--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Hickman, J. E. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 16 number: 7 published: 1913-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Hickman, J. E., "Midnight on the Desert," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 7 (May 1913): 683.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1607unse 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: improvementera1607unse start_page: 683 end_page: 683 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1607unse publication_year: 1913 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 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Midnight on the Desert Midnight on the Desert BY J. E. HICKMAN, A. M. Tis mid-night's restful hour. The Desert's withering breath is cooled and softened into a gentle evening zephyr. It comes like a benediction to the Desert's children and the passing stranger. There is no whir of myriad insect life, no call from the night-bird, no baying of the distant watch-dog; for the children of the Desert are few, and they are resting from the day's sweltering heat. The night is as silent as a tomb. The only sound comes from the munching of my tired, horses. Night's blue curtain is drawn snugly down over the western horizon. The plain is lurid in the moonless air. The mountains are too far away to •be beetling in their heights, yet near enough that their dark silhouettes jut out like sentinels into the blue canopy. From without the darkness, away on the mountainside, comes the lonesome, yet startling cry of a wolf, — the Arab of the desert, It was a tenor solo. Then from the hundred voices, coming from every direction, rang out a coyote chorus. Some voices were filled with sadness, long drawn out and wailing ; others with tones short and tremolo ; still others were sharp and breaking, with a complaining element running through every cry. It was their mid-night hymn of praise to the Spirit of the Desert. This lasted for only a few minutes, and closed as suddenly as it began. Again solitude reigned. Never before had the lonesome howl of a roving wolf filled me with such grandeur. My soul was lifted into the realm of the sublime, for I had heard primitive nature, in the language of creation's mourn, uttering her wild emotions. Lifting my eyes, and sweeping the heavens with my vision, I beheld the stellar universes of God. Some of the stars shone with splendid brilliancy, while others just trembled into sight, like some faint wave struggling to reach a far off land, and dying as it touches the shore. Still beyond lay the Milky Way whose dust-like path is made of myriads of glowing suns. I longed to read the book of night and interpret its hidden mysteries, thought of that celestial world, enthroned somewhere away off in the galaxies of stars, which holds in rhythmic harmony the unnumbered worlds. I could conceive of the yibrant force of Elohim's will, being sent throughout the etherial deeps, carrying his message to beings whose souls were attuned with his eternal fiat. Feeling all this, and more, I cried, "O God, put me in harmony with the Infinite."