ham did not know before that he was a lion, while Sidney received the truth with reluctance that he was indeed a lamb. Something more than oratory was necessary to win in this instance; and of that something, with great joy in his heart, Brigham found himself in possession. It was the combination of qualities which we find present primarily in all great men, in all leaders of men—intellectual force, mental superiority, united with personal magnetism, and physique enough to give weight to will and opinion; for Brigham Young was assuredly a great man, if by greatness we mean one who is superior to others in strength and skill, moral, intellectual, or physical. The secret of this man's power—a power that within a few years made itself felt throughout the world—was this: he was a sincere man, or if an impostor, he was one who first imposed upon himself. He was not a hypocrite; knave, in the ordinary sense of the term, he was not; though he has been a thousand times called both. If he was a bad man, he was still a great man, and the evil that he did was done with honest purpose. He possessed great administrative ability; he was far-seeing, with a keen insight into human nature, and a thorough knowledge of the good and evil qualities of men, of their virtues and frailties. His superiority was native to him, and he was daily and hourly growing more powerful, developing a strength which surprised himself, and gaining constantly more and more confidence in himself, gaining constantly more and more the respect, fear, and obedience of those about him, until he was able to consign Sidney to the buffetings of Satan for a thousand years, while Brigham remained president and supreme ruler of the church.[1]
- ↑ Sidney had a trial, and was convicted and condemned. Sidney Rigdon was a native of Saint Clair, Penn., where he was born in 1793. Until his 26th year he worked on his father's farm, but in 1819 received a license to preach, from the society known as the regular baptists, being appointed in 1822 to the charge of the first baptist church in Pittsburgh, where he became very popular. In 1824 he resigned his position, from conscientious motives, and joined the Campbellites, supporting himself by working as a journeyman tanner. Two years later he accepted a call as a Campbellite preacher at Bainbridge, O,
