Jesus Christ.—"And again this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come, or the destruction of the wicked."[[4]]
"And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."[[5]]
The Savior also predicted to the Nephites the gathering of the House of Israel;[[6]] and John the Revelator foresaw the same event in his great vision on Patmos.[[7]]
The Realization.—How marvelously and how rapidly these predictions are being fulfilled, the history of the past hundred years plainly tells. The Angel with the Everlasting Gospel has flown from heaven to earth, and the message borne by him is being preached "again" in all the world, as a final witness to the nations.
Isaiah's reference to the setting up of an Ensign for Israel's gathering finds its fulfilment in the restoration of the Gospel and the Priesthood, and in the organization of the Church of Christ in this dispensation.[[8]] Then and there was raised a rallying standard for the sons and daughters of Ephraim, the first scions of Jacob's household to be "born again," to embrace the ancient faith in modern times—the first of the broken off branches of Israel's "olive tree" to be "grafted in again" and bear good fruit.[[9]]
Keys of the Gathering Restored.—Before there could be a complete gathering of the chosen people, the Keys of the Gathering had to be restored. Accordingly, when the time was ripe, they were conferred upon the founder of the Latter-day Church. Moses, who held those keys at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, was the messenger who now restored them. The place of restoration was the Kirtland Temple; the time, April, 1836. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery testify that "the veil" was taken from their minds, and they "saw the Lord," even Jehovah, who proclaimed to them his identity with the Savior of Mankind. The record then continues: "After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us, and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north."[[10]]
First Latter-day Saints.—Then began the great work for which these keys had been restored. All preceding it was but preparatory. "Mormonism's" first converts had been made in the region where the Church arose—the farming districts of Western New York and Northern Pennsylvania. But Kirtland, Ohio, was the cradle of the Kingdom. There a Temple was built, and the Priesthood more perfectly organized, preliminary to the sending of the Gospel to foreign nations, and the gathering of scattered Israel to the Land of Zion. Up to the summer of 1837 the "fishers of men" were busy only in the United States and in Canada. Now they crossed over the British Isles, and later to the continent of Europe. Instant and marvelous was their success. In parts of England—notably Lancashire and Herefordshire—whole villages and congregations were swept into the Church by the unlettered yet divinely empowered Apostles of the new dispensation.[[11]]
Earliest Immigrants.—A small company of Latter-day Saints, numbering but forty-one—the first to "gather" from abroad—sailed on the ship "Britannia" from Liverpool for New York, in June, 1840. They were bound for Nauvoo, Illinois. Each succeeding year added its quota to the fast growing nucleus of the Savior's kingdom. Thus was set in motion the mighty tide of immigration which, swelling the numbers of the Saints in the Mississippi Valley, eventually peopled with the skilled mechanics and hardy yeomanry of Great Britain, Scandinavia and other European countries, the mountains and valleys of the Great West.
The Impelling Motive.—How different the motives impelling these people, from the motives generally imputed to them! It was not for gold and silver, flocks and herds, nor any of "the good things of this world," that they forsook home and country and "gathered" to the Land of Zion. It was not to better their temporal condition, that they abandoned comfort and in some cases affluence, crossed the stormy ocean, dragged rickety hand-carts over parching plains and snow-capt mountains, to settle in a barren wilderness and endure hardships and privations innumerable, while redeeming the waste and dotting it with cities, farms and vineyards. It was for God and his Kingdom—nothing less; and it was the love of Truth that inspired and impelled them.[[12]]
Character of the Saints.—Utah's early settlers were stigmatized as ignorant and malicious. It was ignorance or malice that so stigmatized them. "Scum of the earth," "offscourings of civilization," were some of the pet names bestowed upon them by their enemies. How utterly unjust these epithets, how grotesquely misapplied, everyone must know who has any knowledge of the facts. In reality, they were among the best men and women of their time. Many of them were descended from the Pilgrims and the Patriots who founded this nation, and in their veins, as Children of the Covenant, flowed the blood of priests and kings, illustrious through a thousand generations.[[13]]