Men like Heber C. Kimball are not accidents. They are emphatically and in the truest sense, children of destiny. If we seek their origin, and would know their truth, we must not halt beside the humble cradle which "lulled their infant cares to rest." We must rise on spirit wings above the mists and vapors of mortality, and survey them in the light of an eternal existence, a life without beginning or end. Says one of old:
"Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said, 'These I will make my rulers'; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good, and he said unto me, Abraham, thou art one of them, thou wast chosen before thou wast born."
Again, unto Jeremiah:
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
What is true in this respect of ancient prophets, is true also of modern prophets, for verily are their origin, their mission and their destiny the same.
It devolved upon the subject of this writing to come forth at a time which has no parallel in all the ages of the past. The day of God's power and of Zion's glory was about to dawn. The Sun that set in blood behind Judea's hills was soon to rise o'er Zion's mountain-tops and flood the world with light. The latter-day dispensation was opening. All things in Christ were to be gathered in one. The curtain of history had risen on the last act of the tragedy of Time.
Would God leave the world without "great and noble ones" at such an hour?
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Heber Chase Kimball was born into this life June 14th, 1801. The same soil produced him that in colonial times brought forth an Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, and in later years the wondrous twain of spirits known to the world as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.
A far greater work than the capture of a British fortress was in the future of this Mormon triad of "Green Mountain boys," who went forth "in the name of the great Jehovah" to invade the strongholds of Satan, and plant the banner of gospel truth above the ramparts of his conquered citadels.