# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 07 31_S198
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

198

to rest for a longer or shorter time, out of which later, under their diligent hands, little towns arose, built of wooden houses. Their artisans and farmers always at once resumed their occupations. Nevertheless they had much to suffer on this march, and especially in the summer of 1846. Many succumbed to the want of provisions and to the sunstroke on the bare steppe. Unhealthy regions also bred fever and scurvy. Even now, therefore, hundreds of graves mark the way they took. Yet they did not let their courage sink. They knew how to steel themselves in quite various ways. Every day several hours were devoted to general "edification." As soon as evening fell, all ordinary conversation was silent, spiritual (?) songs resounded, and then one heard the thousand-voiced murmur of their prayer. At the very least as great a comfort seemed to be afforded them by the little balls, in which the apostles and elders of the church also took part, and by a full band of music, obtained in England through one of their most eloquent preachers. This latter, arrived in good time for the dedication of the temple, now had to take the place of the bells also on Sundays, and with fiddles, flutes, trombones, horns and hautboys to call the multitude together. — The winter of '46 to '47 was still a very hard one for this migration. Before the beginning of spring, however, 143 chosen men, with 70 wagons, led by Brigham Young himself and by several members of the "high council," set out for the last time to journey toward their goal. They took agricultural implements and grain, but otherwise little baggage, and as regards their food relied exclusively upon their rifles, with which they also repulsed several attacks of roving Indians. At the time when the ordinary emigration to California now reaches the Missouri, they had already left behind them the South Pass, one of the three great gates in the Rocky Mountains, and although they still had an uncommonly difficult way to make through the mountains, they arrived nevertheless in good season, without having lost a man, in the region of the Utah Indians, where they settled permanently on the exceedingly fertile shores of the Great Salt Lake, in order to put in their land in time for the harvest of the next autumn, for which purpose the ground was first formally blessed. During the summer the main body of about 4000 with 566 wagons followed them. In the autumn a company of soldiers belonging to them, who had helped in the conquest of California, joined them. Soon afterward came fellow-believers from the natives of the Sandwich Islands.

In the spring and summer of '48, finally, almost all the Mormons still tarrying on the Missouri followed in numerous companies, so that in the next year they could already organize themselves into a Territory according to the laws of the United States. Since then immigration has gone on without interruption from the States, where now only a few Mormons are left, and from other parts of the world, especially from England, where in 1850 they counted about 40,000 members, as indeed their history since this settlement has otherwise been an almost unbroken chain of outwardly fortunate events. Even the California gold fever, which broke out among them and greatly threatened the young colony, had to bring advantage to the whole body under the direction of the "prophet," in that those who were granted leave for a time must give up the greater part of the gold they won for the purpose of making it possible for the poor in England and Wales to make the journey to the "new Jerusalem."

With the neighboring Indians the "the Saints of the last days" now get along better than in the beginning. Their first settlement took place on the "war-grounds" of various tribes, that is, on neutral ground belonging to no one in particular. But when they spread farther to the north and south, the Indians believed their rights of property to be infringed, and especially the Utahs sought to preserve these by force. In 1850 war was resolved upon against them, which turned out to the advantage of the Mormons. A number of prisoners which the latter had taken was massacred when they refused to lay down their arms. In the next year another campaign against the Utahs was held to be necessary, which again turned out to the advantage of the Mormons. The prisoners now taken, mostly women and children, were at first well content with the good reception; but when an attempt was made to civilize them formally, they fled back to the mountains.

According to the Book of Mormon the Indians are descendants of the Lamanites, and a people indeed fallen away from the true God and degenerate, but by no means wholly removed from mercy. Once converted by the "Saints of the last days," they will be restored again to their inheritance, yes, transformed into a nation of beautiful appearance and white skin. Thus far all preaching among the Indians seems to have brought to Mormon baptism only a brother of a chief, a notorious horse-thief.

The present capital of the Mormons, the new Jerusalem, situated on the Salt Lake and the "Sea of Tiberias," and near the "Jordan of the West," numbered last spring about 12,000 inhabitants, occupies an area of 4 square miles, and is provided with buildings like those they possessed in Nauvoo. At the university, which pursues the study of languages with particular vigor, German also is taught, since they doubtless hope that the time will cease when in Germany, as has happened until now, their emissaries are forbidden by the authorities to preach. In the middle of the city a vast square is left free, upon which they purpose to build, of the red sandstone of the mountains at Red Butte, a temple, "greater and fairer than the world has seen, and yielding in splendor and extent only to that which the church will one day erect, when God leads His people home to Missouri, where, according to the prophecy of Joseph the Seer, near Independence, Jackson Co., the true Zion of the thousand years' kingdom is to arise." — From this mother colony four others have branched off in recent years, and little towns, which are rapidly increasing, have arisen along a line of 200 miles' extent, from Bor Elder Creek in the north to the little Salt Lake in the south, and from there to San Diego. Where the Sinora Nevada turns, a ranch has been bought and changed into a station, which several more are soon to follow, until a chain of posts is established to the shore of the Pacific Ocean, in order thus to facilitate intercourse with the "congregations" on the Sandwich Islands.

(To be continued.)

Invitation to Subscribe

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"Lutherbuch,"

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Life and Deeds

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The printing of this little book is now being begun. It should really have appeared already this month, but several circumstances intervened to hinder and delay it. Yet the publication of this work is now being pushed with all zeal, and if the Lord grants His blessing to it further, it will be in everyone's hands by the 25th of September, the jubilee of the Peace of Augsburg. This little work might therefore well be suitable as a festival gift. For on that festival the Ev. Lutheran Church thanks the LORD that He has so gloriously and wonderfully delivered her from the tyranny of the Pope and of all her oppressors, and has granted her the precious jewel of full freedom of religion. What is more natural than that we should then also think of the man of God through whom the blessed light of the Gospel has risen again to the nations and to us also? It goes without saying that we shall then praise and magnify God also for the salvation, the pure doctrine, the glorious liberty, the so blessed comfort of grace, and for all the unspeakable benefits which God has let fall to our share through the glorious work of the Reformation.

Nevermore, then, can we forget the man whom God chose as His instrument to lead us out of the Babylonian captivity of popery, and to set us again in possession of the goods of salvation which Christ has won for us. Ah, how dreadful would be our lot if we still had to sigh under the yoke of the Roman Antichrist! No one can find peace in the papistic doctrine. For though one do all that the Roman priests recommend him for the blotting out of his sins, though one worship all the saints, try everything with masses, ear-confessions, pilgrimages, fasts, indulgences and