s of the Kingdom and instigated theatrical
performances to distract their minds. He was bland and bullying by
turns; affable and gruff; jocose and solemn--always what he thought
their fainting spirits needed. He was feared and loved--feared first.
They learned to dread the iron of his hand and the steel of his
heart--the dauntless spirit of him that left them no longer their own
masters, yet kept them loving their bondage. Through the dreadful cold
and famine, the five thousand of them ceased not to pray nor lost their
faith--their great faith that they had been especially favoured of God
and were at the last to be saved alone from the wreck of the world.

The efforts of Brigham to put heart into the people were ably seconded
by Joel Rae. He was loved like Brigham, but not feared. He preached like
Brigham submission to the divine will as interpreted by the priesthood,
but he was more extravagant than Brigham in his promises of blessings in
store for them. He never resorted to vagueness in his pictures of what
the Lord was about to do for them. He was literal and circumstantial to
a degree that made Brigham and the older men in authority sometimes
writhe in public and chide him in private. They were appalled at the
sweeping victories he promised the Saints over the hated Gentiles at an
early day. They suggested, too, that the Lord might withhold an
abundance from them for a few years until He had more thoroughly tried
them. But their counsel seemed only to inflame him to fresh absurdities.
In the very days of their greatest scarcity that winter, when almost
every man was dressed in skins, and the daily fare was thistle roots, he
declared to them at a Sunday service:

"A time of plenty is at hand--of great plenty. I cannot tell you how I
know these things. I do not know how they come to me. I pray--and they
come to life in my spirit; that is how I have found this fact: in less
than a year States-goods of all needed kinds will be sold here cheaper
than they can be bought in Eastern cities. You shall have an abundance
at prices that will amaze you."

And the people thrilled to hear him, partaking of his faith, remembering
the gulls that ate the crickets, and the rain and wind that came to save
the pioneer train from fire. To the leaders such prophesying was merely
reckless, inviting further chastisements from heaven, and calculated to
cause a loss of faith in the priesthood.

And yet, wild as it was, they saw this latter