Page:The Rocky Mountain Saints.djvu/696

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THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAINTS.

the missionaries abroad, when and whither he pleased, but when he desired it, he sent the elders away for some cause of offence, real or imaginary. He once told the best Mormon lawyer in Zion, who had been a Federal judge, that if he came again on to the platform where he stood, he would kick him off it, and he appointed him to a mission in Yan Diemen's Land, and told him never to return—he never wanted to see him there again. The lawyer went, performed his mission, and returned to his family, and has since been of great service to Brigham. Time after time he has called men living in Salt Lake City to close their business, and go down to "Dixie"—the southern part of the Territory, which has been regarded by most people as a penal settlement, or place of banishment. Re- pugnance to such a country, or the inadaptability of the person to any pursuits there, was nothing to him. Quite a number of persons had to sacrifice property in the city in order to go to "Dixie," and free tongues have not been slow to insinuate that, in some instances, those persons were sent away for the very purpose that the Prophet might the more easily purchase their property. He sent at one time a mission to Fort. Limhi, Salmon River, to civilize the Indians. The brethren were counselled not to take their families with them, but they were to live with the Indians, to educate and civilize them, and to teach them various trades and farming. When Brigham and Heber afterwards visited the missionaries to see how they were succeeding, Heber, in his quaint way, told them that he did not see how the modern predictions could well be fulfilled about the Indians becoming "a white and delightsome people" without extending polygamy to the natives. The approach of the United States army, in 1857, contributed to break up that mission, but not before Heber's hint had been clearly understood, and the prophecy half fulfilled! Heber was very practical, and believed that the people should never ask "the Lord" to do for them what they could do themselves, and, as all "Israel" had long prayed that the Indians might speedily become a "white and delightsome people," he thought it was the duty of the missionaries to assist "the Lord" in fulfilling his promises. This was not -the first time that a Mormon prophet attempted to aid in bringing to pass the prophecies of "the Lord." More