acknowledged her divine mission to administer for the regeneration of the race. The genius of a patriarchal priesthood naturally made her the apostolic help-meet for man. If you saw her not in the pulpit teaching the congregation, yet was she to be found in the temple, administering for the living and the dead! Even in the holy of holies she was met. As a high priestess she blessed with the laying on of hands! As a prophetess she oracled in holy places! As an endowment giver she was a Mason, of the Hebraic order, whose Grand Master is the God of Israel and whose anointer is the Holy Ghost.
She held the keys of the administration of angels and of the working of miracles and of the "sealings" pertaining to "the heavens and the earth." Never before was woman so much as she is in this Mormon dispensation!
The supreme spiritual character of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (its proper name), is well typed in the hymn so often sung by the saints at their "testimony meetings," and sometimes in their temples. Here is its theme:
"The spirit of God like a fire is burning,
The latter-day glory begins to come forth,
The visions and blessings of old are returning,
The angels are coming to visit the earth.
Chorus—We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven— Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb! Let glory to them in the highest be given, Henceforth and forever—amen and amen.
The Lord is extending the saints' understanding,
Restoring their judges and all as at first;
The knowledge and power of God are expanding;
The vail o'er the earth is beginning to burst.
Chorus—We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven!" etc.
What a strange theme this, forty-seven years ago, before the age of our modern spiritual mediums, when the angels visited only the Latter-day Saints! In that day it would seem the angels only dared to come by stealth, so unpopular was their coming. But the way was opened for the angels. What wonder that they have since come in hosts good and bad, and made their advent popular? Millions testify to their advent now; and "modern spiritualism," though of "another source," is a proof of Mormonism more astonishing than prophecy herself.
Yet is all this not more remarkable than the promise which Joseph Smith made to the world in proclaiming his mission. It was the identical promise of Christ: "These signs shall follow them that believe!" These signs meant nothing short of all that extraordinary experience familiar to the Hebrew people and the early-day saints. We have no record that ever this sweeping promise was made before by any one but Jesus Christ. Yet Joseph Smith, filled with a divine assurance, dared to re-affirm it and apply the promise to all nations wherever the gospel of his mission should be preached. The most wonderful of tests is this. But the test was fulfilled. The signs followed all, and everywhere. Even apostates witness to this much.
There is nothing in modern spiritualism nearly so marvelous as was Mormonism in its rise and progress in America and Great Britain. It has indeed made stir enough in the world. But it had to break the way for coming ages. Revelation was at first a very new and strange theme after the more than Egyptian darkness in which the Christian nations had been for fifty generations. It was the light set upon the hill now; but the darkness comprehended it not. Yet was a spiritual dispensation opened again to the world. Once more was the lost key found. Mormonism was the key; and it was Joseph and his God-fearing disciples who unlocked the heavens. That fact the world will acknowledge in the coming times.
CHAPTER IV.
BIRTH OF THE CHURCH—KIRTLAND AS THE BRIDE, IN THE CHAMBERS OF THE WILDERNESS—THE EARLY GATHERING—"MOTHER WHITNEY," AND ELIZA R. SNOW.
The birth-place of Mormonism was in the State of New York. There the angels first administered to the youthful prophet; there in the "Hill Cumorah," near the village of Palmyra, the plates of the book of Mormon were revealed by Moroni; there, at Manchester, on the 6th of April, 1830, the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" was organized, with six members.
But the divine romance of the sisterhood best opens at Kirtland. It is the place where this Israelitish drama of our times commenced its first distinguishing scenes—the place where the first Mormon temple was built.
Ohio was the "Great West." Kirtland, the city of the saints, with its temple, dedicated to the God of Israel, rose in Ohio.
Not, however, as the New Jerusalem of America, was Kirtland founded; but pioneer families, from New England, had settled in Ohio, who early received the gospel of the Latter-day Church.
Thus Kirtland became an adopted Zion, selected by revelation as a gathering place for the saints; and a little village grew into a city, with a temple.
Among these pioneers were the families of "Mother Whitney," and Eliza R. Snow, and the families of "Father Morley," and Edward Partridge, who became the "first Bishop" of Zion.
Besides these, there were a host of men and women soon numbered among the founders of Mormondom, who were also pioneers in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.
There is no feature of the Mormons more interesting than their distinguishing mark as pioneers. In this both their Church and family history have a national significance.
Trace their family migrations from old England to New England in the seventeenth century; from Europe to America in the nineteenth; then follow them as a people in their empire-track from the State of New York, where their Church was born, to Utah and California! It will thus be remarkably illustrated that they and their parents have been pioneering not only America but the world itself to the "Great West" for the last two hundred and fifty years!
As a community the Mormons have been emphatically the Church of pioneers. The sisters have been this equally with the brethren. Their very religion is endowed with the genius of migrating peoples.
So in 1830–31, almost as soon as the Church was organized, the prophet and the priesthood followed the disciples to the West, where the star of Messiah was rising.
As though the bride had been preparing for the coming! As though, womanlike, intuitively, she had gone into the wilderness—the chambers of a new civilization—to await the bridegroom.
For the time being Kirtland became the Zion of the West; for the time being Kirtland among cities was the bride.
But the illustration is also personal. Woman herself had gone to the West where the star of Messiah was looming. Daughters of the New Jerusalem were already in the chamber awaiting the bridegroom.
Early in the century, two had pioneered into the State of Ohio, who have since been, for a good lifetime, high priestesses of the Mormon temples. And the voice of prophesy has declared that these have the sacred blood of Israel in their veins. In the divine mysticism of their order they are at once of a kingly and priestly line.
There is a rare consistency in the mysticism of the Mormon Church. The daughters of the temple are so by right of blood and inheritance. They are discovered by gift of revelation in Him who is the voice of the Church; but they inherit from the fathers and mothers of the temple of the Old Jerusalem.
And so these two of the principal heroines of Mormondom—"Mother Whitney" and "Sister Eliza R. Snow"—introduced first as the two earliest of the Church who pioneered to the "Great West," before the advent of their prophet, as well as introduced for the divine part which they have played in the marvelous history of their people.
These are high priestesses! These are two rare prophetesses! These have the gifts of revelation and "tongues!" These administer in "holy places" for the living and the dead.
It was about the year of our Lord 1806 that Oliver Snow, a native of Massachusetts, and his wife, R. L. Pettibone Snow, of Connecticut, moved with their children to