open and one foot out of bed. He encouraged his people to come to him with their pettiest troubles and he required them to consult on every undertaking of importance. He had at their disposal a sagacity which frequently dictated counsel of which Benjamin Franklin might have been proud. A woman rushed to him in tears to complain that her husband had told her to go to hell. Brigham Young looked at her solemnly and said, "Well, don't go; don't go." As advice it is perfect.
The outstanding virtue in Brigham Young by which he insensibly modified the entire character of Mormonism and modernized it was this: He knew how to do everything himself and he thought and preached that it was disgraceful and unmanly to ask God's assistance until one's own resources were entirely exhausted. He didn't like whining. "If you have any crying to do, wife, you can do that along with the children, for I have none of that kind of business to do." Discoursing on prayer he said: "While we have a rich soil in this valley and seed to put in the ground we need not ask God to feed us, nor follow us around with a loaf of bread begging of us to eat it. He will not do it, neither would I were I the Lord." He had received the prophetic mantle from Joseph Smith and might at any time have asked, as Joseph had done constantly, for divine revelations about the organization of his masterly exodus from Illinois and about a thousand details concerning the foundation of his city. Except on very rare occasions, and then mainly for the look of the thing, Brigham Young dispensed with special revelations. They really were not necessary, and so he could dispense, too, with flummery. He had a bland forehead and serene and humane eyes, but his
