he satisfaction of his people."

A few greed-stung Saints persisted in leaving in the face of this
friendly admonition. Then the Lion of the Lord roared: "Let such men
remember that they are not wanted in our midst. Let them leave their
carcasses where they do their work. We want not our burying-grounds
polluted with such hypocrites. Let the souls of them go down to hell,
poverty-stricken and naked, and lie there until they are burned out like
an old pipe!" The defections ceased from that moment, and Zion was
preserved intact. Brigham was satisfied. If he could hold them together
under the alluring tales of gold-finds that were brought over the
mountains, he had no longer any fear that they might fall away under
mere physical hardship. And he held them,--the supreme test of his power
over the bodies and minds of his people.

This passing of the gold-seekers was not, however, a blessing without
drawbacks. For the Saints had hoped to wax strong unobserved,
unmolested, forgotten, in this mountain retreat. But now obscurity could
no longer be their lot. The hated Gentiles had again to be reckoned
with.

First, the United States had expanded on the west to include their
territory--the fruit of the Mexican War--the poor bleak desert they were
making to blossom. Next, the government at Washington had sent to
construe and administer their laws men who were aliens from the
Commonwealth of Israel. True, Millard Fillmore had appointed Brigham
governor of the new Territory--but there were chief justices and
associate justices, secretaries, attorneys, marshals, and Indian agents
from the wicked and benighted East; men who frankly disbelieved that the
voice of Brigham was as the voice of God, and who did not hesitate to
let their heresy be known. A stream of these came and went--
trouble-mongers who despised and insulted the Saints, and returned to
Washington with calumnies on their lips. It was true that Brigham had
continued, as was right, to be the only power in the Territory; but the
narrow-minded appointees of the Federal government persisted in
misconstruing this circumstance; refusing to look upon it as the just
mark of Heaven's favour, and declaring it to be the arrogance of a mere
civil usurper.

Under such provocation Joel Rae longed more than ever to be a Lion of
the Lord, for those above him in the Church endured too easily, he
considered, the indignities that were put upon them by these
evil-minded Gentile politicia