MARVELOUS GROWTH OF THE CHURCH
I decline to accept the statements of such a character; besides, President Young did not lead the Church to hell, but preserved it, and under his direction it grew, expanded, and accomplished a wonderful, even a miraculous work. In the reclamation of the arid west, the permanent establishment of prosperous communities in the desert wilds, and for their unity, strength, and industrial and temporal independence, the "Mormon" people are today the marvel, if not the admiration of the thinking world. They came here with nothing but the good will of God. They began in poverty, and "having almost nothing to invest," says Mr. William E. Symthe in The Conquest of Arid America, "except the labor of their hands and brains, and that all they have expended in a period of fifty years for all classes of improvements—from the first shanty to the last turret of the last temple—came primarily from the soil."
Again he says in the same work: