--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Whitney, Orson F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 4 number: 8 published: 1901-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Orson F. Whitney, "Editor’s Table: Brigham Young and His Century; It Was Not a Failure," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 8 (June 1901): 624–631.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0408unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0408unse start_page: 624 end_page: 631 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0408unse publication_year: 1901 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Editor’s Table: Brigham Young and His Century; It Was Not a Failure EDITOR'S TABLE. BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS CENTURY. President Brigham Young died in the seventy-seventh year of his age. Had he lived until today, he would have been one hundred years old. The century that produced him, and in which he figured so prominently, is the most marvelous in the history of mankind, not only for the achievements of science and art, but for the revelations of religion. During that century, man, inspired by the spirit that "searcheth all things," explored the heights and depths of knowledge, penetrated to the darkest corners of the earth, and probed the very heavens in quest of the secrets of the universe. There is but one thing apparently that he has not done, or given promise of doing, in the way of human enlightenment; and that thing he cannot do. "Man by searching cannot find out God." Though he scan through the telescope the faces of the planets and calculate the size, weight and distance of the stars; though he analyze each orb and determine by means of the spec- troscope its chemical constituents though he fill the sky with air- ; ships and balloons and navigate the silver-islanded, atmospheric sea that hangs on high; though he supplement the miracles of electricity and steam with natural and occult forces yet unknown, and bring all to bear upon the citadel of omnipotence, he will never topple one stone, never make one dint in the adamantine walls, never unveil the spiritual mysteries that repose in the bosom of the Creator. In the presence of the infinite, the unsearchable, the wisdom of the wise must perish, the understanding of the pru- EDITORS TABLE. 625 dent be hid. God must reveal himself, or man will never know him, however learned he may otherwise be; and man must become )ike God, the finite change to the infinite, before be can grasp the great problem in its fullness. But God has revealed himself, he has opened the heavens, has appeared in person and proclaimed his will to man; and it is this stupendous fact, added to all that science and human skill have accomplished, that makes the Nineteenth century —the century that produced Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and witnessed the reestablishment of direct and continuous revelation between heaven and earth — the marvel of all the ages. Brigham Young, like Joseph Smith, was a naturally great man—^a gifted man, big-hearted, broad-minded and philanthropic. But both were far greater because God was with them and worked through them for the accomplishment of his purposes. Their natural talents, though noble, would have availed but little, had not the Spirit of the Lord been upon them and the opportunity afforded for the exercise of their powers. Genius without inspira- tion is as a water-wheel without water, a steam engine without steam and even inspired genius must be coupled with opportunity ; in order to succeed. Brigham Young, as well as Joseph Smith, had genius, inspiration, and opportunity, the three prime elements of a great success. When Brigham Young was born, the War of the Revolution was a comparatively recent memory. His native Vermont, one of the original thirteen colonies, had been a sovereign state under the Constitution for a period of thirteen years. Washington had been dead only two years, and Jefferson had just been inaugurated as President. The nation over which he presided hugged the Atlantic seaboard, and the territory of the Federal Government extended no farther west than the Mississippi. The country that now boasts of a population of seventy-five millions then contained less than five and a half million souls. Brigham was a boy of six years when Fulton launched his first steamboat on the Hudson, and a youth of twenty-five when the first American railroad (oper- ated with horses) was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. Not until two years later was there a mile of steam railroad in the United States, a nation now possessing nearly a quarter of a million miles, 626 IMPROVEMENl ERA. almost half the railroad mileage of the world. When the first trans-Atlantic steam vessel came into use, Brigham Young, by vocation a painter and glazier, and originally a Methodist in reli- gion, had been for six years a "Mormon," for three years an apQstle, and was in Missouri coping with murderous mobocracy and wrestling with the first great executive problem that con- fronted him —the winter exodus of his people from that state. Though steam had come into use, it was upon a sailing vessel that he and his brother apostles crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic at the opening of the forties, to broaden the foundations of the British Mission. The electric telegraph, beyond a few tentative experiments —notably by Oersted in Copenhagen — was yet a dream of the future. By this time the great West, the arena of his future labors and the field of his greatest triumphs, was beginning to be sparsely peopled by immigration from the East; though this was only along the sea-coast of California and Oregon, and the present State of Utah was still a sun-baked, alkaline wilderness, without a human inhabitant save the wandering red man and the roving mountaineer. Into the heart of this desolate region, a region shunned by all, denounced by Daniel Webster on the floor of the United States Senate, as "a vast, worthless area," and described upon maps and in school books of the period as "The Great American Desert," Brigham Young, the world's greatest colonizer, led his exiled people, and by his genius and energy and their united in- dustry, under the blessing of providence, subdued the desert, made the wilderness to blossom, and became the founder of more than two hundred cities. Who can compute the greatness of the sacrifices involved, the grandeur of the successes that have crowned and will yet crown them? A band of homeless pilgrims, descended from the patriots of the Revolution and from lovers of liberty in many lands, perse- cuted for their religion, yet retaining their love of country, their attachment for American institutions, which they believed to be heaven-inspired, and going forth under the stars and stripes to fight Columbia's battles and found an American State on Mexican soil; their weary marches over wading rivers, limitless plains, crossing deserts, climbing mountains, ragged, hungry and foot- EDITOR'S TABLE. 627 sore, arriving at the goal of their long and toilsome journey only to find that in order to subsist they must battle with the unpro- pitious elements, banish drouth with irrigation, guard themselves night and day against marauding and merciless savages, wild beasts and venemous reptiles, and dispute possession of their scanty crops with crickets, grasshoppers and other voracious pests with which the region swarmed; the superhuman efforts by which they gradually overcame these giant obstacles and supplanted hardship and poverty with comfort and independence; the digging of roots and cooking of rawhides to eke out their impoverished food-stores; their miraculous rescue from the crickets by the gulls; the providential arrival of the gold-hunters on their way to California, supplying the ragged, half-starved settlers with pro- visions, clothing and merchandise, at cheaper rates than they could be obtained in the large eastern cities, thus fulfilling the predic- tion of one of the "Mormon" leaders; the placation of the savage, fed and befriended by the Saints, not hunted and exterminated according to the traditional policy concerning him; the colonizing of new sections, the opening of foreign missions, the ceaseless influx of immigration, the magical springing up of cities and vil- lages in the midst of the barren waste — in short, the building of an empire in the bosom of a desert, as a nucleus for civilization, around which now cluster half a score of similar commonwealths, whose existence would have been impossible without Utah, the foundation and keystone of the arch. What pen or tongue can tell the marvelous story? What pencil or brush depict the scene sublime? And then the march of the "Mormon" Battalion, the greatest infantry march on record, almost if not fully paralleling the achievement of the Utah Pioneers; the discovery of Gold in Cali- fornia by members of that command, a discovery that created the Golden State and revolutionized the commerce of the world will — it not be remembered that that Battalion marched from the Mis- souri River, not only under the command of United States army officers, but under the direction and blessing of the "Mormon" Moses, the modern Joshua, who laid down the law to his people in the wilderness and in due time planted their feet in the promised land? 628 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Tes; his was the beating heart, the thinking brain, the guiding and directing hand in all the wondrous work of Utah's develop- ment, and the development to a great extent of the surrounding states and territories. Without him or some one like him, and without a people such as he led, this region of orchards, farms and vineyards would now be a wilderness, a desolation; the wheels of progress would have stood still, comparatively speaking, and the westward march of empire have been delayed indefinitely. Encour- aging and fostering every enterprise that would benefit the people and build up the country, he was the first to utilize the telegraph upon its advent into Salt Lake Valley, flashing eastward the light- ning message that Utah had not seceded but was firm for the Con- stitution and the laws. He was also among the first to welcome the transcontinental railroad, whose path over plains and through mountains he had marked out with his pioneer staff twenty- two years before, and whose road-bed across Utah he now helped to build. Nor must it be forgotten that ho constructed and owned telegraphs and railroads of his own, and established and promoted numberless other worthy and successful enterprises. Colonizer, statesman, capitalist and financier; mercantile mag- nate and organizer of industry; friend of education and founder of colleges and academies that bear his name; builder and patron of theatres and other places of wholesome amusement and recreation, whose moral atmosphere he kept phenomenally pure; governor and whose wisest laws he originated, and legislator of a Territory, whose constitutional rights he maintained at every hazard; the leading citizen and master spirit of a community, which leaned upon him as a pillar of wisdom and power; apostle and president of a Church, whose perfect organization he thoroughly understood, whose sublime doctrines he expounded with plainness and pro- fundity, and whose powers he wielded for the common good; a genius himself, recognizing genius in others, and wisely utilizing it for the furtherance of his Master's cause; intuitive, sagacious, a reader of men's hearts, an adept in the knowledge of human nature; a man for emergencies, brave, strong, tried and true; a man of mighty faith, made manifest in mighty works; a benefactor of his kind and a worshiper of the true and living God, who — shall say that he was not, what many the world over now concede EDITOR'S TABLE. 629 him to be, one of the greatest characters of the world's greatest age? Orson F. Whitney. IT WAS NOT A FAILURE. The Saints' Herald, of Lamoni, Iowa, is the official organ of the Reorganized church, otherwise known as the Josephites. Joseph Smith, the eldest son of Joseph Smith, the prophet, is the editor. In its issue of May 1, 1901, are some insinuating words in comment upon a letter sent to the Herald from Utah last October, by one Peter Anderson. Said Anderson purported to ''give an ac- count of a few things that happened at a conference of the 'Utah Church,' in Salt Lake City.*' He says: President Snow, now in his eighty-seventh year, spoke on Sunday afternoon. Concerning the gathering, he said: "The day is approach- ing when a large part of the people whom I am addressing will go back to Jackson county to erect the temple and establish the city of Zion. I shall go back, President Cannon shall go back, and President Smith will go back. I don't know about all the apostles, but a Jarge majority of you will go back to build up a holy city to the Lord." Mr. Snow urged the people to get ready for this event, and men- of tioned a most powerful manifestation he had received to the truth what he had said. He also said: "The time is coming very shortly." The Herald then adds: In view of the above prophecy, the recent death of George Q. Can- non has rather a bad effect on Mr. Snow's record as a prophet,and we are wondering how the people of Utah can explain the failure. We are of above the opinion that that is not the only failure that will occur in the prophecy, for we do not believe that any of the men mentioned by PresidentSnow will have a part in the building of the city of Zion in Jackson county— at least not in their present spiritual condition. It will be little trouble to explain that alleged failure, for it was not a failure. First: Anderson did not give a personal "account of a few 630 IMPROVEMENT ERA. things that happened at a conference," etc., but merely repeated something which he alleges was printed in a notorious anti- "Mor- mon" paper, which seldom tells the truth about the Latter-day Saints. Secondly: President Snow did not use the language above imputed to him, and hence, the HeraWs argument is founded on incorrect premises. There is no failure because of President Can- non's death, because there was no utterance made about him that could fail. Thirdly: President Snow's remarks were taken in shorthand and printed by the Deseret News, and no such words are found in that paper, nor in the published pamphlet of the conference; nor do the original notes of The Church stenographer, which have been closely scanned, contain any such prediction as stated in the Herald. Fourthly: This is what President Snow did say; A great many people that are now dwelling in the state of Utah will have this privilege [to go back to Jackson county,] Whether I, President Cannon, President Smith, or all the brethren of the Twelve will go back, I know not. But a large portion of the Latter-day Saints that now dwell in these valleys will go back to Jackson county to build a holy city to the Lord, as was decreed by Jehovah and revealed through Joseph Smith. In view of the above the Herald should set about to make amends. At no time has President Snow prophesied the return to Jack- son county of any particular person; but he believes and has ex- pressed his faith that a temple will be built there in the near future. This belief the Latter-day Saints also almost unanimously entertain. And further, for the Herald's benefit and informa- tion, they believe that they alone hold the keys, the authority, and the knowledge necessary to do this work acceptably to God; and that no other people understand the plan, design and purpose of God, in the completion of holy temples for the administration of sacred ordinances for the living and the dead. Those, therefore, who shall build the acceptable temple in Jackson county, will be the Latter-day Saints from the Rocky mountains. They do and will hold the keys of the Holy Priesthood, and enjoy the Holy EDITOR'S TABLE. 631 Ghost, and are and will be filled with the Spirit of God to accom- plish the noble work of erecting an acceptable temple to his name in the centre stake of Zion. It is deplorable that Joseph Smith, the son of the founder of The Church, should continually lend himself to utter such mean, petty slanders, based on hearsay, against the Latter-day Saints, the only people on earth who are sustaining his prophet father in the glorious work he was instrumental in founding. It is sad to know that he so delights in constantly going out of his way to gather lies about them, and items inimical to their interests; and that he is so viciously eager to grasp and print any evil report, from what- ever unreliable source he can, warping and construing it to their injury. Such actions are not manly, honest nor profitable; and for very shame Joseph Smith should be the last man on earth to tolerate or encourage them.