were, unfortunately, multitudinous differences between
the Mormons and Americans at the East, besides the hours they kept.

"You find us," said he, "trying to live peaceably. A sojourn with people
thus minded must be a great relief to you, who come from a land where
brother hath lifted hand against brother, and you hear the confused
noise of the warrior perpetually ringing in your ears."

Despite the courtly deference and Scriptural dignity of this speech, I
detected in it a latent crow over that "perished Union" which was the
favorite theme of every saint I met in Utah, and hastened to assure the
President that I had no desire for relief from sympathy with my
country's struggle for honor and existence.

"Ah!" he replied, in a voice slightly tinged with sarcasm. "You differ
greatly, then, from multitudes of your countrymen, who, since the draft
began to be talked of, have passed through Salt Lake, flying westward
from the crime of their brothers' blood."

"I do indeed."

"Still, they are excellent men. Brother Heber Kimball and myself are
every week invited to address a train of them down at Emigrant Square.
They are honest, peaceful people. You call them 'Copperheads,' I
believe. But they are real, true, good men. We find them very
truth-seeking, remarkably open to conviction. Many of them have stayed
with us. Thus the Lord makes the wrath of man to praise Him. The
Abolitionists--the same people who interfered with our institutions, and
drove us out into the wilderness--interfered with the Southern
institutions till they broke up the Union. But it's all coming out
right,--a great deal better than we could have arranged it for
ourselves. The men who flee from Abolitionist oppression come out here
to our ark of refuge, and people the asylum of God's chosen. You'll all
be out here before long. Your Union's gone forever. Fighting only makes
matters worse. When your country has become a desolation, we, the saints
whom you cast out, will forget all your sins against us, and give you a
home."

There was something so preposterous in the idea of a mighty and
prosperous people abandoning, through abject terror of a desperate set
of Southern conspirators, the fertile soil and grand commercial avenues
of the United States, to populate a green strip in the heart of an
inaccessible desert, that, until I saw Brigham Young's face glowing with
what he deemed prophetic enthusiasm, I could not imagine him in earnest.
Before I left