CHAPTER VI.
THE GATHERING OF THE TITANS—HEBER'S TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH AND THE TWELVE—THEIR MIGHTY MISSION—THE TEST OF FAITH—ZION'S CAMP.
Joseph, Brigham and Heber together in Kirtland! By what strange fatality were these mighty lives thus interwoven? We have seen how Brigham and Heber came together, and how, from thenceforth, the currents of their lives and fortunes ran parallel. Now they were joined with Joseph, their prophet chief, like streams that swell a river.
Interesting is it also, if only as a coincidence, that so many of the leading spirits of the latter-day work should have been natives of Vermont—a diadem for thee, proud State, and one which thou wilt prize in coming time!—from whence scattered, ere acquaintance with the Gospel or with each other began, to meet as co-laborers in the same great cause, among the hills and dales of Northern Ohio. As though the heavens had decreed their lives should thus commingle.
And the heavens had so decreed. It was not chance, it was destiny "shaping their ends," and fulfilling her mission in their behalf. And though from the ends of the earth—what matter names or nativity?—it had been the same. "He that scattered Israel will gather him." From all nations that fated blood, when goes Jehovah's fiat forth, like the rain-drops sprinkled upon the hills, must trickle back to the Ocean whence it came.
It was a coalescing of divine affinities, the relinking of a spirit chain, which, though it often part, is never broken, and though seemingly divided, forever inseparable.
"Are you ever going to be prepared to see God, Jesus Christ, His angels, or comprehend His servants, unless you take a faithful and prayerful course?"
"Did you actually know Joseph Smith?"
The questions are Heber C. Kimball's, addressed in later years to a congregation of the Saints.
"No," he answers for them, and continues:
"Do you know Brother Brigham? No."
"Do you know Brother Heber? No; you do not."
"Do you know the Twelve? You do not; if you did you would begin to know God, and learn that those men who are chosen to direct and counsel you, are near kindred to God and to Jesus Christ, for the keys, power and authority of the kingdom of God are in that lineage."
This, then, was the purpose, the divine intending, for which they were now in conjunction; "noble and great ones," great in the heavens and great upon the earth, ordained as "rulers" ere morning stars sang gladsome greeting, or Sons of God shouted for joy around the cradle of the infant world. This, the object of their descent from celestial empires; to build up a Kingdom unto God, and prepare the world for the coming of Him "whose right it is to reign." Jewels from Jehovah's diadem, diamonds in the dust, unseen of saint or sinner in all their lustre, concealed from a world unworthy of the light it could not comprehend.
Had Heber's inspired mind probed the secret of Joseph's thought, expressed in his own oft-quoted words: "Would to God, brethren, I could tell you who I am!"
As Prophet, Seer, and Revelator to the Church of Jesus Christ, its president and earthly head, and holder of the keys of the last dispensation, Joseph was already in the high and holy office for which he was predestined and fore-ordained. Not so, Brigham; not so, Heber; not so their apostolic compeers. A trial of their faith was first necessary, a trial now near at hand, to prove them worthy in the flesh of the great calling whereunto they were called in the eternal councils.
In the month of February, 1834, came a commandment from the Almighty unto His prophet, to "gather up the strength of His house," and "go up and redeem Zion;" in other words, to recover from the hands of a fierce and merciless mob the lands in Jackson County, Missouri, from which the Saints had been driven.
Such were the origin and object of Zion's Camp. Such, the nature of the perilous duty laid upon them.