Thus Brigham Young succeeded Joseph Smith. The work of the latter was done. It was a singular work, to which he was singularly adapted; the work yet to be done is no less remarkable, and a no less remarkable agent is raised up at the right moment. Matters assume now a more material turn, and a more material nature is required to master them—if coarser-grained, more practical, rougher, more dogmatical, dealing less in revelations from heaven and more in self-protection and self-advancement here on earth, so much the better for the saints. "Strike, but hear me!" Joseph with Themistocles used to cry; "I will strike, and you shall hear me," Brigham would say.
No wonder the American Israel received Brigham as the gift of God, the Lion of the Lord,[1] though the explanation of the new ruler himself would have been nearer that of the modern evolutionist, who would account for Brigham's success as the survival of the fittest. It was fortunate for the saints at this juncture that their leader should be less prophet than priest and king, less idealist than business manager, political economist, and philosopher. Brigham holds communion with spiritual powers but distantly, perhaps distrustfully; at all events, he commands the spirits rather than let them command him; and the older he grows the less he has to do with them; and the less he has to do with heavenly affairs, the more his mind dwells on earthly matters. His prophecies are eminently practical; his people must have piety that will pay. And later, and all through his life, his position is a strange one. If the people about Nauvoo are troublesome, God orders him west; and then he tells
- ↑ See note 41, p. 192, this vol.
and afterward built up churches at Mantua and Mentor in that state. In 1830 he joined the Mormon church, being converted by the preaching of Parley. Further particulars will be found in Times and Seasons, iv. 177-8, 193-4, 209-10; Cobb's Mormon Problem, MS., 12; Tucker's Mormonism, 123-7; Pittsburgh Gaz., in S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 4, 1876. Returning to Pittsburgh after his excommunication, Sidney led a life of utter obscurity, and finally died at Friendship, Alleghany County, N. Y., July 14, 1876. Lippincott's Mag., Aug. 1880.
