owed the revival of
those Godward-tending instincts implanted in man's heart by the hand of
the Creator. It favored the resurrection to life of the natural
religious affections, and the revival of those holy longings and
aspirations after a higher life and a grander destiny than earth can
give, which arise so spontaneously in the breasts of men. It allowed the
better self to rise and assert its power, while it shamed the evil self
into the shade. And often, when away beyond the sight of man or of human
habitation, amidst the eternal silence and the boundless solitude, I had
strange thoughts and strange feelings; and there were times when, if I
had yielded to the impulses from within, I should have cast myself down
upon the ground, and adored the Great Mysterious Infinite.

On one occasion I went, in company with my youngest son and a friend,
some distance into the interior of the country. At one point we came
upon a deserted and decaying Indian village, and then upon an Indian
track across the desert. A little further on we struck a Mormon track,
along which a company of the Latter-day saints had groped their way
towards their promised Paradise in the Salt Lake Valley. As we followed
the track we came upon a mound, and then upon another, marking the spots
where worn-out travellers had ended their weary pilgrimages, and been
consigned, amid the desolate wilds, to their final resting places. Into
one of these unprotected graves the wolves had made their way, to feed
upon the fallen victim of the new faith. When night came on it found us
in these dreary and desolate wilds, and there we had to prepare to pass
the night under the open sky, with multitudes of wolves around us. We
had hardly spread our blankets when the sky was covered with black and
heavy clouds, and lightnings flashed, and thunders roared, and
everything betokened a night of storm and rain. We protected ourselves
against the threatening elements as well as we could, and prepared
ourselves for cold and drenching showers, and for a sleepless and
troubled night, when, happily for us, the wind suddenly changed, and
dissipated the clouds. The stars came out in all their glory, and the
night was calm and bright, and all we had to try our patience was a
little frost. And there I slept; and there I often awoke; and in my
intervals of wakefulness I gazed on the magnificence of the outspread
skies, and mused on the dreariness of the surrounding wilderness, and
thought