“5. Thus said the Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.
“6. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
“7. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and, behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
“8. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
“9. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
“10. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”
Who can fittingly describe that solemn scene, wherein was the beginning of the redemption of Montana from ruffian rule? In a vast sense the death of Brother Bell was a vicarious sacrifice. A new power arose in that beleaguered land from that very hour, to which all honest men instinctively turned for inspiration and for strength. Verily, the vision of the Prophet Ezekiel of old, became that day a new prophecy in a new land; for from the dark cañons of those mountains, where the dry bones of scores of murdered victims were lying, and symbolically from the new-made grave of our Brother Bell, there arose, “and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army,” the avengers of outraged justice, even the Vigilantes of Montana.
After the Masonic fraternity at Bannack had decided to organize a regular lodge, and a dispensation for that purpose had been applied for, Plummer expressed publicly a strong desire to become a Mason. Such were his persuasive powers that he succeeded in convincing some members of the order that, in all his affrays, he had been actuated solely by the principle of self-defence, and that there was nothing inherently criminal in his nature. There were not wanting several good men among our brotherhood, who would have recommended him for initiation.
It is a remarkable fact that the roughs were restrained by their fear of the Masonic fraternity, from attacking its individual members. Of the one hundred and two persons murdered by Henry Plummer’s gang, not one was known to be a Mason.
It is worthy of comment that every Mason in these trying hours adhered steadfastly to his principles. Neither poverty, persuasion, temptation, nor opportunity had the effect to shake a single faith founded on Masonic principle: and it is the crowning glory of our order that not one of all that band of desperadoes who expiated a life of crime upon the scaffold, had ever crossed the threshold of a lodge-room. The irregularities of their lives, their love of crime, and their recklessness of law, originated in the evil associations and corrupt influences of a society over which neither Masonry nor religion has ever exercised the least control. The retribution which finally overtook them had its origin in principles traceable to that stalwart morality which is ever the offspring of Masonic and religious institutions. All true men then lived upon the square, and in a condition of mutual dependence.