"And they shall call thee the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
"And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers.
"Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
"Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him and his work before him."
This is the subject of which the gorgeous Isaiah sang; and the prophesy of Joseph and the poetry of Eliza have applied it principally to America as Zion, and conditionally, to Queen Victoria as her "Nursing Mother."
Many earthly thrones were about to totter. Soon France—from the days of Charlemagne styled "The Eldest Daughter of the Church"—saw her crown trampled in the very gutter, by the rabble of Paris, and a few years later the scepter of Rome was wrested from the hands of the "successor of St Peter" by Victor Emanuel; yet of Victoria of England, Zion's poetess sings:
"But still her sceptre is approved."
Mark the poetic and prophetic significance between America as Zion, and Great Britain, represented in Victoria. A new age is born. Victoria is its imperial star; while from America—the land that owns no earthly sovereign—come these apostles to her realm just three days after the sceptre is placed in her hands. The prophet of America sends them to proclaim to Great Britain the rising of a star superior to her own. It is the star of Messiah's kingdom. She is called to her mission as its Nursing Mother.
Seeing that Joseph was the prophet of America, and that the British mission has given to the Mormon Zion over a hundred thousand of her children already gathered to build up her cities and rear her temples, it is not strange that the burden of this prophesy should have been claimed and shared between the two great English speaking nations.
But there is a personal romance as well, which centres in Victoria. At the time Sister Eliza wrote the poem to her name, Victoria of England was quite a theme in the Mormon Church. Not only in her own realm, among her own subjects, but in Zion also she was preached about, prophesied about, dreamed about, and seen in visions. Brigham, as we have seen, caused special copies of the Book of Mormon to be prepared for her and Prince Albert; Lorenzo Snow presented them through the courtesy of a state personage, and his sister immortalized the circumstance in verse. The story is told, also, that Heber C. Kimball, while in London, blessed Victoria, as she passed, by the power and authority of his apostleship; and what Heber did was done with the spirit and with the understanding also. Queen Victoria has been remarkably successful, and unrivalled in the glory of her reign.
CHAPTER XXIX.
LITERAL APPLICATION OF CHRIST'S COMMAND—THE SAINTS LEAVE FATHER AND MOTHER, HOME AND FRIENDS, TO GATHER TO ZION—MRS. WILLIAM STAINES—HER EARLY LIFE AND EXPERIENCE—A MIDNIGHT BAPTISM IN MIDWINTER—FAREWELL TO HOME AND EVERY FRIEND—INCIDENTS OF THE JOURNEY TO NAUVOO.
How characteristic the following gospel passages! How well and literally have they been applied in the history and experience of the Latter-day Saints: