These modern Zion-builders were not among those who wait for a cause to become popular before embracing it. Lowell little realized how admirably he was painting their portrait when he penned these lines:

Then to side with Truth is noble,
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And 'tis prosperous to be just.
Then it is the brave man chooses,
While the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit
Till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.

* * *

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

Not slaves, but free men and free women, founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were of the sheep that knew the Shepherd's voice, and when put to the test, they showed "the mettle of their pasture."

"One of a City and Two of a Family."—Jeremiah's prediction was uttered at a time when families (tribes) were much larger than they now are—large enough for one tribe to fill several cities.[[14]] Otherwise, the prophet might have changed his wording to read: "One of a family and two of a city." Phrased either way, the forecast has been literally fulfilled in the painful and pathetic experiences of many Latter-day Saints, including women and children, turned out-of-door by parents or guardians, for daring to be "one of a city" or "two of a family," in identifying themselves with a people everywhere "spoken against."[[15]]

"The Shoulders of the Philistines."—This phrase translates itself into the facilities for far and rapid transportation owned and operated by the Gentiles, but utilized by the God of Jacob in bringing his people from foreign shores, and up into the tops of "the high mountains of Israel."[[16]] "They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the West." When Isaiah wrote those words, he was gazing with prophetic eye upon this very period. He beheld the ships and railroads of the Gentiles, likewise the Land of Zion, now occupied by the Gentiles, but formerly peopled by the Nephites (Joseph and Judah) and included in the lands that God gave to their forefathers.[[17]] Israel needs the help of the Gentiles—their wealth, their power, their wonderful insight into and command over material things, their intelligence and skill in manipulating temporalities. How, without the children of Japheth, could the children of Jacob be gathered out from the nations?[[18]]

The Lost Tribes.—It is maintained by some that the lost tribes of Israel—those carried into captivity about 725 B. C.—are not longer a distinct people; that they exist only in a scattered condition, mixed with the nations among which they were taken by their captors, the conquering Assyrians. If this be true, and those tribes were not intact at the time Joseph and Oliver received the keys of the gathering, why did they make so pointed a reference to "the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north?" This, too, after a general allusion to "the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth." What need to particularize as to the Ten Tribes, if they were no longer a distinct people? And why do our Articles of Faith give those tribes a special mention?[[19]]

The "Highway."—Isaiah's reference to the "Highway" points directly to the lost tribes, respecting whose return from "The North Country," his fellow prophet, Jeremiah, promises an event that shall so far eclipse in scope and grandeur Israel's exodus from Egypt, that the latter will no more be mentioned.

Joseph the Seer must have had the same thing in mind when he wrote: "And they who are in the north countries shall come in remembrance before the Lord, and their prophets shall hear his voice, and shall no longer stay themselves, and they shall smite the rocks and the ice shall flow down at their presence, and an highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep."[[20]]

Already he had foretold the removal of the Latter-day Saints to the Rocky Mountains—then a desolate, uninhabited region—and was evidently pondering that thought when he further declared: "And in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water; and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land."[[21]]

Ephraim and the Returning Tribes.—It was Ephraim who lifted the Ensign for the Gathering. It is to Ephraim that the returning tribes will "bring forth their rich treasures," receiving from him their spiritual blessings. "And the boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence."[[22]]