But he had taken up a new cross and he had his reward. The first night
after they reached home he took the little Bible from its hiding-place
and opened it with trembling hands. The stain was there, red in the
candle-light. But the cries no longer rang in his ears as on that other
night when he had been sinful before the page. And he was glad, knowing
that the self within him had again been put down.

Then came strange news from the East--news of a great civil war. The
troops of the enemy at Camp Floyd hurried east to battle, and even the
name of that camp was changed, for the Gentile Secretary of War, said
gossip from Salt Lake City, after doing his utmost to cripple his
country by sending to far-off Utah the flower of its army, had now
himself become not only a rebel but a traitor.

Even Johnston, who had commanded the invading army, denouncing the
Saints as rebels, had put off his blue uniform for a gray and was
himself a rebel.

When the news came that South Carolina had actually flung the palmetto
flag to the breeze and fired the first gun, he was inclined to exult.
For plainly it was the Lord's work. There was His revelation given to
Joseph Smith almost thirty years before: "Verily, thus saith the Lord
concerning the wars that will come to pass, beginning at the rebellion
of South Carolina." And ten years later the Lord had revealed to Joseph
further concerning this prophecy that this war would be "previous to the
coming of the Son of Man." Assuredly, they were now near the time when
other Prophets of the Church had said He would come--the year 1870. He
thrilled to be so near the actual moving of the hand of God, and
something of the old spirit revived within him.

From Salt Lake City came news of the early fighting and of meetings for
public rejoicing held in the tabernacle, with prophecies that the
Gentile nation would now be rent asunder in punishment for its rejection
of the divine message of the Book of Mormon and its persecution of the
prophets of God. In one of these meetings of public thanksgiving Brigham
had said from the tabernacle pulpit: "What is the strength of this man
Lincoln? It is like a rope of sand. He is as weak as water,--an
ignorant, Godless shyster from the backwoods of Illinois. I feel
disgraced in having been born under a government that has so little
power for truth and right. And now it will be broken in pieces like a
potter's vessel."

These public rejoicings, however, brought a