rs about him had been
fired with his spirit, and when he sat down each of them arose in turn
and echoed his words, denouncing the people for their sins and exhorting
them to repentance.

After another hour of this excitement, priests and people became alike
demoralised, and the meeting broke up in a confusion of terror.

As the doors of the tabernacle flew open, and the Saints pushed out of
that stifling atmosphere of denunciation, a cry came to the lips of the
dozen that first escaped:

"To the river--the waters of baptism!"

The words were being taken up by others until the cry had run back
through the crowd to the leaders, still talking in excited groups about
the pulpit. These comprehended when they heard it, and straightway a
line of conscience-stricken Saints was headed toward the river.

There in the icy Jordan, on that chill December afternoon, when the
snows lay thick on the ground, the leaders stood and buried the sinful
ones anew in the cleansing waters. From the sinners themselves came
cries of self-accusation; from the crowd on the banks came the strains
of hymns to fortify them for the icy ordeal and the public confession.

There in the freezing current stood Joel Rae until long after the
December sun had gone below the Oquirrh hills, performing his office of
baptism, and reviving hope in those his words had smitten with fear.

His strength already depleted by the long march with the hand-cart party
and by the exhausting strain of the day, he was early chilled by the
water into which he plunged the repentant sinners. For the last hour
that he stood in the stream, his whole body was numb; he had ceased to
feel life in his feet, and his arms worked with a mechanical stiffness
like the arms of some automaton over which his mind had control.

For there was no numbness as yet in his mind. It was wonderfully clear
and active. He had begun a great work. His words had been words of fire,
and the flames of them had spread so that in a little while every sinner
in Zion should burn in them and be purified. Even the leaders--a great
wave of exultation surged through him at this thought--even Brigham had
felt the glow, and henceforth would be a fiercer Lion of the Lord to
resist the Godless Gentile.

Long after sensation had left his body his thoughts were rushing in this
fever of realisation, while his chilled hands made new in the Kingdom
such sinners as came there repenting.

Not until night fell did the