This was a remarkable exode, in respect to its numbers, the motives by which they were stimulated, and the admirable manner in which it was effected; but it is still more remarkable, in a country where a ceaseless tide of emigration has been for years, and still is, surging from the east to the west, under no greater stimulus than the love of change or hope of gain, that this particular case should be singled out as "not paralleled in the history of mankind since Moses led the Israelites from Egypt." In fact, the task was comparatively an easy one. The whole history of Mormonism is a continuing illustration of the prodigious power of religious fanaticism over the mind. It required no greater effort to induce the Mormons to remove from Nauvoo to Salt Lake than from their previous homes to the gathering-place of the Saints for the time, nor so great, because the concentrated enthusiasm of the multitude easily sways and carries along individual minds. There was skill and good management in details, which enabled large masses to emigrate in safety; but the way had been fully explored. Thousands of families had previously, in small bands, performed the tedious journey to Oregon, without the stimulus of religious enthusiasm, running the gauntlet of Indian hostilities under far more discouraging circumstances, and strewing the interminable road with frequent evidences of suffering and mortality. The Mormons accomplished one half of this journey in bands too powerful to be molested by Indians, united by the same. religious faith, and under the control and direction of a single will.

Perhaps the traveler who threads his way over the

same journey, breathes the same pure, joyous, bracing air, hunts the same game, and gazes upon the same spreading plains and cloud-capped mountains, may not be able to see and appreciate the peculiar wonders with which the Mormons' pilgrimage may be legitimately invested. The Saints, however, are exceedingly fond of the marvelous. In their eyes it was a flight into the wilderness from a storm of religious persecution, and was attended with uncommon dangers, and surrounded with uncommon protection. If the cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night, were not actually visible to mortal sight, they were no less really present, and the exode and its results were attended with miracles and wonders. On the arrival of Brigham Young with the first presidency in the valley, he was too sick to be able to rise from his carriage-bed; but when the party reached a particular spot, he became suddenly restored, rose up, and, directing attention to the top of a high mountain peak, proclaimed that he had in vision seen the prophet, Joseph Smith, standing there, pointing down to the spot then occupied by them as the site of the future Temple. It is needless to say that this place is Temple Block, on which the sacred edifice is now being built.

The year 1848 was one of privation and suffering prior to the maturing of the growing crops. Among other discouraging incidents, a curious kind of "cricket" made its appearance in myriads, manifesting all the destructive properties of the locust of Eastern countries. All vegetation was swept clean before its frightful progress as effectually as the grass before the scorching fury of a prairie conflagration, and the crops

put in with so much toil, and on which so much depended, were fast disappearing. Suddenly, however, flocks of white gulls floated over the mountain tops, with healing in their wings, and stayed this withering destruction by feasting upon the destroyer. It is no matter for wonder that the leaders should place this in the list of miraculous interpositions in their favor, nor that the mass of the Saints should implicitly believe that the gulls were hatched into sudden maturity for the occasion; but it is a little strange that one, of the evident intelligence of Colonel Kane, should speak of these fowl as "before strangers to the valley."

The crickets and the gulls have been annual visitors since, as they were before, the bane and the antidote together; and the Mormons have been able to raise enough to supply not only their own wants, but a surplus for the emigrants to California and Oregon.

After the pioneer company reached Salt Lake Valley, and commenced a permanent settlement, another address was issued to the Saints all over the world. This address is very long, and embraces a great variety of subjects relative to the gathering of the Saints in their mountain Zion. The design of Brigham Young did not end in merely escaping from persecution—it had been foreshadowed by William Smith—it was to found an independent state; and this address develops the comprehensiveness of the plan. The Saints were not only required to assemble at the common centre, but to come provided for all possible emergencies. The following will be sufficient to give the reader an idea of its scope and compass:

"And to all the Saints in any country bordering