gratuitously invents for Lorenzo Snow, then President of the Mormon Church, the descriptive title—as he supposes—"Boss of Jehovah's Buckler." Now, Mr. Wilson having his attention directed to the descriptive title of early leading Mormon Elders invented by the aforesaid eccentric, though friendly writer, conceived the idea of making the chief character of his story of the number of those who had received such titles, and hence confers upon "Joel Rae," the character in his book about whom he centers all the horrors of his gruesome tale, the blasphemous title—"Lute of the Holy Ghost!" Or was it Mr. Schroeder; for one dreads to think that a man of the order of talents of Mr. Wilson could stoop to the low blasphemy of such a performance; while it is altogether in accordance both with the principles and practice of his should-be-acknowledged collaborator, Mr. Shroeder; for blatant atheism was and is the latter's pride and boast; and he was wont, as we have seen by his use of it in "Lucifer's Lantern," to ascribe fanciful titles to leading Mormons.

      A word, in headlines, as to the story itself; that it is possessed of dramatic force, and literary merit will go without saying when it is known that its author is also the author of "The Spenders." That it deals with elements capable of being so combined as to produce the most intense human interest will be conceded when I say that it treats of religious fanaticism—the faith—"fanatic faith," that

      "Once wedded fast

       To some dear idol,

       Hugs it to the last;"

      of love—the theme of the ages, the one theme ever old and ever new—the theme perennial; with human passions and ambitions, the desire for that most deceitful end of all human ambitions—the desire for sanctity while living, and a reputation for holiness when dead. These the elements of the story; and now the incidents:

      Joel Rae, "bred in the word and the truth" of Mormonism, if not born in it, returns to Nauvoo from a mission just upon the time that the last remnant of the Saints have departed from that ill-fated city. He finds that the home of his parents in the outskirts of Nauvoo has been destroyed by mobs; and that his aged father and mother were driven into Nauvoo, where they are for the time under the protection of an apostate family; that his fiancee, with her family, has turned from the faith, and she is only awaiting his arrival to ascertain if he will join her in her apostasy. This he refuses to do, and with his parents prepares to follow his expatriated people in their great westward movement. While being ferried over the Mississippi, the aged father of young Rae—the son not being present—is pitched into the river by ruffian hands and is drowned; his aged mother dies from the shock of the horrible murder; and young Rae, made desperate by those events, becomes a "Son of Dan," a supposed secret society of the blood and thunder order, oath-bound to "support the First Presidency of the Church of, Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in all things, right or wrong!" He forms one of the band of pioneers which Brigham Young led to the Salt Lake valley in 1847, and gives numerous evidences of increasing fanaticism, much to the delight of the Mormon leaders, which delight is here and there expressed in silly, blasphemous sentences of which the following is a fair sample: "When that young man [Rae] gets all het up with the Holy Ghost, the Angel of the Lord just has to give down!" In the new home of the Saints young Rae does his full share of both manual and spiritual labor. In the latter he succeeded too well since he preached better, worked more seeming miracles, and prophesied more than the other "Lions of the Lord." Brigham declares him "soul proud," and sends him to the Missouri river in 1857 to bring in the handcart companies, in which expedition he witnesses enough distress and misery to humble the most "soul proud" man alive, since the sufferings of the handcart companies from cold, famine and over toil is the result of his own bad judgement in starting late in the season. Arriving in Salt Lake, however, his fanatical preaching starts a "reformation," i.e., an outburst of wild fanaticism attended upon by murders, and voluntary submissions to secret executions, to atone for the commission of the more heinous sins. Rae's fanaticism makes him a participant in the Mountain Meadows massacre in which it falls to his lot to kill the young militia captain—Grimway—who had assisted Rae to leave Nauvoo, and who subsequently married the woman to whom Rae was betrothed. She, too, was with the emigrants attacked at Mountain Meadows, and Rae, after killing her husband, saw her murdered and scalped by an Indian. From the number of emigrants doomed to death Rae rescued a white-haired boy and the little daughter of his one-time betrothed wife, Prudence Corson. The boy he leaves at Hamblin's ranch, whence he escapes, swearing vengeance against Rae, whom he saw kill the father of the little girl—Prudence Grimway. The girl Prudence—named after her mother—Rae leaves at a neighboring ranch, claiming her as his own child, for whom he will later return. Haunted by the memories of the awful slaughter of the gentile emigrants at Mountain Meadows, he goes north, actively participates in the resistance to the United States' army under Albert Sidney Johnston, then entering Utah, but is disgusted with the final submission of Brigham Young to United States authority, and takes up his abode in a new settlement far to the south of Salt Lake City, and not far from the Mountain Meadows. Here his life of penance begins. In a spirit of self-sacrifice he marries a woman with but one hand, and a disfigured face. The hand she lost by having it frozen while pushing a hand cart in the belated company Rae had led to Utah years before. He also married another woman—a poor half-starved, cast off wife of a prominent Mormon Bishop; and later still, another wife, a shallow-witted, talkative creature who is a cross indeed to the "man of many sorrows." He СКАЧАТЬ