A Brother’s Definition of Gross Darkness

426 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

tered, organized, armed and equipped for their expedition why — was Lincoln's voice not heard in opposition to these outrageous and lawless proceedings? My mother, with her two children left the doomed city of Nauvoo a few months before the final tragedy, but we were not so far away but we could hear the cannon shots during the three days of the final struggle. Shortly after, there came a trusted man with a team from Council Bluffs to take us on. We divided our scanty belongings once more, (they had been divided before,) taking only the things most needed; we gladly turned our faces westward, to follow the Twelve into the wilderness, "seeking the phantom of another home." We soon joined the fugitives from the battle, for whom teams had also come from the Bluffs. They were all more or less enfeebled through want and exposure; many had ague, and some of the men were suffering with gunshot-wounds received in the battle; they had no medicines, no comforts for the sick. In the solemn stillness of the night, I heard a man very earnestly pray for death; his wife succumbed but a few days before, and he was very weak. His prayer was not immediately answered, he lived to be very useful and to raise an honorable family in the valley. They related the miracle of the quails which came in great numbers to their starving camp, and were picked up living by old and young. I

listened closely to their recital of the incidents of the battle, of the good conduct of Esquire Wells, the bravery of William Cutler, John Gheen and Charles Lambert, and the heroism of Captain Anderson, who fell.

A BROTHER'S DEFINITION OF GROSS DARKNESS. BY C. L. WALKER.

During the early 40's Apostle Parley P. Pratt deemed it wisdom to inaugurate some out-door or street preaching in a rather aristocratic and populous district of the Manchester Conference.

COLLECTION OF ANECDOTES. 427

If I remember rightly, Brother Peter S was appointed to hold meetings in this district! was zealous for the Brother S spread of the Gospel, though but a novice in Biblical lore, and by trade a salesman in a small-ware shop where spool-thread, cotton balls, buttons, etc., were sold by the gross or otherwise. On a bright Sunday morning in June Brother S armed with his ,

Bible and hymn book, sallied out to fill his first appointment on Oxford Road, in sight of All Saints Church. He got along fairly well with the opening exercises; then came the trying ordeal of preaching to the motley crowd that had gathered around him during the singing. With a deep sense of humility before God, he opened his pocket Bible and took for his text Isaiah 60: 2, laying particular stress and emphasis upon the sentence, "darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people." He had hardly closed his Bible when a pompous local preacher interrupted him, and in a sarcastic manner,, said: "Can the deluded 'Mormon' tell us what gross darkness means ?" Brother S was nonplused for a moment; then like a flash, his business transactions over the counter came to his aid: "Yes," replied Brother S "anybody knows that a gross is twelve ,

dozen; therefore gross darkness means that the minds of the people are one hundred and forty-four times darker than the earth." Shouts of laughter and jeers went forth from the crowd at the expense of the local divine, who hastily disentangled himself from the by-standers, humiliated and crestfallen, beating a hasty retreat down Oxford Road, a much wiser man as to what gross darkness meant, at least from the standpoint of Brother S .