So abounding and counterbalancing were these two powers in nearly all the branches of the church in the early rise of Mormonism, in America and Great Britain, that spiritual manifestations became regarded very generally as fire that could burn as well as bless and build up the work of God.
An early hymn of the dispensation told that "the great prince of darkness was mustering his forces;" that a battle was coming "between the two kingdoms;" that the armies were "gathering round," and that they would "soon in close battle be found."
To this is to be attributed the decline of spiritual gifts in a later period in the Mormon Church, for the "spirits" were poured out so abundantly that the saints began to fear visions, and angels, and prophesy, and the "speaking in tongues."
Thus the sisters, who ever are the "best mediums" of spiritual gifts in the church, have, in latter years, been shorn of their glory. But the gifts still remain with them; and the prophesy is that some day, when there is sufficient wisdom combined with faith, more than the primitive power will be displayed, and the angels will daily walk and talk with the people of God.
But in Kirtland in that day there was the controversy of the invisibles.
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It was in the beginning of the year 1831 that a sleigh drove into the little town of Kirtland. There were in it a man and his wife with her girl, and a man servant driving.
They seemed to be travelers, and to have come a long distance rather than from a neighboring village; indeed they had come from another State; hundreds of miles from home now; far away in those days for a man to be thus traveling in midwinter with his wife.
But they were not emigrants; at least seemingly not such; certainly not emigrants of an ordinary kind.
No caravan followed in their wake with merchandise for the western market, nor a train of goods and servants to make a home in a neighboring State.