Some Men Who Have Done Things: XI. Orson F. Whitney

Some Men Who Have Done Things. BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS' UNIVERSITY. XL— Orson F. Whitney, WHO, DISCOVERING HIMSELF AT TWENTY-ONE, HAS SPENT THE REST OF HIS FIFTY-FIVE YEARS IN POINTING OUT THE LONGER AND THE PLEASANT AVENUES IN "MORMONISM." Orson F. Whitney has neither built a railroad, nor established a canning factory, nor invented a rapid calculator, nor got for- tune and place out of the stock exchange or the butter trust, nor even founded a society of anybody's sons or daughters. All he has done, if one could allow the Practical Man to put it, is to make new phrases, to coin words. And yet a hundred chances to one when the Man-with-the- Scythe is endeavoring painfully to recall the name of him who built this railroad or factory, or invented that machine which turns bran and sawdust into bright' five dollar gold pieces, Whitney's name will come fresh to his lips, ready to drop off any minute into the vocal word. Such* havoc does Father Time work with our poor balances and measuring-rods! And why? Because, if we must confess it, machines, fac- tories, railways, whatnot, necessary though they are, do but sat- isfy a lower want in us, a transitory desire, whereas the poetic and the eloquent word ministers to a higher craving, speaks to the thing in us that abides, heartens us to endure these mere bread- and-butter implements. The poet, the preacher, the writer, the artist, the sculptor the musician — these we must measure by something other than the commercial foot-rule. They shine by their own light, and not by the glint of mica. Fortunate we are that we have them, and we pay ourselves a high compliment when,

SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 1015 in our harum-scarum chase after things that perish, we pause long enough to pay our toll of admiration and praise, as all "Mormondom" does to this man. In eighty years, only four men stand out as great preachers of the New Dispensation, and, singularly enough, all four have won laurels almost equally as writers and speakers. • Whatever "Mormonism" may hereafter produce in oral and written exposi- tors of the Word, the names of these four will be easily distin- guished from all the rest in this period. Not that the rest are inconspicuous. We have had pioneers and colonizers, editors and educators, financiers and spiritual guides, all of whom have done signal work in the department of activity which they have chosen. All of these, too, with hundreds of others, have engaged in preaching. Nevertheless, we have had, thus far, only four great preachers, men in whom was the gift of expression in an eminent degree. Of these four, not the least is -Orson F Whitney. And, like his companions in the group, he wears two laurel wreaths — one given by the muse, the other by the god of the spoken word. This is rare. Elsewhere than among the Latter-day Saints, the preacher is not commonly a poet or man of letters. Not often do ministers take to the pen. Neither does the poet or man of letters often exercise the gift of Demosthenes. One never thinks of Bryant or Longfellow as public speakers. On the other hand, Webster and Henry Ward Beecher did not write any poetry. Doubtless all this is true not because there is any unfriend- liness between the tongue and the pen, but rather because there is not the demand otherwhere for public speaking on the part of the writer that there is with us. Moreover, compared with at least two of the group in which I have placed Orson F. Whitney, his total output in writings and addresses is larger. As a poet, he is far and away the first in our eighty -years, whether we consider the level of his art or the bulk of his work. Time was with Orson F. Whitney when he had not thought that his gift lay in writing, and when standing on his feet to speak was both a painful and an uncertain operation. This was as late as his twenty-second year. Hence the youth who does not know whether he has a gift or what it is, need not lose heart. In "Mormondom" there is not much chance that gems will lie

1016 IMPROVEMENT ERA. hidden in caves of ocean, dark and serene, nor that the flower will waste its sweetness on the desert air. Something will happen to bring the gem into the glimmer of the sunshine. Some breeze will waft the perfume of the flower to an appreciative nostril. Only, there must be an awakening, perhaps, as there was in Orson F. Whitney's case. At all events, the youthful Whitney was not so eloquent as he has since become. "I cannot look back on my first attempts at debating," he told me, "without a feeling of pain. Almost any of the boys with whom I associated were better speak- ers than I." That was at the Zeta Gamma Society, an organiza- tion which Orson was partly instrumental in effecting, and at which the boys sharpened their wits on one another. An incident in his early missionary work is to the same effect. He was called upon to speak at a public meeting. "The 'Mormon' elders," he said, "were unlike any other preachers, in that they always depended on the Holy Spirit for guidance in their utterance in the pulpit." This was all he could think of, so he kept repeating this as greatly anxious to make the point. That the point was made became painfully evident next morning when he read in the daily paper this irreverent account of his sermon: "Elder Whitney told his audience last evening that the 'Mormon' elders always depended on the Holy Spirit for their sermons. If so, the Holy Spirit was sadly negligent in young Whitney's case!" Here surely is a far cry from the debating society and the missionary field to the tabernacle and the lecture platform. By what means did Apostle Whitney ascend from the one place to the other? In the path he followed are strewn some fine lessons for the Latter-day Saint youth who wishes to get along in writing and speaking. Until he was twenty-one his darling passion was for music and the drama. The story of how he was turned from a longing for the stage is interesting and instructive. The histrionic bent, however it came in the first place, was cultivated by the Wasatch Literary Society. That was in his school days. The boys got together, read, essays they had written, shouted and declaimed, till the very welkin rang. Orson seemed more apt at disturbing the echoes up there in the welkin, than in writing or debating, and so, very naturally, thought his destiny pointed stageward.

SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 1017 Anyway, he importuned his parents to let him follow that career, and his mother, failing to turn his inclination, finally told him that if she could sell a certain piece of land, she would give him two hun- dred dollars to take him to New York. So his hopes and imagination took a sudden bound. He saw himself, doubtless, snatching fame before the Gotham footlights and then coming home to the Salt Lake theatre and proving his choice of a profession. The young folks, too, gave him a huge send-off. But he had reckoned with- out his host, as the saying is. His mother could not sell the land! The Whitney family had almost abandoned i heir vocations in the long hunt for a buyer. But all the buyers had taken to the woods. So the young declaimer, disappointed and saddened, gave up his ambition for the stage. No, that is not correct. He only post- poned it, as he thought at the time. I have a grave suspicion that, had Orson F. Whitney gone upon the stage, he would not have stayed with it long, or rather, on it. His mind is naturally creative, and creative minds are not content merely to reproduce the thoughts of others. Young Whitney would have turned to play-writing. There is no doubt about it. Only, though, this is by the way. Soon ofter this, Orson was called on a mission to the United States. A second time was the land brought into requisition, this time as a means of sending him to his field of labor. Immediately it was sold! This should have been a sign to the young man that his destiny did not point to the footlights. But it was not. The fact is that at this particular time he was somewhat indifferent to religion. He was not sure that he wanted to go. Not that he was not, even then, spiritually-minded. His is pre-eminently the spiritual type of mind. But his spiritual energy was absorbed in his supposed calling. Neverthess he went. As with hundreds of others, so with Orson F. Whitney— a mission was the turning point in his career. Only, in his case, it was more pronounced. And it came about in this way: He was "laboring" in the state of Pennsylvania with Elder A. Milton Musser. But he had little interest in his work. Having visited some historic places in the East, he engaged to write them up for the Salt Lake Herald, and these articles occupied his attention. Meantime, Elder Musser was endeavor-

1018 IMPROVEMENT ERA. ing to awaken his interest in his missionary duties. But a dream accomplished what his companion had failed to do. "I thought I was in the Garden of Gethsemane," he told me, "a witness of the Savior's agony. I seemed to be standing be- hind a tree in the foreground of the picture, from which point I could see without being seen. The Savior, with the Apostles Peter, James and John, entered the garden through a little wicket gate at my right, where he stationed them in a group, telling them to pray. He then passed over to my left, but still in front of me, where he also knelt down and prayed. His face, which was toward me, streamed with tears, as he besought the Father to let the cup pass, and added, 'Not my will, but thine be done.' Hav- ing finished his prayer, he arose and crossed to where the Apos- tles were kneeling, fast asleep. He shook them gently, they awoke, and he reproached them for their apathy. Again he bade them pray, and again crossed to his place and prayed, returning as before to find them sleeping. This happened three times, until I was perfectly familiar with his face, form, and movements. My heart went out to him, and 1 loved him with all my soul. "Suddenly the circumstances changed, though the scene remained the same. Instead of before the crucifixion, it was after. The Savior and the three apostles now stood in a group at my left, and were about to take their departure to heaven. I could endure it no longer, but rushed out from behind the tree, fell at his feet, clasped him around the knees and begged him to take me also. With a look of infinite tenderness, he stooped, lifted me, and embraced me, saying, in the kindest and gentlest manner, 'No, my son, these can go with me, for they have finished their work; but you must stay and finish yours!' I besought him, then, to let me come to him at the last. There was a look on his face as if he would gladly have granted my request had it been wise. 'That will depend,' he said, 'entirely upon yourself.' " From that moment Orson slept no more at his post, but looked upon his missionary work as his first duty. A series of miraculous experiences and a great spiritual illumination, for none of which is there space here, rooted him forever in the truth. He knew then that his mission in life was to preach the gospel by

SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 1019 tongue and pen, and that any other calling would be a mere baga- telle by comparison. After this he found himself alone at Elyria, a town near Oberlin, Ohio. A good sister there proposed to gather whomso- ever she could of the neighbors at her house and have a meeting. Elder Whitney protested that he could not preach! '"What!" the sister cried, "y°u a missionary come out here to preach and not willing to do it?" Tha'j settled the matter. The young man went before the Lord and besought him for divine aid. And the Lord heard his prayer. For that evening he occupied the entire time, speaking with great fluency. After that he had little difficulty in public speaking. Orson F. Whitney has the gift of oratory. There is no doubt about that. Else why have not hundreds of other elders in the Church, with the same or even more practice, exhibited the same power of oral utterance? It was not in them, to begin with. It was in him. That's the difference. Yet he employed definite means looking toward the perfection of his power. I have heard that the Bishop, in his younger days before he was a bishop, used to practice on the trees and the rocks in the lonely canyon. This sounds so extremely probable that I have not attempted to verify the statement. He told me distinctly that he had his "barn- storming period." Three characteristics have greatly aided the development of this gift. In the first place, he has extraordinary powers of con- centration of mind. Even as a small boy this was of unusual strength. In the school-room he could keep his attention on a book, to the total exclusion of any amount of varying noises. And the fact attracted the notice of his teacher to the extent that she pre- dicted for him a great future. The possession of this quality is itself a long step towards mental power. Then, too, his mind is creative, and abhors the adoption of the ready-made phrase. He prefers his phrases made to order. Not only his poetry, but his addresses and sermons, abound in original dynamic and beautiful phraseology. He is pre-eminently a maker of phrases. Lastly, he is endowed with a phenomenal verbal memory. Words and combination of words, once entering his capacious mind, lodge. He

1020 IMPROVEMENT ERA. will recall the exact wording of letters, documents, poems, whose very thought would have escaped most other even strong minds, and that after the lapse of many years. I have known but one other person with such a verbal memory. Now, in spite of the fact that Henry Ward Beecher could never quote anything exactly, in other words, had an extremely poor verbal memory, yet I think we might set it down as a general truth that a strong memory for words is indispensable to the orator. These three characteristics, I think, — concentration, originality, and a good verbal memory — give us the secret of Orson F. Whitney's success as a preacher. The way he picked up writing is harder to account for. No doubt here too he had a gift. Or rather he turned his oratorical gift to the pen. Essentially, I cannot but think, the gift of the writer and the gift of the speaker are one and not two. The one could easily become the other, and will, unless there happens some- thing to divide them, to atrophy one of them. Macaulay is a singu- lar example of this fact. He was greater as an orator than as a writer. So that no doubt in Mr. Whitney's case of writing, it was merely an oratorical gift expressing itself through the pen. Or to reverse the order, the poet sometimes expressed himself by means of the tongue. Bat here, too, there must have been the same diligent applications of means to an end. The same care for the original phrase manifested itself. But those descriptive articles for the Salt Lake Herald appear to have been not only the beginning but likewise the impulse to continue. For they attracted the keen eye of President Brigham Young, and incited him to write to the young missionary encouraging him to cultivate his gift so that he might be useful in spreading the gospel of the kingdom. In this incident, by the way, we get a fine side light on the varied character of President Young, a man of the people, who knew what was going on and saw more than one thing at a time. The same letter contained this extremely wise bit of advice: "Never condescend to argue with the wicked. The principles of the gospel are too sacred to be quarrelled over. Bear your testimony in humility and leave the result with the Lord." To use a gift in building up the kingdom of God, that is Orson F. Whitney's motto. Naturally he would do this, once take for granted his conversion to the truth. He is a product of "Mor-

From a photo taken in Oardston, Canada, August, 1906 ORSON F. WHITNEY, Of the Quorum' of Twelve Apostles.

1022 IMPROVEMENT ERA. monism." His every thought and emotion has its roots deep down in his religious faith. All that he has said, whether by the pen or by the tongue, takes its rise in "Mormonism." There is no need to go outside for material. Only in "Mormonism" could there be found another theme as great as "Paradise Lost." Here is a big lesson for the "Mormon" writer. At present the pro- fession of letters with us is in a sad state. If one writes for the "Mormon" public alone, there is no bread in the larder. If one writes for the larger public of the nation or the world, one has to abandon distinctly "M )rmon" themes, unless these are disguised beyond all recognition. And so the "Mormon" writer must ever steer between Scylla and Charybdis. But that way lies in the direc- tion our poet-preacher has pointed in "Elias." One has to do one's best work and leave the event to Providence and the critics. And so, to some extent, with the preacher. In "Mormonism," Apostle Whitney thinks, the preacher has limitless possibilities in theme and opportunity, for its development and presentation. "The gospel," he told me, "must be preached to all men, not alone the poor and unschooled, but also to the rich and scholarly. And we need all sorts of men to do this work. Hitherto we have done our proselyting among the so-called middle classes. But the gospel will have to be presented to the so-called high born, the aristocracy of the blood and the mind. They, too, must be left without excuse. But we must have a different class of preachers from the otherwise very excellent Welshman who sent a bundle of tracts to Mr. Gladstone, with the explanatory letter: "Here is some trax, read them, for they are fax!" We must have scientific preachers to preach the gospel scientifically; poetic preach- ers to preach it poetically; philosophical preachers to preach it phil- osophically. There are innumerable opportunities open before the preacher. Time is crowding upon us. We must reach the educated and cultured classes through preachers who are themselves cul- tured and educated."