I cannot say that I was much grieved at the sight of my husband’s divorce. At the same time, long training in the school of trouble had hardened my heart and rendered me almost indifferent, and I cannot say that I very greatly rejoiced. Nature adapts us morally, as well as physically, to the positions which we have to occupy in life. The hand of him who labours much becomes hard, the unshodden foot grows horny, and the heart which at first is tender and, like the Æolian harp, ready to answer to the slightest passing breath, by and by, beneath the rough hand of trial and the world, becomes callous and stony, and the roughest storms and the sweetest pleasures alike seem to make little impression upon it.
Thus it was with me when I received that paper. A few years before, a reliable assurance that my husband would never enter into Polygamy would have been to me the realization of my best earthly wishes. But now my heart was almost dead, and I felt as if I hardly cared one way or the other. If I felt thus, who had still all my darling children around me, who had never missed one dear little face from the fireside or from the table, what must have been endured by those mothers who not only gave away their husbands to other wives, but who lost child after child, until, bereft of all they loved on earth, they could but, like Rachael, sit down in ashes and mourn for the dead?
But the more I thought over what had happened, the more doubtful I felt as to what the result would be. That there would be some great change in our life, I felt assured; but to me the change was coming almost too late. Then, too, the young wife who in her hasty anger had obtained the divorce. I felt that her happiness must surely be gone, and I could not bear the thought that my peace should be purchased with the sorrows of another. Brother Brigham’s part in the matter was also ever present in my mind. That he had resolved to bring ruin upon my husband I did not now for a moment doubt. But if a weak woman’s efforts could in any way assist in thwarting his designs, I fully resolved that he never should have the satisfaction of seeing those designs successful. I would stand by my husband, I would work for and assist him, and would give not even a passing thought to what I might have suffered, or remember that he had ever loved others better than myself. I would be to him now the true wife that before God I had vowed to be, for worse as well as for better; and however I myself might have been wronged, I would, for my part, endeavour faithfully to perform my whole duty to my husband and to God.
After I had formed this mental resolution, and had begun to realize our new position, I felt as if awakening from a long dream of many years. I was released from the clutches of that frightful nightmare—Polygamy; and I could once more take my place beside my husband as his wife. I knew that he would have much to contend against, and would need all the moral support that I could accord to him. Brigham’s efforts in respect to my husband’s paper had been far too successful, and although it was still carried on, fresh difficulties sprang up every day. My husband had been deceived by Brigham’s oily manner and plausible way; but to others his intention in sending him away was no secret. A man named Bull, who is now and was also at that time employed in the Deseret News office, said that no one but Mr. Stenhouse had ever been deceived by what the Prophet had done; it was commonly reported that Brigham intended to ruin my husband, and that when he prophesied that the paper in Ogden should be a great success, he was himself perfectly aware that it was utterly impossible that such could be the case.
Whether Brigham was the deceiver or the deceived, I do not wish to say. Men who consider themselves inspired, and go on day by day uttering all sorts of nonsense and blasphemy, and giving impertinent and mischievous advice in the “name of the Lord,” at last become thoroughly impervious to reason, and daily and hourly deceive themselves. I hope, for his own sake, it was so with Brigham, for I would rather believe him a self-made fool than a downright knave; and in many of his transactions—perhaps I ought almost to say all—it is clear to every one that he is either one or the other. Of one thing I am certain—I was fully contented that we should lose all, if only my husband were taken, once and for ever, clean out of the meshes of Mormonism. We might have to make a terrible sacrifice, but to me it was a sacrifice well worth the making.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
MARY BURTON—LIFE’S JOURNEY ENDED: REST AT LAST.
It was about this time that one morning, very early, before I was well up, a young girl came to the house in a great hurry, asking to speak to me without a moment’s delay.
I threw a wrapper round me, and went out at once to see her. She said she came from the house of Sister Mary Burton, and begged me to come directly and see her, for Mary had taken poison, and it was thought she was dying.